Robert Stone
Robert L. Stone is an independent folklorist and media-producer based in Gainesville, Florida. He worked for the Florida Folklife Program as Statewide Outreach Coordinator where he conducted extensive field documentation and co-curated the large traveling exhibition Florida Cattle Ranching: Five Centuries of Tradition, which has been viewed by more than 600,000 visitors from Florida to Nevada. Stone edited the exhibition catalog, which was published in February 2013 by the Florida Cattlemen's Foundation, and has contributed more than sixty feature articles to the Florida Cattleman magazine.
During his tenure with Florida Folklife, he co-produced the Music from the Sunshine State and Voices of Florida radio programs, conducted fieldwork in a variety of cultural communities, and discovered in South Florida the use of steel guitars in African American Pentecostal House of God churches. While this tradition dated back to the 1930s, it was relatively unknown outside of that small religious community prompting Stone to write Sacred Steel: Inside an African American Steel Guitar Tradition and produce eight CD albums of the music for Arhoolie Records.
His documentary photos have been shown in numerous exhibitions and published in Newsweek, The New York Times, Forum, Wooden Boat and other print media.
