Tulsa Musician Olivia Harding Expands Her Folk Files Podcast and Singing Resistance Chapter, Bringing Folklore, Sea Shanties and Community Singing to New Listeners
TULSA, OK — Olivia Harding is building a musical home in Tulsa around folk traditions, and she wants more people to feel like they belong there. The singer, multi-instrumentalist and Tulsa transplant hosts Folk Files, a monthly podcast that digs into the history of songs ranging from sea shanties to murder ballads.
Now in its third year, the show recently joined the BGS Podcast Network, a curated audio lineup tied to The Bluegrass Situation. Harding sees the move as a chance to reach a wider audience while staying focused on her larger goal: making folk music easier to access, understand and enjoy.
How Harding turns folklore into a living music lesson
Harding’s approach blends scholarship with performance. She says her aim is not to guard folk music as something rarefied, but to help listeners recognize it as shared cultural material that belongs to everyone.
That view fits the shape of her own background. Her parents encouraged her early interest in music, with her father drawn to world music and her mother a devoted Bob Dylan fan. Harding later found her way deeper into folk through Brown University, where she studied Comparative Literature and Early Modern Studies and sang with a student group called ARRR!!!, which performed historical folk, labor and maritime songs.
She says those early experiences helped sharpen her belief that folk music can carry stories, warnings and news across generations. For Harding, that makes old recordings worth revisiting, not as museum pieces but as proof that the form still has something to teach present-day listeners.
From Brooklyn to Tulsa, and a wider local music circle
Harding’s move to Tulsa in 2024 added another layer to her work. Before relocating from Brooklyn, she had spent years touring with Music the Gathering, a founding project that mixed traditional folk with original fantasy folk and played Renaissance festivals around the country, including the Castle of Muskogee.
The tour schedule kept her in Tulsa for about six weeks each year, which is how she met fellow Tulsa musician Aaron J. Morton. After dating long distance, the pair eventually formed their own folk duo, The Wanderlast.
Harding also started the Tulsa chapter of Singing Resistance, a grassroots group that uses collective singing for nonviolent protest, community care and solidarity. She describes her role as teaching “baby” voice lessons that help people build stamina for chanting and singing together. Her broader message stays simple: everybody has a voice, and everybody should use it.
Where fans can hear Folk Files and join the Tulsa chapter
Folk Files can be found at folkfilespodcast.com and on major podcast platforms including Apple MusicYouTube and Amazon Music. The show’s new network home could help bring Harding’s mix of research, storytelling and song to more listeners who may be curious about folk traditions but unsure where to start.
Those interested in the Tulsa chapter of Singing Resistance can also follow the group on Facebook and Instagram. For Harding, the project connects neatly to her belief that folk music has always been communal: a way to pass along knowledge, gather people and make room for participation rather than passive listening.
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