Participation Type
Roundtable
Session Title
Session 7.11 Historic Sites
Session Abstract or Summary
[This roundtable is a discussion of challenges faced in a new museum representing varied ideas of Appalachian music and culture, through perspectives of scholars, community members, musicians, and museum designers]
Country music scholars and musicians have long recognized Bristol as an important place for country, bluegrass, and old-time musics because of the region’s music heritage and the Victor Talking Machine Company recordings in Bristol in 1927. The Birthplace of Country Music Museum, which opened as a Smithsonian-affiliated museum in August 2014, is a showcase of regional music history. The speakers on this roundtable have been involved in the museum in various ways and represent a small sampling of the many voices of researchers, musicians, and community members engaging the complex history and representation of early commercial country music.
How does a music museum invite an organic experience of early American popular music recordings and their impacts when we institutionalize this narrative in museum exhibits? This roundtable will discuss some of the project’s challenges, such as accommodating many different perspectives (both academic and community), interpreting a complex history using frameworks common in museum practice, and navigating various ideologies and funding structures. Presenting a nuanced interpretation of Bristol’s place in country music history is further complicated by the hard boundaries of the museum itself, with only 12,000 square feet of space dedicated to permanent exhibits.
By inviting debate and pluralism into exhibits, we not only offer an experience of our curation of the Bristol Sessions, but also a space for inquiry, asking those multiple voices to contribute to our research into these exhibits, and also to provide ongoing reflections on the impacts of early commercial recordings of southern American music.
Presentation #1 Title
The Birthplace of Country Music?: Challenges, Rhetoric, and Nuanced Experiences of Bristol and Appalachia at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
[This roundtable is a discussion of challenges faced in a new museum representing varied ideas of Appalachian music and culture, through perspectives of scholars, community members, musicians, and museum designers] Country music scholars and musicians have long recognized Bristol as an important place for country, bluegrass, and old-time musics because of the region’s music heritage and the Victor Talking Machine Company recordings in Bristol in 1927. The Birthplace of Country Music Museum, which opened as a Smithsonian-affiliated museum in August 2014, is a showcase of regional music history. The speakers on this roundtable have been involved in the museum in various ways and represent a small sampling of the many voices of researchers, musicians, and community members engaging the complex history and representation of early commercial country music. How does a music museum invite an organic experience of early American popular music recordings and their impacts when we institutionalize this narrative in museum exhibits? This roundtable will discuss some of the project’s challenges, such as accommodating many different perspectives (both academic and community), interpreting a complex history using frameworks common in museum practice, and navigating various ideologies and funding structures. Presenting a nuanced interpretation of Bristol’s place in country music history is further complicated by the hard boundaries of the museum itself, with only 12,000 square feet of space dedicated to permanent exhibits. By inviting debate and pluralism into exhibits, we not only offer an experience of our curation of the Bristol Sessions, but also a space for inquiry, asking those multiple voices to contribute to our research into these exhibits, and also to provide ongoing reflections on the impacts of early commercial recordings of southern American music.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Jessica Anderson Turner (Ph.D., Indiana University) is an ethnomusicologist and folklorist who serves as Director and Head Curator of Bristol’s Birthplace of Country Music Museum. Prior to joining the museum full time, Turner was an assistant professor at Virginia Intermont College and Director of the program in Cultural Heritage Studies and Public Arts. Her research examines folk song, the impacts of tourism on arts communities, rural cultural preservation efforts, heritage, and cultural property.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #2
Dave Lewis (Curator of Collections and Digital Media, Birthplace of Country Music Museum) is completing a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology at Indiana University on musical responses to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Trinidad and Tobago. He has worked in audiovisual archives including the Archives of Traditional Music and the Archives of African American Music and Culture at Indiana University and the Ethnographic Video for Instruction and Analysis Digital Archive.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #3
Thomas Grant Richardson (Curator of Education and Outreach, Birthplace of Country Music Museum) holds an M.A. in ethnomusicology, and is currently completing a Ph.D. in Folklore at Indiana University. His work has primarily focused on underrepresented groups connected to contemporary Appalachian old-time music, such as African-Americans and Canadians.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #4
René Rodgers studied Art History and Classics at the College of William & Mary. She received her doctorate in archaeology at the University of Durham in England, and later worked as a specialist academic editor and project manager for English Heritage, the UK government’s statutory body on historic environment. She was a member of the exhibit content team for the Birthplace of Country Music Museum and is now the museum’s Associate Curator.
The Birthplace of Country Music?: Challenges, Rhetoric, and Nuanced Experiences of Bristol and Appalachia at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum
[This roundtable is a discussion of challenges faced in a new museum representing varied ideas of Appalachian music and culture, through perspectives of scholars, community members, musicians, and museum designers] Country music scholars and musicians have long recognized Bristol as an important place for country, bluegrass, and old-time musics because of the region’s music heritage and the Victor Talking Machine Company recordings in Bristol in 1927. The Birthplace of Country Music Museum, which opened as a Smithsonian-affiliated museum in August 2014, is a showcase of regional music history. The speakers on this roundtable have been involved in the museum in various ways and represent a small sampling of the many voices of researchers, musicians, and community members engaging the complex history and representation of early commercial country music. How does a music museum invite an organic experience of early American popular music recordings and their impacts when we institutionalize this narrative in museum exhibits? This roundtable will discuss some of the project’s challenges, such as accommodating many different perspectives (both academic and community), interpreting a complex history using frameworks common in museum practice, and navigating various ideologies and funding structures. Presenting a nuanced interpretation of Bristol’s place in country music history is further complicated by the hard boundaries of the museum itself, with only 12,000 square feet of space dedicated to permanent exhibits. By inviting debate and pluralism into exhibits, we not only offer an experience of our curation of the Bristol Sessions, but also a space for inquiry, asking those multiple voices to contribute to our research into these exhibits, and also to provide ongoing reflections on the impacts of early commercial recordings of southern American music.
