Participation Type
Panel
Session Title
Session 2.07 Music: Documenting and Interpreting Appalachian Music
Session Abstract or Summary
This panel will explore the history and impact of the documentation and interpretation of Appalachian music.
The documentation and subsequent interpretation of Appalachia's music dates back at least to the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt, when musicologists and folklorists began transcribing by hand the texts and tunes of ballads sung in the mountains. During World War I, Cecil Sharp produced the foremost collection of ballad transcriptions of this type. By the 1920s, the recording machines--some of them portable--inspired further documentation of Appalachian music, and phonographs and radio broadened the reach of that music after it was documented. Subsequent technologies continued to disseminate the region's music to new generations across the nation and around the world, and documented music from Appalachia continued to play central roles in fueling folk music revivals.
In this panel, to be moderated by Ted Olson, four leading figures in the documentation and interpretation of Appalachia's music will discuss their work and will together present an overview of the history of the documentation and interpretation of Appalachian music.
Panel Participants:
Moderator: Ted Olson, East Tennessee State University.
Presenter 1: Ron Pen, Director of The John Jacob Niles Center for American Music, University of Kentucky.
Presenter 2: Nathan Salsburg, Curator of The Alan Lomax Archive.
Presenter 3: Stephen Wade, Independent Scholar.
Presenter 4: Joe Wilson, Executive Director [retired], National Council for the
Traditional Arts.
Presentation #1 Title
"The Role of the John Jacob Niles Center for American Music at the Intersection of Written and Oral Traditions in Appalachia"
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
I think that my work at the Niles Center--and even before there was a Niles Center--was informed by the inclusivity of both oral tradition and written tradition. I collect books and manuscripts, but I also collect field work. My work with John Jacob Niles made me address issues of transcription, composition, arrangement, and publications that are related to recordings, interviews, and fieldwork. My archives at the University of Kentucky contain both forms of documentation.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Ron Pen serves as Director of The John Jacob Niles Center for American Music at the University of Kentucky.
Presentation #2 Title
I've Rambled This Country Both Early and Late: Alan Lomax in Appalachia, 1933–1983
Presentation #2 Abstract or Summary
Old Time, New Media: Heritage Appalachian Music Collections in the Digital Age
I'll discuss a few test cases and issues of content, preservation, and accessibility to scholars, fans, and the communities of origin, including discussion of the work we've been doing on Lomax's 1937 eastern Kentucky collection.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #2
Nathan Salsburg is Curator of The Alan Lomax Archive and a Grammy Award nominated writer and musician.
Presentation #3 Title
"Looking for 'Sourwood Mountain'"
Presentation #3 Abstract or Summary
These words come from a whimsical story that my teacher's teacher, Doc Hopkins, told audiences whenever we played "Sourwood Mountain": about his search for this beckoning place reprised in the song where all the pretty girls live. He never did find it, he noted, but he never stopped looking for it either. It forever lay "the next one over." Doc Hopkins's warmhearted anecdote illuminates an underlying lesson learned from Appalachian musicians operating at his level of mastery.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #3
Stephen Wade, a musician and Grammy Award nominee, is the author of The Beautiful Music All Around Us: Field Recordings and the American Experience. A contributor to the Encyclopedia of Appalachia, he edited and annotated A Treasury of Library of Congress Field Recordings, Black Appalachia in the Lomax collection's Deep River of Song series, and Hobart Smith, In Sacred Trust: The 1963 Fleming Brown Tapes.
Presentation #4 Title
"Radio and the Blue Ridge"
Presentation #4 Abstract or Summary
I will discuss the interrelationships between radio and musicians in the Blue Ridge.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #4
Joe Wilson, as Executive Director of the National Council for the Traditional Arts, oversaw many folk music festivals and other music-related events, and he was the guiding force for the creation of The Crooked Road, Virginia's Heritage Music Trail and of The Blue Ridge Music Center.
"The Role of the John Jacob Niles Center for American Music at the Intersection of Written and Oral Traditions in Appalachia"
I think that my work at the Niles Center--and even before there was a Niles Center--was informed by the inclusivity of both oral tradition and written tradition. I collect books and manuscripts, but I also collect field work. My work with John Jacob Niles made me address issues of transcription, composition, arrangement, and publications that are related to recordings, interviews, and fieldwork. My archives at the University of Kentucky contain both forms of documentation.
