Participation Type
Panel
Session Title
Musical Voices from the Misty Mountains: Diversity and Regional Synthesis, A New Appalachia (with Video & Live Music)
Session Abstract or Summary
The panel will begin with a media lecture (including video) on the African roots of the gourd banjo that arrived in Maryland no later than 1740. Whites played it in the 1830s and soon created the Southern 5-string open-back banjo that retains the African short drone string and synthesizes African and European influences. After the Civil War the inset rim “mountain” banjo appears in western NC and remains a marker of regional mountain culture.
Appalachian step dancing, known as buckdancing, flatfooting, and clogging, developed in the rural South alongside the traditional music of the region, with diverse roots. A former slave from Kentucky explained, dancers like to “play a tune with their feet.” Through demonstration and discussion, we will explore the influences of earlier northern European, West African, and Native American dance traditions that contributed to this uniquely mountain dance form.
Old tunes and heirloom seed varieties share much. One fiddle tune or bean variety can go by multiple names, and five different melodies or cultivars can share the same name. Both have been handed down, re-transmitted; they are sometimes localized or universal. Newer, efficient, homogenized, and trademarked industrial products for large scale use and monetary gain have largely replaced them. Both historic tunes and seeds have experienced a renaissance over the past fifteen years and now are widely available via the internet. Unfortunately, the person-to-person exchange that so enriches our audible and edible culture is often absent—turning heirlooms into antiques.
Presentation #1 Title
Musical Crossroads Media Presentation: African Roots of the Banjo in Appalachia (PowerPoint w Videos)
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
Musical Crossroads Media Presentation: African Roots of the Banjo in Appalachia (PowerPoint w Videos) The Banjo is heard around the world from the Blue Ridge Mountains, to Shepherdstown, to Japan. The banjo is the symbol of the white mountain musician but that has not always been so. West Africans brought the gourd banjo to Maryland no later than 1740, and they were the only ones playing it for blacks and whites for almost 100 years. Southern whites began taking up the banjo in the 1930s where they played for picnics and dances. Eventually Joel Sweeney of Appomattox, VA popularized or perhaps invented the 5-string open back banjo. The banjo’s added string was not the short, thumb, drone-string that came with the African banjo but the long 4th string, which contributed to the banjo’s melodic versatility to play European dance tunes. With the influence of blacks, Sweeney, Archibald Ferguson, and others, the Southern banjo tradition continued. Sweeney soon helped place the banjo at the center of emerging blackfaced minstrelsy. Often filled with derogatory caricatures of blacks, this first American popular culture entertainment symbolically explored whites and blacks living face to face in large numbers. No later than after the Civil War, the in-set rim “mountain” banjo reached Wilkes County, NC and then Watauga. By the 1920s, blacks and whites shared more traditional old time music than perhaps any other time—until, with the guitar at center stage, blues and early country music emerged. The mountain banjo still remains a regional marker of a synthesis of African American and European influences in our home region.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Professor of Appalachian Literature & Culture, American Literature - 1900-Present, Folklore
Specialties:
Folklore: Roots of Mountain Music (African Roots of the Banjo; Ballad Keepers)
Appalachian Culture & Literature
20th C American Literature
Presentation #2 Title
Diverse Roots of Appalachian Step Dancing
Presentation #2 Abstract or Summary
Appalachian step dancing, known as buckdancing, flatfooting, and clogging, developed in the rural South alongside the traditional music of the region, and like the music, has diverse roots. Still common on Saturday nights, this mostly improvisational and idiosyncratic solo dance form is a rural social dance with all ages mingling on the floor, trading steps and learning by imitation—no partners required. A former slave from Kentucky explained, dancers like to “play a tune with their feet.” Through demonstration and discussion, we will explore the influences of earlier northern European, West African, and Native American dance traditions that contributed to this uniquely American dance form-- with roots in both the step dances of the British Isles and in sub-Saharan dance traditions that evolved in the New World as a hybrid mix. In December, 1855, an illustration in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, a “Virginia Hoe-Down” showed a white fiddler playing for a black dancer.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #2
Phil Jamison is a nationally-known old-time musician, flatfoot dancer, and square dance caller, who teaches Appalachian music and dance, as well as mathematics, at Warren Wilson College in Asheville, North Carolina. Over the years, he has done extensive research in the area of Appalachian dance, and his recently published book, Hoedowns, Reels, and Frolics: Roots and Branches of Southern Appalachian Dance (University of Illinois Press, 2015), tells the story of these Southern traditions. www.philjamison.com
Presentation #3 Title
Them Ain’t Big Greasies: The Importance of Personal Relationships in Seedsaving and Old-time Music
Presentation #3 Abstract or Summary
Old tunes and old seed varieties have much in common. One fiddle tune or bean variety may go by multiple names, and five totally different melodies or cultivars may share the same name. Like old-time music, heirloom seeds have been handed down, re-transmitted; they are often times very localized but sometimes almost universal. These heirloom seeds have largely been replaced by newer, efficient, hybridized, and trademarked industrial culture packaged for large-scale use and for monetary gain. These seeds have only one time use.
Additionally, heirloom seeds and old-time music have experienced a renaissance over the past fifteen years, and now historic tunes and seeds are widely available via the internet. Unfortunately, the intimate person-to-person exchange that so enriches our edible and audible culture is often absent. Edible personal exchange often includes many tips on when, where to plant, and under which sun, shade, and soil conditions. Audible exchange easily transmits the tuning, sometimes various titles, and personal sources for the tune. Best of all are fascinating stories about often quirky elder players—like the fiddler who added a special section of the tune that got him out of a Civil War prison camp or another fiddler who plays his last tune before being hung and then breaks the fiddle so no lesser musicians will ever play the tune on the beloved instrument. The loss of these personal exchanges turn heirlooms into antiques.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #3
William Ritter is pursuing his master's degree in Appalachian Roots Music at Appalachian State University. He is particularly interested in old songs, old stories, heritage apple trees and heirloom seeds from the mountains of North Carolina.
Musical Crossroads Media Presentation: African Roots of the Banjo in Appalachia (PowerPoint w Videos)
Musical Crossroads Media Presentation: African Roots of the Banjo in Appalachia (PowerPoint w Videos) The Banjo is heard around the world from the Blue Ridge Mountains, to Shepherdstown, to Japan. The banjo is the symbol of the white mountain musician but that has not always been so. West Africans brought the gourd banjo to Maryland no later than 1740, and they were the only ones playing it for blacks and whites for almost 100 years. Southern whites began taking up the banjo in the 1930s where they played for picnics and dances. Eventually Joel Sweeney of Appomattox, VA popularized or perhaps invented the 5-string open back banjo. The banjo’s added string was not the short, thumb, drone-string that came with the African banjo but the long 4th string, which contributed to the banjo’s melodic versatility to play European dance tunes. With the influence of blacks, Sweeney, Archibald Ferguson, and others, the Southern banjo tradition continued. Sweeney soon helped place the banjo at the center of emerging blackfaced minstrelsy. Often filled with derogatory caricatures of blacks, this first American popular culture entertainment symbolically explored whites and blacks living face to face in large numbers. No later than after the Civil War, the in-set rim “mountain” banjo reached Wilkes County, NC and then Watauga. By the 1920s, blacks and whites shared more traditional old time music than perhaps any other time—until, with the guitar at center stage, blues and early country music emerged. The mountain banjo still remains a regional marker of a synthesis of African American and European influences in our home region.
