LL-L "Music" 2001.11.09 (05) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 09.NOV.2001 (04) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Margaret Tarbet <oneko at mindspring.com>
Subject: Music

Fr. Andreas wrote, responding to Roger:

>On Sun, 4 Nov 2001 11:55:51 -0800 "Roger Thijs"
><roger.thijs at euro-support.be> writes:
>"I thought I bought some songs in "Appalachian" language, buying at
>Atlanta airport the CD: "Yo-yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, Marc O'Connor:
>Appalachian Journey". It's nice string music, not vocal. Are there folk
>singers in Appalachian? Did they get their songs on CD?"

>     Indeed, Roger, there is lots of Appalachian vocal music on CD!
>Please allow me to recommend the work of Ralph Stanley and of Loretta
>Lynn. Dr Stanley is a speaker of Southern Appalachian from Southwestern
>Virginia. Ms Lynn is a speaker of Central Appalachian from Eastern
>Kentucky. Neither are folk musicians, really, but popular musicians.

I can heartily second Fr Andreas's nomination of Dr Ralph
Stanley--though you'll likely need to search for his earlier
recordings, he's getting well up and doesn't sing solo so much these
days, I don't believe.

(I think I'd disagree that Dr Stanley isn't a 'folk' musician,
though -- he's definitely had a huge commercial success, but I
reckon his music is well-grounded in the tradition.  Just listen to
him clawhammer 'Groundhog', 'Omie Wise', or 'In the Pines'.
Yee-hah! :-) )

I'd also agree about the Carter Family's recordings from the '30s
and '40s.   Also the Stoneman Family of Virginia, and a number of
others.

If you want to hear folk from Appalachia, Roger, I can completely
recommend the 2 recordings (www.folklegacy.com) of the late Frank
Proffitt of Wautauga County, North Carolina, near the Virginia
border.  Among many others, Mr Proffitt preserved the song 'Tom
Dula' (pron. 'Dooley' locally) about a local Civil-War-era murder,
that was collected by Frank Warner and then made famous in the late
'50s by The Kingston Trio, arguably starting the 'folk revival' of
that time.  He sang in a beautiful, clear dialect.

Other singers you might like are Jean Ritchie of Viper, Kentucky,
the late Dee Hicks and his spouse Delta of Fentress County,
Tennessee,  Hazel Dickens of West Virginia, and the many traditional
singers recorded on the late Moe Asch's 'Folkways' label, now
managed by the Smithsonian  (www.siu.edu/folkways).  You could also
look at the offerings of the June Appal people (www.appalshop.org )
who are dedicated to preserving Appalachian culture, and County
Records (www.countysales.com), who've re-mastered many older
recordings.

Someone who was a prodigous collector as well as a traditional
singer and banjo picker in his own right was the late Bascom Lamar
Lunsford, of western North Carolina.  He contributed hundreds of
tranditional songs to the Library of Congress archives, and wrote at
least one ('That Good Ol' Mountain Dew') that has passed into the
tradition.  He was a very well-educated man, a lawyer[1], but his
local dialect still came through in his singing.

There are many Appalachian singers, though for the best examples of
dialect you have to choose the older recordings, '40s or earlier,
since after that the widespread availability of electricity brought
radios and, later, television into even remote mountain homesteads,
changing the culture forever.

Even so, though, most of the folk who recorded were careful not to
use a very broad dialect because it would have been unintelligible
to any but their neighbors, very nearly.  For an example of a
full-strength Appalachian dialect, one in use through the '30s and
hardly changed from the 18th-c. English incomers (they still spoke
of 'shillings' and 'pence' even in the '30s), listen to recordings
(e.g., 'Jack Tales', available from www.folklegacy.com) of the
now-79-y.o. traditional storyteller Ray Hicks .  He comes from an
important North Carolina mountain family (related to the Proffitts),
and has chosen to consciously preserve his parents' dialect in his
storytelling.  It's very interesting to listen to and easily as
opaque as the broadest speech of the Scottish Lowlands or
'Zumerzet'.  (Sadly, Ray was diagnosed this year with cancer and is
now receiving hospice care at home.  Although his loss will be
irremediable, he was nearly single-handedly responsible for the
revival of storytelling as an art in the US --that it's alive and
well again is all down to his example.)

Hope that helps.

orrabest,
Margaret
--------------
1.  'Well, I had to give up the lawyerin, y'see.  It got to be too
embarrassin, havin the judge say "Where's Bascom?" and the sheriff
tellin him "Oh he's off pickin the banjer some'eres, yer honor!"'

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