Tag: Joan Moser Collection

Now Available for Research: Joan Moser Collection

newspaper clipping of Joan Moser holding a medicinal plant
Asheville Citizen-Times clipping found in Folder 2 of the Joan Moser Collection #20370

We recently published a finding aid for the Joan Moser Collection (20370), which contains the papers and audiovisual materials of the western North Carolina based folk musician and historian, Joan Moser. There’s a chance you may have heard of Joan’s father, Artus Moser, whose collection of papers also resides at the Southern Folklife Collection. Like her father, Joan studied and taught the music and folk traditions of Appalachia. She also played – guitar, banjo, lute, and dulcimer, to name a few.
Joan’s collection is made up mostly of open reel tapes that she compiled over the years. Thanks to SFC’s ongoing audiovisual preservation grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Joan Moser Collection is now available for research and her tapes have been queued up for digitization.
Many of the tapes found in her collection have close ties to the music and traditions of western North Carolina. Below is a visual sampling of these tapes, including live recordings from the Asheville Mountain Dance and Folk Festival and recordings made at the Moser family home in Swannanoa, N.C., located on Buckeye Cove in Buncombe County.
open reel tape box from Joan Moser Collection
“Asheville Mountain Dance and Folk Festival, 1st and 2nd nights, tape 1, Asheville, N.C., 8 August 1959” (FT-20370/1) A live recording from the 32nd annual Mountain Dance and Folk Festival in Asheville, NC. The festival was founded by musician and folk historian, Bascom Lamar Lunsford.

open reel from Joan Moser Collection
“J. J. Bailey and A. M. Moser, oral history continued, 5 July 1972” (FT-20370/3) An oral history conducted with Artus Moser and Jesse James Bailey. According to the Southern Highlands Research Center Oral History Collection at UNC-Asheville, “Bailey was born 14 June 1888 in Madison County, N.C. He was Sheriff of Madison County (1920-1922) and Buncombe County (1928-1930). For 58 years he worked as a telegrapher and then as a detective for the Southern Railroad.”

open reel tape box from Joan Moser Collection
“Pleaz Mobley at Artus Moser’s House, 7 August 1959” (FT-20370/17). In 1959 Joan Moser recorded the Kentucky born attorney, politician, and ballad singer, Pleaz Mobley, at the Moser family home. A note found on the recording reads, “Pleaz Mobley often stayed with Mosers when coming to Asheville Mountain Dance and Folk Festival.”

open reel tape box from Joan Moser Collection
“Party at Home with Ruth and Latrobe Carroll and children, 1960” (FT-20370/23) A home recording featuring the Asheville based children’s books illustrator, Ruth Crombie Robinson Carroll, with her husband and co-collaborator, “Archer” Latrobe Carroll.

open reel tape box from Joan Moser Collection
“Fiddle music 4: Mrs. Edd Presnell, Marcus Martin, August-September 1959” (FT-20370/42) Recordings featuring traditional musicians from western North Carolina, including Mrs. Edd Presnell on dulcimer and Marcus Martin of Macon County, N.C. on fiddle.