Elizabeth Cotten: Resource and Subject Guide

Elizabeth Cotten holding her guitar, Larry Ellis on the left
Elizabeth Cotten holding her guitar, Larry Ellis on the left. Photo from Mike Seeger Collection. (PF-20009/23)

With the recent announcement of Elizabeth Cotten’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I thought today would be the perfect time to release this resource guide. So much of the writing about Elizabeth Cotten is marred by misogynoir – the combination of sexism and racism. Music writers often underplay Cotten’s musical and technical skill, instead describing her as gentle and humble. Many of these writings also focus on her childhood and then skip to her musical career, avoiding discussion of the first half of her life doing housework for white families. While her style and repertoire has influenced many other musicians, she remains underappreciated and undervalued. There are not enough secondary sources about her life and music, and I hope this blog post can be a starting guide for anyone interested in researching and writing about her.

In addition to this resource, check out the the Southern Folklife Collection’s special event from 2020,”When I’m Gone: Remembering Folk Icon Elizabeth Cotten”, featuring Elizabeth Cotten’s family, Yasmin Williams and Alice Gerrard. 

Unless otherwise noted, the following biographical details and quotes interspersed throughout this blogpost come from the album notes from Elizabeth Cotten Vol. 3: When I’m Gone. The quotes are taken from interviews with Elizabeth Cotten conducted by Alice Gerrard and Mike Seeger throughout the 1960s and 1970s. You can read the full album notes here or listen to the original interviews in the Alice Gerrard and Mike Seeger collections linked below.

Black and white photo of Elizabeth Cotten as a young woman, sitting in grass with her legs crossed and her hands behind her head.
Elizabeth Cotten (PF-20009/16). in the Mike Seeger Collection #20009, Southern Folklife Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Elizabeth Cotten’s mother, Louisa Price Nevills was from Siler City, North Carolina and came from a farming family but she worked as a midwife and did housework. Cotten recalls that all of her uncles on her mother’s side played fiddle and her mother would sing old songs such as “The Man is Burning” and “Hallelujah T’is Done.” The name Nevills came from the enslavers of Cotten’s father’s family. Her father, George Nevills came from Chatham County, made liquor and worked in an iron mine as a dynamite settler. He died early in Elizabeth Cotten’s life and some of her fondest memories of him include braiding his hair with her sister. 

As a child, Elizabeth Cotten (born 1893 in Chapel Hill, N.C.) always loved music and was especially drawn to organ and piano. She recounts a man who lived nearby her childhood home who played guitar:

“He let the children come when he’d have this music, and dance in his yard…That’s where I learned how to dance, waltz and two-step, do the cakewalk, Frisco… buck dance. And I just danced my little head off…  My brothers were there and we’d all dance together, my sister, me, and my brother… In the band they had some kind of horns, the drum, and this big, old guitar – double bass thing.”

Since the banjo and guitar were the instruments around, those were the instruments she taught herself to play. She would stay up all night practicing. Cotten went to school until 4th grade and generally liked it but eventually had to start making her own money, earning $0.75 per month which she saved up to buy her own guitar. 

After Elizabeth Cotten was baptized at around 14 years old, the church told her she couldn’t play the “worldly songs” she had been playing on guitar. She explains,“I didn’t stop all at once ‘cause I couldn’t. I loved my guitar too good. And then it weren’t too long ‘til I got married and that helped me to stop because then I started housekeeping”. When she was 15, she married Frank Cotten and had her only child at age 16. During this time she still lived with her mother and sister while her husband worked in New York as a chauffeur. She moved between Chapel Hill, New York and D.C. primarily doing housework for white families. When her daughter got married, she divorced Frank. In interviews with Alice Gerrard, she talks about how hard domestic work was:

“I worked awfully hard there because she liked you to wash her floors and things on your knees. And she had plenty of floors for you to wash… had me crawlin’ on my knees savin’ her boards in her house– and the house is there yet. She says, “Elizabeth, you put your detergent in this bucket, [and] this is the bucket of clean water…” and I, fool, did exactly what she said. I would wash the floor, wipe it up with that rag, put that in the bucket, then over here I’d take my clean water and wipe and rinse my cloth in that. And I’d do that from her attic all the way downstairs…”

Elizabeth Cotten didn’t start working as a musician until the late 1950s, when she was in her sixties. While continuing to do house work, she recorded her first album in 1957 with the help of Mike Seeger. There are many retellings of how Elizabeth Cotten met the Seeger family which you can read about in other publications. By the time she was in her seventies, she had a solo career, performing at the top folk venues and folk festivals. She became most well known for her composition “Freight Train”, which she wrote as a tween in Chapel Hill. Cotten didn’t receive any royalties or credit for the song until a lawsuit that still only gave her one third credit (you can hear her family talk about this in an interview from the McCabe Guitar Shop Collection). When she was in her eighties, she was still working as a musician and won a Grammy for Best Ethnic and Traditional Recording in 1984 at age 91. That same year she was named as a National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellow. She is a 2022 inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 

“I love to feel independent, I do… I feel good. I’m proud of myself. I didn’t know I could do all these things that I’m starting and the more I think about it the more I think I can do it.” 

Archival collections with significant amounts of materials related to Elizabeth Cotten:

Mike Seeger Collection, 1923-2013 (20009)

Given the close connection with the Seeger family, the Mike Seeger collection holds many recordings of Elizabeth Cotten playing in both formal and informal settings, as well as a handful of photos. Recordings include live shows, practice tapes, and interviews. The Smithsonian Folkways LPs and CDs also come from this collection. 

Two clips from SFC Audio Cassette FS-20009/12936

St. Louis Blues, Elizabeth Cotten with Mary Jefferson singing. January, 1979. 

Rueben’s Train, Elizabeth Cotten with unidentified singer. January, 1979.

Alice Gerrard Collection, circa 1872-2009 (20006)

Alice Gerrard considered Elizabeth Cotten a friend in addition to having toured with her and interviewed her. Gerrard’s collection includes recorded interviews, informal recorded music and several photographs. The conversational interviews between Cotten and Gerrard are particularly moving, talking about childbirth, domestic house work and dealing with racist encounters.

“You could watch a person the way the act, and that makes you uncomfortable. Sometimes the act might not be towards you, but if you’re the only one there you watch their actions. I’ve been in many a place and they ask you to eat, for an instance. And the way they ask and the way they do you say, “no thank you.” You might be hungry… It’s different with you. You’re white. And I’m Black. That gives me a different feeling. That makes me kind of watch them where you wouldn’t, see? It makes you watch people and know what they say and see if you think they mean it or not, you know? I know I’m Black, see, and the old way back times, the way white people treated Negroes… I heard my mama talk about it… And I think that growed up in the Black people by hearin’ about it through their parents or maybe their godmothers or their godfathers, whoever raise them. And it makes them have that little drawback kind of feelin’ that maybe you wouldn’t think about, see?  And that makes me sometimes sit – and I say nothin’, and they don’t know what I’m thinkin’. I’m thinkin’ deep… and I’m not sayin’ anything. And listening to what they say. And you can near about know which way to go – know whether to run or sit…” (6)

McCabe’s Guitar Shop Collection, 1967-2013 (20511)

McCabe’s Guitar Shop has hosted many legendary musicians, including Elizabeth Cotten. In this collection, you can watch a 7-part interview with Cotten and her family in 1984 conducted by Nancy Covey. The interview goes into Peter Paul and Mary taking credit for Elizabeth Cotten’s song “Freight Train.” You can also listen to recordings of Elizabeth Cotten performing at McCabe’s Guitar Shop throughout the 1970s and 1980s. 

North Carolina Folklore Broadcast Collection, 1976 (20105)

This collection contains several recordings from the North Carolina Folklife Festival (pre-curser to the Festival of the Eno) that Elizabeth Cotten performed at in 1976. 

Stefan Grossman Collection (20578)

Although this is a collection level finding aid, the collection does contain multiple items related to Elizabeth Cotten including videos of multiple performances by Elizabeth Cotten solo, with Mike Seeger and a guitar workshop with Elizabeth Cotten and John Fahey. Published versions of these are available through the UNC libraries (listed below). 

black and white photo of Elizabeth Cotten performing in a tent with her guitar.
Elizabeth Cotten performing. Photo by Steve Kruger in Baltimore, MD, 1972. From the Mike Seeger collection #20009, pf0018_0003.

Archival collections with more limited items related to Elizabeth Cotten:  

Highlander Research & Education Center’s Audiovisual materials, 1937-2008 (20361) 

The Highlander Research & Education Center comes with a long history of civil rights activism and education. This collection includes one video of Elizabeth Cotten performing.  

Pete Kuykendall Collection (20546)

Through the Kuykendall Collection finding aid, you watch Elizabeth Cotten perform on Pete Seeger’s TV show “Rainbow Quest” from the 1960s. This video is available for streaming on the UNC campus. A published version is available in the video resources below. Some clips are also available on YouTube. 

Sing Out! Collection, 1937-2014 (20550)

This collection includes a recording of a gospel workshop with Elizabeth Cotten, Janette Carter, Lily May Ledford and Ola Belle Reed in 1980. 

Paul Brown Collection, 1950-1999 (20382)

Paul Brown’s collection includes the “Libba Cotten Special”  episode of his NPR show “Across the Blue Ridge”  with recordings and interviews about her life and music.

Dick Waterman Collection, 1960-2003 (20533)

This collection contains several photographs of Elizabeth Cotten at festivals and venues suchs as Club 47 in Cambridge, Massachusetts and the Newport Folk Festival. 

Bill C. Malone Collection, 1950s-2016 (20315)

Music historian Bill C. Malone’s collection includes one recording from the Oklahoma State University Festival in 1972.

Gary Kenton Collection, 1971-1989 (20321)

This collection includes an audio recording of an undated telephone interview with Elizabeth Cotten by music journalist Gary Kenton. 

Alan Kanter Collection, 1972-2009 (20549)

Audio engineer Alan Kanter’s collection includes a recording of Elizabeth Cotten at the San Diego Folk Festival in 1977.

North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources Films, 1951- 1988 (20448)

This collection includes a 30-minute documentary titled Got to tell it: A tribute to Mahalia Jackson from 1983 about Mahalia Jackson and Elizabeth Cotten directed by Studs Terkel. 

Greenhill Family/FLi Artists/ Folklore Productions Collection, 1947- 2014 (20542)

This collection includes some photographs of Elizabeth Cotten and a recording of a live performance in 1978. 

Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project, 1965-1989 (20004) 

The SFCRP organized tours throughout the south with both Black and white musicians. Elizabeth Cotten participated in some of these tours and this collection includes her artist file with correspondences and publicity about her involvement with the project.

DK Wilgus Papers, 1883-1996 (20003)

This collection includes an artist file containing clippings and other items related to Elizabeth Cotten collected by folklorist DK Wilgus. 

“You know the tune and you just learn it. Just keep the tune in your mind and just keep on workin’ with it ‘til you get something. The way I do, I play it to my own sound, the way I think it sounds. If I’m playing a song and if I don’t quite know it, you could finish it off with some kind of sound. I just do it according to my sound… you just get a sound. You just put the sounds together and what sounds alright you just go on with it. And all of them little things you heard me playin’, that’s the way I got it. I don’t know nothing about no notes, I can’t read music. You just get a song and know it and just keep fooling around with it ‘til you get it to sound like you want it to sound. And whether it’s right or wrong I just go on with it if it sounds to suit me… I tried hard to play, I’m telling you. I worked for what I’ve got, I really did work for it.”

Archival collections and items without finding aids: 

National Public Radio Collection, 1975-1984

This collection includes interviews for profiles about various folk musicians, including Elizabeth Cotten. 

NC folklife festival and Alan Jabbour Folklife Section Collections (1974, 1976, 1978)

These recordings are from the NC folklife festivals in 1974, 1976, and 1978 that Elizabeth Cotten performed at.  

Folklife festival 1974:

https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb2454337 https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb2454111 

Folklife festival 1976:

https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb2454083 

Folklife festival 1978 :

https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb2454121 https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb2454295 

Elizabeth Cotten (right) and Bessie Jones (left) at the Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife in 1969. From the Alice Gerrard Collection #20006, pf0076_0003.

Request copies at Wilson Library

Wilson Library FAQ page

Commercial video recordings in the library catalog: 

Cotten, Elizabeth, and Mike Seeger. Mike Seeger & Elizabeth Cotten. Sparta, NJ: Stefan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop, 1991.

Cotten, Elizabeth, Mike Seeger, and Keith Newman. Ramblin’ Mike Seeger & Elizabeth Cotten. Sparta, NJ: Stefan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop, 1991. 

Cotten, Elizabeth, Mike Seeger, and Mark Humphrey. Elizabeth Cotten with Mike Seeger. Sparta, N.J.: Vestapol Productions, 1994. 

Cotten, Elizabeth, and John Miller. The Guitar of Elizabeth Cotten. Sparta, NJ: Stefan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop, 2002.

Cotten, Elizabeth, and Mike Seeger. Elizabeth Cotten: In Concert, 1969, 1978 & 1980. Place of publication not identified: Vestapol Productions, 2004.

Fuller, Jesse, and Elizabeth Cotten. Jesse Fuller and Elizabeth Cotton: Masters of the Country Blues. Newton, NJ: Yazoo Video, Division of Shanachie Records Corp, 1992.

Homemade American music.” Aginsky, Yasha, Carrie Aginsky, Mike Seeger, Alice Gerrard, Tommy Jarrell, Lily M. Ledford, Roscoe Holcomb, Elizabeth Cotten, Sonny Terry, Dewey Balfa, Dopsie Rockin’, Allie Young, Nathan Abshire, Tony Balfa, Raymond E. François, Dennis McGee, Wallace Read, Canray Fontenot, Leopold François, and Robert Jardell. Four American Roots Music Films. Sparta, N.J: Vestapol Productions, 2007.
16mm film print: Folkstreams.net Collection (Film F-20384/74)
Streaming: https://www.folkstreams.net/films/homemade-american-music

Me and Stella. Directed by Geri Ashur. Place of publication not identified: Phoenix Films, 1977.

Travis, Merle, Kirk McGee, Sam McGee, Mance Lipscomb, Roscoe Holcomb, Elizabeth Cotten, Doc Watson, Merle Watson, Josh White, Brownie McGhee, Sonny Terry, and Gary Davis. Legends of Traditional Fingerstyle Guitar. Sparta, N.J.: Vestapol Productions, 2003. 

Wenders, Wim, Martin Scorsese, Clint Eastwood, Richard Pearce, Charles Burnett, Marc Levin, Mike Figgis, Paul Allen, Jody Allen, and Ulrich Felsberg. The Blues, a Musical Journey. New York: Sony Music Entertainment, 2003. 

Commerical audio recordings in the library catalog: 

Cotten, Elizabeth. Freight Train and Other North Carolina Folk Songs and Tunes. Recorded 1957-1958. Smithsonian Folkways, vinyl LP. 

Online version: (https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb6648585

Cotten, Elizabeth. Elizabeth Cotten: Vol. 2, Shake Sugaree. Recorded 1967. Folkways Records, vinyl LP. 

Cotten, Elizabeth, and Mike Seeger. Shake Sugaree. Recorded in 1965. Re-released in 2004. Smithsonian Folkways Records, compact disc.

Online version: (https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb6647067

Cotten, Elizabeth. Elizabeth Cotten: Vol. 3, When I’m Gone. Recorded 1979. Folkways Records, vinyl LP. 

Online version: (https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb6648426

Cotten, Elizabeth. Live. Recorded in 1983. Arhoolie Records, vinyl LP.

Ledford, Lily M, Ramona Jones, Ola B. Reed, Suzanne Thomas, Elizabeth Cotten, Janette Carter, and Rose Maddox. Women of Old Time Music. REcorded in 1981. Heritage Records, vinyl LP.

New Lost City Ramblers., Seeger, P., Cotten, E., & Highwoods String Band. 20th anniversary concert. Recorded in 1986. Flying Fish, vinyl LP. 

Online version. https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb6128401

Other repositories with related materials:

American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress 

Ralph Rinzler Collection at the Smithsonian 

Tatiana Hargreaves is a first year graduate student at UNC’s School of Information and Library Science Master of Science in Library Science program. She is a lecturer of bluegrass fiddle in the music department at UNC and performs internationally with banjo player Allison de Groot. She received her BA in ethnomusicology and music performance from Hampshire College in 2017.

Ola Belle Reed: Resource and Subject Guide

Tatiana Hargreaves is a first year graduate student at UNC’s School of Information and Library Science Master of Science in Library Science program. She is a lecturer of bluegrass fiddle in the music department at UNC and performs internationally with banjo player Allison de Groot. She received her BA in ethnomusicology and music performance from Hampshire College in 2017.

Ola Belle Reed: Subject Guide

There are numerous published recordings of Ola Belle Reed and her music, but biographical material outside of album liner notes are harder to find. The book Ola Belle Reed and Southern Mountain Music on the Mason-Dixon Line (2015) by Henry Glassie, Clifford R. Murphy and Douglas Dowling Peach is the only released biography of her life. The Southern Folklife Collection holds many resources relating to Reed, including the manuscript for her unpublished autobiography “High on a Mountain”.

This blogpost can serve as a starting guide to resources about Ola Belle Reed in the Southern Folklife Collection, UNC libraries, and beyond.

Ola Belle Reed, Brandywine Mountain Music Convention, 1974. From the Alice Gerrard Collection (#20006)

Born in 1915 in Ashe County, North Carolina, Ola Belle Campbell Reed grew up in a large musical family. During the Depression, her family joined the many migrants moving from the Southern Mountains to more urban areas farther North. By the time she was a teenager, Reed was already performing with her brother in the North Carolina Ridge Runners. After marrying Bud Reed in 1949, Ola Belle, Bud and her brother Alex Campbell opened the New River Ranch music park which became a popular stop for bluegrass and country performers throughout the 1950s. Throughout the 1970s, Reed performed at many folk festivals and in 1986 was awarded the National Heritage Fellowship. She passed away in 2002 after thirteen years of illness. Reed’s prolific songwriting has endeared her to the country, bluegrass and old-time music communities where her songs are performed frequently.

Collections in the Southern Folklife Collection that include Ola Belle Reed:

Ola Belle Reed Collection

This collection primarily includes audio recordings, some news clippings and the manuscript for Reed’s unpublished autobiography. The audio recordings are a mixture of live performances and more intimate interviews, conversations and home music recordings. The conversation topics range from music, religion and politics to pollution, sex education, love and more. Reed’s unpublished autobiography, “High on a Mountain” was written with the help of David Reed and Josh Dunson.

Ola Belle singing “If I Could Read My Titles Clear”

Hazel Waltman and Ola Belle Reed. From the Mike Seeger Collection (#20009).

Ola Belle singing “Old Pal of Yesterday” with her old friend Hazel Waltman

Listen to the full tape here (SFC Audio Open Reel FT-20010/9663) 

Robert D. Bethke Collection

This collection includes four open reel recordings and two videos of Reed and her family from 1972.

Alice Gerrard Collection

This collection includes audio recordings from performances and parties and photographs of Ola Belle Reed, primarily from the New River Ranch Music Park in Rising Sun, Maryland that Reed ran with her husband Bud Reed. 

On the two clips below, you can hear Ola Belle Reed in a more casual setting at a party at George Holt’s house in Durham, North Carolina on November 2nd, 1986. The recording features Ola Belle with Alice Gerrard (guitar) and Andy Cahan (fiddle). 

Wild Bill Jones

What Would You Give In Exchange For Your Soul

Listen to the full tape here (SFC Audio Cassette FS-20006/8695)

Ola Belle Reed, Brandywine Mountain Music Convention, 1974. From the Alice Gerrard Collection (#20006)

Mike Seeger Collection

This collection also includes audio recordings and photographs of Ola Belle Reed, primarily from the New River Ranch Music Park in Rising Sun, Maryland.

Standing from left: Lily May Ledford, Janette Carter, Ramona Jones, Ola Belle Reed, Rose Maddox. Seated: Elizabeth Cotten. From the Mike Seeger Collection (#20009_pf0072).

Eugene Earle Collection

The Eugene Earle collection contains several open reel recordings of Ola Belle including recordings from Sunset Park, New River Ranch and the Philadelphia Folk Festival. Ola Belle is spelled “Olabelle” in the collection. 

Pete Kuykendall Collection

Ola Belle Reed appears on two open reels in the Kuykendall collection, both at New River Ranch. SFC Audio Open Reel FT-20546/259 features Reno and Smiley with a brief appearance by Ola Belle reed and the New river Ranch Gang. SFC Audio Open Reel FT-20546/80 features the Monroe Brothers and others, including “Aunt Ola Bell”. An open reel for the Carter Stanley memorial concert also references Ola Belle’s band “The New River Boys.”

North American Traditions Collections 

This collection contains six sides of Reed’s recordings for the 1977 album Ola Belle Reed and Family, including several unissued cuts. 

William Ferris Collection

This collection includes photographs of Ola Belle Reed at Yale University in 1975-1978 and recordings from Calhoun college in 1975 and 1976. 

Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project

Correspondence, publicity, tour planning and photos related to Ola Belle Reed’s involvement with the Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project, an organization that presented integrated concerts, tours and other events with Black and white musicians in the South during the late 1960s – 1980s.    

Mary Katherine Aldin Artist Files

This collection includes an artist file for Ola Belle Reed.

Sing Out! Collection

SFC Audio Cassette FS-20550/2: Gospel Workshop, 1980 with Ola Belle Reed, Janette Carter, Elizabeth Cotten and Lily May Ledford.

Festival of the Eno 1976 (from North Carolina Folklore Broadcast collection )

Ola Belle Reed performs at the 1976 Festival of the Eno in Durham, North Carolina.

North Carolina Folklife Festival in Durham (no finding aids) 

https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb2454121 

https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb2454111 

Ola Belle Reed’s Published Recordings available via UNC Libraries 

Ledford, Lily M, Ramona Jones, Ola B. Reed, Suzanne Thomas, Elizabeth Cotten, Janette Carter, and Rose Maddox. Women of Old Time Music. Galax, Va: Heritage Records, 1981. Sound recording. (https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb1968852 )

Reed, Ola B. Ola Belle Reed. Somerville, Mass: Rounder Records, 1973. Sound recording. ( https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb3694398

Reed, Ola B. Ola Belle Reed & Family. Somerville, Ma: Rounder Records, 1977. Sound recording. ( https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb3760572 )

Reed, Ola B, Bud Reed, and Kevin Roth. All in One Evening. New York: Folkways Records, 1978. Internet resource. ( https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb6647946 )

Reed, Ola B, Bud Reed, and David Reed. My Epitaph. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Folkways, 2001. Internet resource. ( https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb6646754

Reed, Ola B. Ola Belle Reed. Croton, N.Y.: Field Recorders’ Collective, 2005. Sound recording. (https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb7849893)

Reed, Ola B, Alex Campbell, Sonny Miller, Deacon Brumfield, and Paul Sidlick. Campbell’s Corner: The Ola Belle Reed – Alex Campbell Radio Shows. Place of publication not identified: Field Recorders’ Collective, 2009. Sound recording. (​​https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb7849907)

Reed, Ola B. Rising Sun Melodies. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Folkways, 2010. Sound recording. (https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb8619409

Compilations with the North Carolina Ridge Runners (available via UNC libraries & special collections)

Grayson, G B, Henry Whitter, Frank Blevins, Ephraim Woodie, and Jack Reedy. Music from the Lost Provinces. Raleigh, N.C: Old Hat, 1997. Sound recording. (https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb3813077

Authentic Rare Bluegrass Cuts. London, England: JSP Records, 2008. Sound recording. (https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb7868996 )

Books about Ola Belle Reed available via UNC Libraries 

Anderson-Green, Paula H. A Hot-Bed of Musicians: Traditional Music in the Upper New River Valley-Whitetop Region. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2002. Print.

Camp, Charles, and David E. Whisnant. “A Voice from Home: Southern Mountain Musicians on the Maryland-Pennsylvania Border.” Southern Exposure. 5 (1977): 2-3. Print.

Murphy, Clifford R, Henry Glassie, Douglas D. Peach, and Ola B. Reed. Ola Belle Reed and Southern Mountain Music on the Mason-Dixon Line., 2015. Print.

Fussell, Fred, Steve Kruger, and Cedric N. Chatterley. Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina: A Guide to Music Sites, Artists, and Traditions of the Mountains and Foothills., 2018. Print.

Henry, Murphy. Pretty Good for a Girl: Women in Bluegrass. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2013. Print.

Other resources related Ola Belle Reed: 

UNC electronic resources for online newspaper, magazine, journal articles and reviews 

The Ola Belle Reed Collection at University of Maryland, Baltimore County:

Ola Belle Reed collection (umbc.edu)

Jason Pate Collection (University of Maryland, Baltimore County https://library.umbc.edu/speccoll/findingaids/coll123.php)

Information about an upcoming documentary, “I’ve Endured”: The music and legacy of Ola Belle Reed can be found here: https://mdfolklife.org/ive-endured-the-music-and-legacy-of-ola-belle-reed/

This 2005 blogpost by Stephen Winick at the American Folklife Center includes a list of Ola Belle Reed related collections housed at the AFC: https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2015/09/on-ola-belle-reed/ 

To end, here is a beautifully written quote from Cathy Fink about her experiences with Ola Belle Reed:

“A visit with Ola Belle was always an amazing experience. The door was open, soup was on the stove, and an afternoon of conversation and music always left you with a full feeling. A philosopher and a philanthropist of the heart, Ola Belle was always there to help out a kid in need or a musician getting their feet on the ground…Ola Belle was ready for the world to change during the civil rights movement. Her song “Tear Down the Fences” questions why we spend energy building fences and not bridges between us. She was a feminist before that movement ever took hold, penning a powerful song, “Only the Leading Role Will Do.” But most importantly, she was an egalitarian.”

Fink, Cathy. “Last Chorus: Ola Belle Reed – 1916-2002.” Sing Out, vol. 46, no. 4, 2003, pp. 27-29.

ICYMI – Folk Legacy Series: John Lee Hooker; Hazel & Alice

Early in November, the Southern Folklife Collection wrapped up its two-part Folk Legacy Series celebrating great legacies in American vernacular music.  The series was sponsored through generous support from the Martin Guitar Charitable Foundation.

You can view the recordings of both events below, or via UNC Libraries’ YouTube page.

In “Boom Boom! The Music of John Lee Hooker,” Alvin Youngblood Hart and Bobby Rush both gave foot stomping performances to boogie along to, and then, in a lively discussion with Wayne Goins, reflected on the career and influence of Hooker.

Our first event of the fall — “Won’t You Come and Sing For Me?  The Music of Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard” — featured a set from Tatiana Hargreaves and Alison DeGroot, followed by Dudley Connell and Sally Love Connell.  The evening finished with a roundtable discussion led by Laurie Lewis, and involving Gerrard, Peter Siegel – producer of the first Hazel & Alice record — Hargreaves, DeGroot, and Connell.

Thanks to all who joined us, and stay tuned for more SFC related content and events here on Field Trip South, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Won’t You Come and Sing for Me? The Music of Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard

In preparation for the upcoming event “Won’t You Come and Sing for Me? The Music of Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard” here are some thoughts on a recording of a Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard  performance in 1973 by guest writer Tatiana Hargreaves. 

Tatiana Hargreaves is a first year graduate student at UNC’s School of Information and Library Science Master of Science in Library Science program. She is a lecturer of bluegrass fiddle in the music department at UNC and performs internationally with banjo player Allison de Groot. She received her BA in ethnomusicology and music performance from Hampshire College in 2017. 

Event Details:

Won’t You Come and Sing for Me? The Music of Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard

Thursday, October 14th at 7pm Eastern time. 

This virtual event will feature performances by International Bluegrass Music Association vocalist of the year award winner Dudley Connell, fiddler Tatiana Hargreaves and clawhammer banjo player Allison de Groot. Following their performances, the musicians will participate in a panel discussion moderated by Laurie Lewis and Gerrard with record producer Peter Siegel. This event is the first in the Southern Folklife Collection’s two-part Folk Legacy Series celebrating great legacies in American vernacular music: bluegrass pioneers Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard and legendary blues musician John Lee Hooker. The virtual events are free and open to the public. The series is sponsored through generous support from the Martin Guitar Charitable Foundation. The second event, Boom Boom! The Music of John Lee Hooker, will take place November 4, 2021.

Sign up for the event here: http://go.unc.edu/HazelandAlice

AG 453: Alice and Hazel, recorded on 24 September 1973, in concert at Washington Square Church in N.Y.C. 

Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard, often described as “pioneering women of bluegrass,” are two of the most iconic and visible women in the bluegrass music community. Their first album released in 1965 is considered the first women duet-led bluegrass recording and as a duo they recorded three more albums and toured extensively throughout the 1960s and 1970s. They performed at festivals such as the Newport Folk Festival, Smithsonian Folk Festival and Bill Monroe’s Bean Blossom Festival and regularly participated in the Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project where they toured with artists such as Elizabeth Cotten, Dock Boggs, Ola Belle Reed, Johnny Shines, and many others. In 2017 they were the first women to be inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Association Hall of Fame. But even with musicians as visible as Hazel and Alice, there are so many details that go unnoticed. 

Hazel Dickens, second from right, at the Brandywine Mountain Music Convention, Summer 1974. Photo by Alice Gerrard. Alice Gerrard Collection (#20006)

The standard Hazel and Alice narrative focuses on their powerful harmony singing and repertoire choice. What isn’t recognized as much is their instrumental performances, attention to detail in song arrangements and overall artistry. On their professional recordings, you hear a selected and curated outcome of both traditional and original material, mostly in the context of a full band. Their last album has some more stripped down duo arrangements, but listening to this live performance of Hazel and Alice from 1973 shows another side of the duo. This concert recording of just the two of them demonstrates the versatility of their musicianship. Throughout the performance, you can hear Gerrard playing lead guitar, lead banjo, and lead autoharp in addition to both Alice and Hazel being featured as solo vocalists. 

Hearing their stage banter and tuning on stage also gives a more intimate perspective on the duo. Sometimes you can hear Dickens say “too fast” at the beginning of a song as they adjust their speed during the performance. Other times you can hear the two of them moving around, deciding where to stand and how close to the mic to get. Other times, you can even hear them reminding each other how a tune starts or what the next verse of a song is. Dickens does most of the talking as she shares stories about her family, touring anecdotes and the backgrounds of the songs. Meanwhile, Gerrard tunes the various instruments that she plays and adds in commentary, only introducing a few of the songs such as her banjo feature “Fortune.”

Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard, 1975. From the Mike Seeger collection (#20009)

While Gerrard tunes the banjo in between the songs “Train on the Island” and “Steals of the White Man,” Dickens talks about changing their song choices when they started doing the Southern Folk Festival (https://finding-aids.lib.unc.edu/20004/). She adds, “I don’t want to say ‘repertoire’, that’s too uptown” and laughs. The tours couldn’t afford to pay for the full band, so they rearranged their material as a duo and added new repertoire (I know, too uptown). You can hear some of the practicing recordings of Hazel and Alice working on these arrangements on the 2018 release ‘Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard – Sing Me Back Home: The DC Tapes, 1965-1969’s. 

Some of the stage banter is humorous, such as Dickens’ story about her father who used to play banjo. She talks about how he would play square dances, barn raisings, apple butter makings, and many other events but stopped once he “got religion.” When Dickens and her brother encouraged their father to play the banjo again by getting him a new instrument, she says, “he got up in the middle of the night one night and destroyed it.” 

Dickens and Gerrard also include anecdotes about their song choices. For example, before singing “Steals of a White Man,” Dickens talks about the influence of the Southern Folk Festival tours (https://finding-aids.lib.unc.edu/20004/) on her conception of class. She jokes, “I never even knew that I belonged to the working class [before these tours]. I didn’t even know I had a class.” Although she’d been singing working class songs her whole life, she just didn’t know that they were called that. Later, when Dickens announces “Mining Camp Blues,” she talks about Trixie Smith being the only Black woman singer she knew of who wrote a song about mining. On the second tape, Gerrard introduces her song “Hey, Mr. Nixon” by saying “I wrote it after I saw the Indo-China peace campaign with Jane Fonda.” She also adds that she has only  performed it once before and needs a lyric sheet, which you then hear her try to pin up on the mic stand. 

One of my favorite moments from the performance is when Gerrard plays the tune “Fortune” on banjo. She announces the tune with, “This is my favorite fiddle tune”, to which Dickens replies, “that doesn’t look much like a fiddle to me, Alice.” Alice admits, “I wish I could play it on the fiddle, but I can’t play it on the fiddle so I decided to try and learn it on the banjo.” Gerrard is in fact a fiddle player, and you can hear some of her playing throughout her collection. (Check out this footage of Alice playing fiddle with Bertie Dickens playing banjo https://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/sfc/id/56594/rec/1

Alice Gerrard with banjo. 16th Southern Grassroots Music Tour, 1980-81. Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project Collection (#20004)

These spontaneous moments of Alice and Hazel in concert reveal a nuanced version of themselves that gets lost in the “pioneering women of bluegrass” narrative. Having never seen Hazel and Alice perform as a duo, I found that the talking, tuning and spaces in between each song offered a more complete perspective of the duo than I had heard before. I look forward to joining Alice Gerrard, Laurie Lewis, Dudley Connell,  Allison de Groot and Peter Siegel in conversation about the music of Hazel and Alice on October 14th at 7pm. You can sign up for the event here: https://lnkd.in/dzmhHcZf

 

 

 

 

ICYMI – When I’m Gone: Remembering Elizabeth Cotten

I was reflecting on this crazy year recently, and feeling grateful for our Elizabeth Cotten event earlier in November, a heartwarming hour amid all the noise of the previous few months that was fun to share and experience with all who tuned in.

In case you missed it, the full event is available to stream below from the UNC Libraries YouTube channel.

Cotten’s great-grandson John Evans, Jr. and his family, along with Yasmin Williams, bookended the event with performances that recalled the origins of Cotten’s music, along with how it continues to inspire contemporary musicians.

Alice Gerrard’s segment offered an intimate recollection of life on the road with Cotten on tours organized by the Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project.  The SFC is proud to hold both the Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project Collection (https://finding-aids.lib.unc.edu/20004/), as well as the collection of Anne Romaine (https://finding-aids.lib.unc.edu/20304/), one of the co-founders of the SFCRP with Bernice Johnson Reagon.

Reverend Pearly Brown, Anne Romaine in background (P-20004/2805). In the Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project Collection #20004, Southern Folklife Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

There was also a glimpse and mention of Dick Waterman in Gerrard’s slideshow, and the SFC holds the Dick Waterman Photography Collection (https://finding-aids.lib.unc.edu/20533/), a rich resource of photographs documenting the blues, country, and rock music scenes from the 1960s to the early 2000s.

Elizabeth Cotten (PF-20009/16). In the Mike Seeger Collection #20009, Southern Folklife Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

In addition to the Cotten-related collections mentioned in the previous post (and check out one of the earliest known photos of a young Elizabeth Cotten above from the Mike Seeger Collection) (When I’m Gone: Remembering Folk Icon Elizabeth Cotten), we invite you to explore those associated collections held by the SFC that were referenced in the event.

The Elizabeth Cotten appearance on Pete Seeger’s Rainbow Quest TV show that opened the event can be found here a little more smoothly than the video capture over Zoom.  The SFC has the original 2″ quad video of that show in the Pete Kuykendall Collection (https://finding-aids.lib.unc.edu/20546/).

You Gave Me A Song

Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard, 1975
Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard, 1975. From the Mike Seeger Collection (#20009)

On Monday, May 11th, Reel South, a cooperative documentary series among the South’s PBS-member stations, will make the Alice Gerrard documentary You Gave Me A Song available to stream.

Reel South -You Gave Me A Song

Directed by Kenny Dalsheimer, You Gave Me A Song (http://www.alicegerrardfilm.com/) “offers an intimate portrait of old-time music pioneer Alice Gerrard and her remarkable, unpredictable journey creating and preserving traditional music.”

Check your local member stations for when it might air in your area, but North Carolina’s UNC-TV will air it in the coming days over its various stations:

Reel South – You Gave Me A Song

  • Thursday, May 14, 10:00 pm – UNC-TV
  • Friday, May 15, 04:00 am – North Carolina Channel
  • Sunday, May 17, 10:00 pm – North Carolina Channel

Explore a few of the SFC’s resources featured in the film and related to Alice Gerrard below:

Alice Gerrard Collection:
Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project Collection:
Hazel Dickens Collection:

Old Time Herald Collection:
https://finding-aids.lib.unc.edu/20067/

 

First Impressions: June Appal Recordings


First Impressions” is an ongoing series on the “first records” of several independent record labels releasing folk, blues, bluegrass, country, and other vernacular musics. Drawing from records and other materials in the Southern Folklife Collection, the focus of this virtual exhibition is on the albums that started it all for these labels in the LP era.


The Album

LP cover, gray background with image of Nimrod Workman and Phyllis Boyens on a porch
Nimrod Workman & Phyllis Boyens, Passing Thru The Garden | FC-1286

June Appal Recordings was founded to release traditional and contemporary mountain music, recorded by and for the people of the Southern mountains near their Whitesburg, Kentucky home. At the time, it would have been difficult to find a more complete embodiment of that mission than Nimrod Workman and Phyllis Boyens. Nimrod Workman had been a mine worker, singer, and union activist in the mountains of West Virginia for over six decades by the time June Appal Recordings was created in 1974. Phyllis Boyens, Nimrod’s daughter, had been raised in that culturally rich environment and quickly took to the musical and activist inclinations of her parents and grandparents. Passing Thru The Garden marked the recorded debut of June Appal, Nimrod and Phyllis, the first example of the cross-generational efforts that would come to define June Appal as a label. Most of the songs on Passing Thru The Garden are credited as arranged by Nimrod Workman, and most are sung unaccompanied by instrumentation. Nimrod and Phyllis take many of the songs alone, while joining voices on others. Listen to excerpts of two tracks from the album, and read on below.
Here is an excerpt from Track 1, “I Am a Traveling Creature,” featuring both Nimrod and Phyllis:

Also listen to a clip from Track 10, “Oh Death,” featuring Phyllis Boyens with some spare instrumentation:


NIMROD WORKMAN

Nimrod is shown performing during a workshop with others seated around him
Nimrod was active with the Highlander Folk School, and he is pictured here (standing) at a 1972 workshop organized by the group. Photo by Doug Yarrow. Image Folder PF-20008/70 in the Guy and Candie Carawan Collection (20008).

Born in 1895 in Inez, Kentucky, Nimrod Workman moved to West Virginia to work in a coal mine at the age of 14. For the next 42 years, Workman continued to mine coal, until black lung and other injuries forced him to retire. He was an active union member and activist for worker’s rights from the early years of his career, but he became most well known later in life as a singer of unaccompanied ballads. Nimrod Workman was already 79 in 1974, the year his first album, Passing Thru The Garden, was released. While he was an active performer for the rest of his life, he recorded only one more album, Mother Jones’ Will, for Rounder Records in 1978. Workman continued to be associated with his career as a coal miner, frequently singing coal mining songs and contributing to different coal mining-related projects. He recorded several songs for Come All You Coal Miners, a collection of coal mining songs also produced by Rounder Records, and he appeared in the Academy Award-winning documentary Harlan County, USA.
His appearance in the acclaimed documentary, which followed the “Brookside Strike,” translated into a brief appearance in the 1980 Loretta Lynn biopic Coal Miner’s Daughter. In the film, Nimrod leads a group of mourners at a funeral in a rendition of “Amazing Grace.” The recording appears on the soundtrack to the movie, and Nimrod can be heard calling out each line before the rest of the crowd joins in. Listen to a brief clip from the song below:

At first glance, Workman’s appearance always seemed to announce his increasing age – from his uniquely dimpled cheeks to his tall and lanky frame. However, whenever Nimrod Workman sang or moved, he constantly betrayed just how young his spirit was. To help demonstrate that trademark youthfulness, below is a clip from Carry It On, a nine-part series produced by the Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project in 1984 and aired on PBS. In the clip, Nimrod states his age (“87 in years, 18 in feelings”) and demonstrates to his daughter Phyllis Boyens and host Mike Seeger how to do the “frog walk.” The full video, VT-20004/21 in the Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project Collection (20004) is streaming through UNC libraries here.


Phyllis boyens

Promotional photograph of Nimrod Workman and Phyllis Boyens. P-2992a in the Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project Collection (20004).

Phyllis Boyens-Liptak was born Phyllis Workman in 1947 in West Virginia, one of the youngest of Mollie and Nimrod Workman’s 13 children. Raised by musical parents, she quickly took to singing the songs that her father sang, and frequently accompanied him in casual venues and on tour. 1974’s Passing Thru the Garden was, like her father, also Phyllis’s first album. Also like Nimrod, Phyllis only recorded one more album, the 1983 solo outing I Really Care. Phyllis was active in the same musical and activist groups as her father, contributing songs to albums like They’ll Never Keep Us Down: Women’s Coal Mining Songs and touring with the Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project. Although she did not have a prolific recording career, she maintained an active presence in the folk music world, and she also expanded into the world of acting. Phyllis had appeared in the documentary Harlan County, U.S.A. alongside her father, and attention from that appearance helped her land a supporting role as Loretta Lynn’s mother in the film Coal Miner’s Daughter
Phyllis’s mother Mollie Workman was also an accomplished singer, as she demonstrates in this field recording made by Mark Wilson for Rounder Records’ “North American Traditions Series.” In this clip from FT-20503/16073, Mollie Workman sings “I’m Going Back With Jesus When He Comes” unaccompanied:


THE label

The Appalachian Film Workshop was founded in 1969 in Whitesburg, Kentucky, part of the United States government’s legislative War on Poverty. Federal funding helped create several of these community workshops, which aimed to provide access to film production training and education in impoverished areas. In 1974, the organization underwent a few major changes, diversifying beyond film production and evolving into an independent nonprofit company. Around this time, the name of the organization was shortened to Appalshop, reflecting broader goals and a new direction.
These 1974 changes included the creation of June Appal Recordings, a record label within Appalshop. The goals of this new label reflected those of Appalshop as a whole – producing content for, by, and about the people that live in Appalachia. The June Appal discography includes Kentuckians like Buell Kazee, I.D. Stamper, and Nimrod Workman, but it also includes a broad range of traditional and contemporary folk musicians from across the U.S. June Appal has maintained a relatively steady pace since 1974, releasing more than 80 albums on LP, CD, or cassette in the past 45 years since its founding. Some of that discography is still available through the June Appal portion of Appalshop’s website, found here.

four covers of recording catalogs, illustrates different June Appal logos over time
These four recording catalogs show different June Appal logos over the years, all emphasizing their focus on “Music From the Southern Mountains.”  Folder 275 in the Art Menius Papers (20406).

June Appal Recordings is unique among its contemporary independent record labels for many reasons, chief among them being its origins within a cooperative nonprofit company. Due to these unique beginnings, there are no individual founders widely credited with the creation of June Appal Recordings. However, there were of course individuals involved in the creation and maintenance of June Appal from its beginnings, including: Rich Kirby, who produced many records on the label and recently retired from Appalshop’s Mountain Community Radio station, and Jack Wright, who recorded on June Appal with The Payroll Boys, produced a film for Appalshop, and ultimately became a professor of film.


THE Southern folk cultural revival project

The Nashville-based Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project (SFCRP) was founded in 1966 by musicians and activists Anne Romaine and Bernice Johnson Reagon. The primary goal of the SFCRP was to “present traditional musicians from black and white cultures in performance together at a time when this was considered controversial.” In pursuit of that goal, the group recruited a large number of musicians, including Nimrod Workman and Phyllis Boyens, to perform on tour together. However, the work of Romaine and the SFCRP extended far beyond these tours. One such endeavor was the production of a nine-part series on traditional music that aired on PBS in 1984, Carry It On. Each episode of Carry It On consisted of interviews with and performances by traditional musicians. Nimrod Workman and Phyllis Boyens are featured in an episode of the series on mountain ballads. A videotape recording of the episode, VT-20004/21 in the Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project Collection (20004), is streaming through UNC Libraries here. Watch two brief clips from the episode below, featuring Nimrod and Phyllis singing “Passing Through The Garden” together and Nimrod singing “Burglar Man” alone:


APPALSHOP FILMS

Appalshop, true to its origins, is perhaps best known for the films it produces as Appalshop Films. Appalshop’s current website hosts over 80 films, ranging from narrative features to documentaries on a wide range of subjects. There are documentaries on craftspeople, like 1976’s Quilting Women and 1980’s Oaksie, about eastern Kentucky basket maker, fiddler, and harp player Oaksie Caudill. There are activist documentaries and documentaries on activists and protests, like 1995’s Justice in the Coalfields and 1992’s Belinda, about Kentucky AIDS prevention and education activist Belinda Mason.
One of the largest shares of the Appalshop filmography, however, is occupied by music documentaries, following performers and traditions rooted in Appalachia. These include works on Sarah Ogan Gunning, John Jacob Niles, Lily May Ledford, Ralph Stanley, Hazel Dickens, and Nimrod Workman. In 1975, the year after the release of Passing Thru The Garden, Appalshop released To Fit My Own Category, a 35 minute documentary following Nimrod Workman. Directed by Scott Faulkner and Anthony Slone, the black and white film features interview and everyday footage and incorporates Workman’s music. Watch a brief trailer for To Fit My Own Category below, and stream the entire film for free on Appalshop’s website.


ROADSIDE THEATER AND THE LOCAL CONNECTION

Appalshop also created several other prominent divisions beyond June Appal Recordings, including the Appalshop Archive, the Appalachian Media Institute, Culture Hub, Roadside Theater, and Mountain Community Radio (WMMT 88.7). Roadside Theater, one of the earliest new divisions of Appalshop, shares the spirit of the original film workshop and June Appal Recordings. Focused on providing a platform for young people in Appalachia to tell the stories of their lives, Roadside Theater is “a company of unreconstructed Appalachians who make stories out of the kind of history ‘that generally never gets written down.'” The group began by producing and maintaining a repertoire of Appalachia-centered plays, like South of the Mountain, Brother Jack, Red Fox/Second Hangin’, and Mountain Tales. Written by and starring members of the troupe, these productions would tour around the country, visiting schools and larger performance venues along the way. The below article from the April 3, 1987 issue of the Durham Morning Herald describes a Roadside Theater stop in Carrboro that day. Sponsored by The Arts Center in Carrboro, the group was set to offer a workshop on “Storytelling from Oral History” and perform South of the Mountain at Carrboro Elementary School. Roadside Theater continues to produce and perform new plays, and more of their work and history is available here.

newspaper article describing a Roadside Theater stop in Carrboro in 1987
This clipping from the April 3, 1987 Durham Morning Herald contains an article titled “‘Roadside’ Brings Mountains To Stage.” The photo features Roadside members Ron Short, Nancy Jeffrey, and Tom Bledsoe. Folder 275 in the Art Menius Papers (20406).


SHOW ME MORE!

There are an abundance of materials related to June Appal Recordings, Appalshop, Nimrod Workman and Phyllis Boyens, and the Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project in the Southern Folklife Collection, as well as an extensive portion of the June Appal catalog on LP and CD. Check out a few other items of interest below or search the collection yourself.

cover of a newspaper featuring a picture of Nimrod Workman at the Kentucky Folk Festival
This June 10, 1973 edition of The Courier-Journal & Times features “Kentucky Folk Festival is fun,” an article on the 1973 Kentucky Folk Festival in Lexington. The photo on right, by Pam Spaulding, shows Nimrod Workman dancing for an audience at the festival. Folder 676 in the Guy and Candie Carawan Collection (20008).

poster for the Jubilee Festival features a photograph of Mollie and Nimrod Workman
This poster for the 18th Annual Jubilee Festival in Knoxville, Tennessee, features Mollie and Nimrod Workman, advertising a “special tribute” to the couple. Folder 676 in the Guy and Candie Carawan Collection (20008).

Promotional photograph of Nimrod Workman. P-2993a in the Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project Collection (20004).

Nimrod Workman performing at the 1985 Tennessee Grassroots Days. Photo by David Hildebrand. P-2995 in the Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project Collection (20004).

A group photo of Nimrod Workman and other traditional musicians
This photo features Nimrod Workman singing with several other prominent traditional musicians. From left: Tillman Cadle, Lois Short, Sarah Ogan Gunning, Nimrod Workman, Hazel Dickens, Goerge Tucker. PF-20008/63 in the Guy and Candie Carawan Collection (20008).

 

Real traditional: Hazel Dickens, part 3

Mable Hillary and Hazel Dickens, Southern Grassroots Music Tour, 1973/1974. Photo by Cory Foster. call no. PA-20304/1.

A quick post today featuring an oral history heavy article on Hazel Dickens that originally appeared in the Washington D. C. alternative/underground newspaper, The Unicorn Times, in 1977.  See complete article below and previous Hazel Dickens tributes here: part 1 and part 2.
Besides offering a comprehensive biography of her life up until the time it was published in 1977, the Unicorn Times article gives equal, or perhaps, even more space to Hazel’s own voice.  Much like the book Dickens would co-write with Bill Malone thirty years later, the article gives Hazel the opportunity to critique her own life story as it had been told by others: folklorists, record companies, and the media.  Among the subjects addressed are Dickens meeting and playing music with Mike Seeger in the 1950s, her feelings about her own Southern identity and mountain heritage, her status as a feminist role model, and of course her political activism.  Hazel also talks about performance styles, tradition and change in country music, and the frustration that many performers feel when their creative expression is forced into categories.

“There’s so many people that get put down for doing real traditional music. For those people who still have the guts to get out there and do it, it’s a political thing. They’re to be commended for trying to preserve the music. For those people who want to go on to something else, I see nothing wrong with that. It’s part of the freedom to do what you want to do.

For myself, I like to sing that music. Whether I’m singing on or off key, whether I’m even missing some of the chords, when I’m at my best is when I’m belting it out and giving it all I’ve got. It’s something of tme that I can’t put forth if I’m restrained or trying to get everything just right. Some people when they hear country, they think of country-western, but to me it’s traditional, raw…not too pretty a sound to some people because people with a trained ear would be very put off by that sound. The voice may be gravelly, it’s not polished or too stylized. It’s not a smooth style, it’s all feeling and emotion.

When I’m at my best is when I’m singing like that. If I get too involved with what other people are thinking, with trying to sing on pitch or trying to sing the way I know some people would like to hear me sing. I lose it.” [“Hazel Dickens: The Working Class Conscience of Harlan County, U. S. A.,” Unicorn Times, August 1977, by Alice Gerrard, Len Stanley, and Richard Harrington]

Hazel Dickens, Unicorn Times, p. 5.  Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project Collection (#20004), Folder 40.

Remembering Hazel Dickens, part 2

Hazel Dickens, tour 1971. SFC Photographs.

Founded in 1966 by Anne Romaine and Bernice Johnson Reagon, the Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project (SFCRP) worked to present traditional musicians from black and white cultures in performance together at a time when this was considered controversial. The SFCRP continued presenting musical performances throughout the South until the late 1980s and kept close ties with the activism of the civil rights era.  Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard participated in numerous tours, from 1968 to the 1980s, even assisting in the organizing, production, and promotion at times.
The Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project Collection (#20004) includes numerous promotional materials as well as correspondence, both business and personal, between Anne Romaine,  Hazel, and Alice.  The letters and contracts provide fascinating details about the cultural industries related to traditional music in the late 1960s and early 1970s as well as information about lives of struggling folk musicians like Hazel and Alice as they carved out their early careers.  In a letter dated 19 February 1968, Anne wrote to Alice:

“Dear Alice,
I have narrowed the tour schedule down to two weeks instead of three.  It will be from the 7th of April through the 20th.  Can you and Hazel come for the second week which will be from the 14th through the 20th?  The other performers for that week will be the Blue Ridge Mt. Dancers, Mike Cooney, Mable Hillary, Rev. Brown.  I hope that change doesn’t mess up yalls plans too much.  The tour will concentrate almost entirely in North Carolina.  I could get you a weekend date here in Atlanta at the Crucible coffee house at Emory University which pays 70% of the gross for Fri. and Sat. They usually have about 70 people in there each night”  [letter from Anne Romaine to Alice Foster, Feb. 19, 1968.  From the Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project Collection (#20004)]

Below is a promotional brochure for Hazel & Alice from the early 1970s.

 

for part 1, follow the link: “Hurricane” Hazel Dickens