Tennessee Folklife

Tennessee Folklife Area
The Tennessee Folklife Area is devoted to the rich, living heritage of Tennessee, the festival’s Host City of Nashville and the Mid-South region. Through demonstrations, displays, exhibits, performances and narrative presentations by regional masters, it will shine the spotlight on distinctive occupational, craft and other traditions at the heart of Tennessee heritage. The folklife area features a different theme each year. This year’s program focuses on musical traditions in Nashville, Tennessee.

Nashville’s Musical Roots and Branches
The FOLKLIFE STAGE program, curated by the Country Music Hall of Fame®and Museum, will explore Nashville’s rich musical heritage through intimate interviews andperformances featuring some of the region's outstanding gospel, bluegrass, early country, singer-songwriter, and rhythm & blues artists. Among those participating will be first-call session musicians, shape-note singers, Bill Monroe band alumni, fiddle masters, the Fisk Jubilee Singers, and premier soul and blues musicians.

In hourly segments, presentations will look at topics such as: songwriting inspired by family and community traditions; the customs and rituals of Nashville session musicians; Jefferson Street in the 1960s; Bill Monroe’s musical legacy; the African American gospel tradition in Nashville; and traditional fiddle styles. Some of the artists enlisted to participate include DeFord Bailey Jr., Harold Bradley, Elizabeth Cook, the Fairfield Four, the Fisk Jubilee Singers, Mac Gayden, Lloyd Green, Bobby Hicks, Marion James, Robert Knight, the McCrary Sisters, Jean Shepard, Patsy Stoneman, Charles Towler, and the Whites.

Behind the Scenes in Music City
The FOLKLIFE DEMONSTRATION area, goes behind the scenes in Music City’s music business, to discover what keeps Nashville’s musical wheels turning. With all of the pomp, glitz and glamour that surround the music business, it’s easy to forget that it is just that – a business. Music City boasts a legacy of popular music styles rooted firmly in tradition. Whether that music is bluegrass, blues, R&B, gospel or omnipresent variants of country, all benefit from a vast network of businesses that produce, support and promote the music.

Climb into a replica of Flatt and Scruggs’ famous Martha White Tour Bus. Learn how the famous Hatch Show Prints are made. Talk with the folks who create those fancy country costumes that have graced the stages of the Grand Ole Opry and the Ryman Auditorium. Peruse some vintage instruments and learn about Nashville's other music history focusing on gospel and R&B. See how the nation's largest record production plant, United, manufactures all of those records. Music is a business and business is good. Curated by folklorist Evan Hatch, who lives and works in Middle Tennessee.

Tennessee Folklife Stage: Nashville’s Musical Roots and Branches

Songwriting from Family and Tradition
Saturday, September 3
noon-1pm

The three performers participating in the “Songwriting from Family and Tradition” program grew up in musical families and were taught to play instruments, sing, and perform by family members. Elizabeth Cook was raised in northern Florida, where her parents led a country band and first brought her onstage at age four; Larry Cordle spent his youth on an eastern Kentucky family farm, where his great-grandfather taught him banjo, fiddle, and guitar; and Darrell Scott, born in central Kentucky and raised in East Gary, Indiana, watched his father sing country songs in nightclubs and joined him onstage before starting his own bands. Each has reached success in Nashville thanks to the musical legacy their families passed on to them.

Let’s Cut a Hit: Studio Musicians in Nashville
Saturday, September 3
1:15-2:15pm

Over the years, Nashville studio musicians became a tight-knit community who saw each other often as they moved from session to session. In this program, veteran first-call players discuss the customs and rituals that have emerged over sixty years of session work in Nashville. These musicians each have played on thousands of sessions, including some that yielded some of the most famous recordings in popular music history. Guitarist Harold Bradley and his brother Owen opened a recording studio in 1955 in the area now known as Music Row. Harold went on to become one of the most recorded guitarists in history. Pianist David Briggs got his start in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, but made it to Nashville in 1964. His credits include “Help Me Make It Through the Night” and “Country Bumpkin.” Guitarist Jimmy Capps is a member of the Grand Ole Opry staff band. His recording credits include “The Gambler” and “He Stopped Loving Her Today.” Bassist Bob Moore also played on “He Stopped Loving Her Today” and on “All Shook Up,” among the many thousands of sessions he logged. Steel Guitarist Weldon Myrick lent licks to the country classics “Bright Lights and Country Music,” “Chattahoochee,” “Little Rock,” and “Once a Day.” He also served for thirty-two years in the Grand Ole Opry house band.

Old-Time Singing: Traditional Vocal Styles
Saturday, September 3
2:30-3:30pm

The yodeling blues of Jimmie Rodgers, the high lonesome tenor of Bill Monroe, the vowel-bending stylings of Lefty Frizzell; the lilting soprano of Alison Krauss—all are distinctive voices with the power to express deep emotion. This session highlights vocalists singing in styles with roots in the ballads and story songs of early country music. From Manchester, Tennessee, Roy Harper favors songs from the 1920s and 1930s. Sisters Donna and Patsy Stoneman are the daughters of Country Music Hall of Fame member Ernest V. (Pop) Stoneman, who sang about “The Titanic” for OKeh Records in 1924. In later years, Donna and Patsy performed with other siblings as the Stonemans. Matt Kinman represents a younger generation, though he is devoted to old-time music. He splits his time between North Carolina and Tennessee. Dobro specialist and Brother Oswald acolyte Mike Webb will lead the session.

“If You Couldn’t Sell You Didn’t Eat”: Country Music on Sponsored Radio
Saturday, September 3
3:45-4:45pm

DeFord Bailey Jr. will discuss the career of his late father, Country Music Hall of Fame member DeFord Bailey. Known as the “Harmonica Wizard,” the senior Bailey was one of the original performers on WSM–Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry in the 1920s and ’30s, and the first African American star in country music. DeFord Jr. also will demonstrate his father’s harmonica techniques on signature songs such as “The Fox Chase.” Mandolin player Jesse McReynolds, of legendary bluegrass brother duo Jim & Jesse, appeared on a number of radio barn dances in the 1950s and ’60s before joining the Opry in 1964. A member of the International Bluegrass Music Association Hall of Fame, Curly Seckler began his career in 1935 performing with his brothers on WSTP radio in Salisbury, North Carolina. He played mandolin and sang tenor for Flatt & Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys for much of the 1950s and early’60s. In addition to performing on WSM’s Opry programs, the group also appeared on the station’s daily early morning shows sponsored by Martha White Flour. Donna and Patsy Stoneman are veterans of radio and television. With other members of their musical family they were regulars on stations in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. Craig Havighurst, author of Air Castle of the South: WSM and the Making of Music City, will lead the session.

Down on Jefferson: Nashville R&B’s Golden Age
Saturday, September 3
5:00-6:00pm

In postwar Nashville, live rhythm & blues shook the floorboards at venues ranging from nightclub gambling joints to the Ryman Auditorium. Nashville drew the top R&B acts of the day while nurturing the city’s finest homegrown talent. Club Baron, Club Del Morocco, Club Stealaway, and other night spots lined North Nashville’s Jefferson Street—the city’s predominantly black entertainment district. While Little Richard and Jimi Hendrix spent hours of bandstand apprenticeship on Jefferson, many other regulars maintained a street-level story of fame and musical impact rarely reflected in the charts and record sales to which music history is often reduced. Some of these acts remain active, ensuring that Jefferson’s past continues to be honored. Frank Howard received valuable exposure on the pioneering, Nashville-produced R&B TV shows Night Train and The!!!!Beat. Known as “Nashville’s Queen of the Blues,” Marion James made raucous records in the mid-’60s after performing around the South with guitarist Hendrix and bassist Billy Cox in tow. James “Nick” Nixon is a longtime music educator who performed in numerous bands before making blues and gospel solo recordings. Mentored in his teens by members of Ray Charles’s band, drummer Jimmy Otey has toured with Little Richard, James Brown, and Taj Mahal, and worked on network television with Bill Cosby.

Bossman: Blue Grass Boys Remember Bill Monroe
Saturday, September 3
6:15-7:15pm

No American performer was so closely identified with a single style of music as Bill Monroe, leader of the Blue Grass Boys and a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. For almost sixty years, the scores of musicians who worked with him learned bluegrass “like she ought to be played,” as they came under the spell of his distinctive musical vision and forceful personality. In this program, former Blue Grass Boys share music, traditions, and stories that made Monroe’s band members a special community. Guitarist and vocalist Tom Ewing worked with Monroe in the 1980s and 1990s, until Monroe’s death, and is the author of The Bill Monroe Reader (Univ. of Ill. Press, 2000). Fiddler Bobby Hicks played and recorded with Monroe in the 1950s, and went on to play for years with Ricky Skaggs. Banjo player Curtis McPeake joined the Blue Grass Boys in the early 1960s, in time to appear with Monroe at Carnegie Hall. He later worked with Danny Davis and the Nashville Brass. Though best known as a mandolinist, Roland White played guitar with Monroe in the 1960s, before leaving to work with Lester Flatt and the Nashville Grass. Today he fronts his own band.

Fisk Jubilee Singers
Sunday, September 4
12:00-12:45pm

Nashville’s Fisk Jubilee Singers introduced large audiences to slave songs and black spirituals in the late nineteenth century, while establishing a tradition that has preserved a significant body of folk music and religious anthems. The Jubilee Singers of Fisk University undertook their first concert tour in 1871 in order to raise money for their struggling school. As the first black aggregation to perform spirituals on a public stage, the student singers battled prejudice and oppression to sing their way into a nation’s heart. They did so at a time when most black music was being performed by white minstrel musicians in blackface. Eventually, the Jubilee Singers would perform for presidents and queens, tour the United States and Europe, and establish songs like "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" and "This Little Light of Mine" as a cherished part of the nation’s musical heritage. After achieving worldwide renown more than a century ago, the Fisk Jubilee Singers are still considered one of the most prestigious choral groups today. Musical Director Paul T. Kwami will conduct the Jubilee Singers in performances that reflect the history of the ensemble and demonstrate the power of spirituals.

Don’t Let Nobody Turn You ’Round: Black Gospel in Nashville
Sunday, September 4
1:00-1:45pm

African American gospel music has long flourished in Nashville. The Fairfield Four are distinguished proponents of traditional African American a cappella gospel singing. They are members of the Gospel Music Hall of Fame and have been honored with the prestigious National Heritage Fellowship. The legendary group formed in 1921 at the Fairfield Baptist Church in Nashville, and became nationally prominent by the 1940s through CBS network radio broadcasts. In recent decades the group won Grammys—and new audiences—with their work on Warner Bros. Records and the blockbuster film O Brother, Where Art Thou?. Levert Allison, Paul Anthony, Larrice Byrd Sr., Robert Hamlett, and Joe Thompson make up the current edition of the Fairfield Four. The McCrary Sisters are the daughters of the late Reverend Sam McCrary, the Fairfield Four’s longtime star tenor, who shined on classics such as “Don’t Let Nobody Turn You ’Round.” Alfreda, Ann, Deborah, and Regina McCrary have harmonized since childhood, singing at home and in their father’s church. Ann and Regina were featured singers in the BC&M Mass Choir and Bobby Jones’s Nashville Super Choir, and recently appeared on rootsy inspirational albums by Buddy Miller and Patty Griffin. Regina also recorded and toured extensively with Bob Dylan.

I’ll Keep on Singing: The Southern Gospel Tradition
Sunday, September 4
2:00-2:45pm

Singing school teacher and convention pianist Tracey Phillips and singing school teacher and publisher Charles Towler of Cleveland, Tennessee, represent the southern gospel convention tradition that developed in the rural South following the Civil War. It eventually displaced the four-shape-note Sacred Harp tradition in many areas. Gospel convention music employs seven-shape notation and uses instrumental accompaniment. Most singers encounter the music in their home churches and then reinforce that contact with instruction at the many singing schools supported by the tradition. In 1965 Towler joined the staff of Tennessee Music and Printing Company; there he compiled and edited sixty-four convention books for Tennessee Music and James D. Vaughan Music Publishers. More than three hundred of his songs have been published. In 1997, he started his own company, Gospel Heritage Music. He teaches music schools at local churches throughout the year. Towler received the Tennessee Arts Commission’s Folklife Heritage Award in 2011.

Family Tradition: Making Music Across Generations
Sunday, September 4
3:00-3:45pm

“There’s nothing like playing music to bring a family together,” Sharon White has said, and her tightly knit family has been making music together for years. The Whites—daddy Buck and his daughters Sharon and Cheryl—are Texas natives who lived in Arkansas before moving to Nashville in the early 1970s. Members of the Grand Ole Opry since 1984, the trio plays with the kind of effortless precision—instrumental and vocal—found only in bands that share the same DNA. And now Sharon is part of another musical family; her husband is Ricky Skaggs. The McCrary Sisters are the daughters of the late Reverend Sam McCrary, longtime star tenor for a cappella gospel greats the Fairfield Four. Alfreda, Ann, Deborah, and Regina McCrary have harmonized since childhood, singing at home and in their father’s church. Ann and Regina were featured singers in the BC&M Mass Choir and Bobby Jones’s Nashville Super Choir, and the sisters recently appeared on rootsy inspirational albums by Buddy Miller and Patty Griffin. Regina also recorded and toured extensively with Bob Dylan.

Everlasting Love: Racial Integration in Nashville Music
Sunday, September 4
4:00-4:45pm

Black and white musicians made enduring records together in Nashville during the racial upheaval of the 1950s and ’60s, just as other integrated bands of southern musicians turned out classics at Stax Records in Memphis and Fame Music in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. In 1967 Nashville R&B singers Robert Knight and Clifford Curry recorded the original hit versions of “Everlasting Love” and “She Shot a Hole in My Soul,” respectively. They did so by working closely with Buzz Cason and Mac Gayden, a pair of white songwriters, producers, musicians, and independent label owners who were raised on R&B in Middle Tennessee. After forming the Casuals, one of the city’s earliest rock & roll combos, Cason recorded the pop hit “Look for a Star” (under the pseudonym Garry Miles) and penned “Soldier of Love” for soul legend Arthur Alexander. Gayden helped establish the bands Area Code 615 and Barefoot Jerry and played innovative guitar licks on Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde, J.J. Cale’s “Crazy Mama,” and many other recordings. This session will focus on the creation and impact of “Everlasting Love” and “She Shot a Hole in My Soul” while looking at ways in which these four musicians tested racial barriers on bandstands and in recording studios.

Dance All Night: Fiddling and Fiddle Styles
Sunday, September 4
5:00-5:45pm

Since 1922, when Eck Robertson and Henry Gilliland traveled to New York to play “Arkansaw Traveler” and “Sallie Gooden” for the Victor Company, the fiddle has been at the center of much of recorded country music. Whether with an old-time hoedown, a bluegrass breakdown, or a jazzy western swing number, fiddles have filled the dance floor for generations. This session examines the variations—regional and personal—among five accomplished fiddlers. Bill Birchfield of the Roan Mountain Hilltoppers in East Tennessee plays hard-driving tunes for dancing; James Bryan of Mentone, Alabama, worked for a stretch with Bill Monroe and performed for many years with Norman and Nancy Blake; Bobby Hicks, from western North Carolina, is a veteran of bands led by Monroe and Ricky Skaggs; Buddy Spicher also is an alumnus of Monroe’s band and a former member of Area Code 615; and Johnny Warren plays in the style of his father, Paul Warren, best known for his work with Flatt & Scruggs. Master fiddler and educator Matt Combs will lead this session.

Tennessee Folklife Demonstration Area: Behind the Scenes in Music City

Manuel Couture

Though Manuel Cuevas was barely out of his teens when he arrived in Los Angeles in 1951, he came armed with years of experience crafting prom dresses in his native Mexico. The man who would go on to become Music City’s most influential clothier sharpened his skills alongside Hollywood’s great costumers, eventually working as head designer at Nudie Cohn’s Rodeo Tailors. Manuel perfected his signature, rhinestone-emblazoned style during this period, creating Johnny Cash’s famous black attire and Elvis Presley’s glittering gold lamé suit. His fingerprints mark many of the era’s most iconic designs, including logos for the Grateful Dead and the Rolling Stones. After operating his own shop in Los Angeles and outfitting countless celebrities, Manuel relocated to Nashville in 1989. He continues to create fine art through his costumes, dressing the biggest names in music and designing for movies and television shows.

Manuel’s sartorial creations will be on display, and Manuel and his family will be on hand to share their knowledge of fine country couture production.

United Record Pressing

African-American musicians traveling in the South in the 1960s faced a hostile environment with limited accommodations, but the “Motown Suite” at Southern Plastics was always ready to house them in comfort and style. The apartment above the vinyl processing factory in downtown Nashville was a haven for icons like the Supremes and Smokey Robinson, as well as the influential African-American music executives who shaped their careers. Southern Plastics also broke boundaries along musical lines, pressing the first Beatles 7-inch single in the United States in 1962 and rising to prominence as the country’s premiere manufacturer of vinyl recordings. Now operating as United Record Pressing, the company occupies the same factory on Chestnut Street as it did decades ago, where vintage equipment operates alongside the original furnishings of the “Motown Suite.” Many folks are surprised to find the vinyl production business thriving, but for musically minded young persons, hipsters, and audiophiles of every generation, the warm sound of a recently cut vinyl record is the sweetest music in the world. United remains the largest vinyl processing facility in the United States, and enjoys a special collaborative relationship with Nashville musicians, notably Jack White, who works with United to produce multi-colored discs in limited pressings that bring high prices and sell quickly.

Visit with United Record Pressing’s skilled technicians, who will offer a behind-the- scenes glimpse into the thriving vinyl production industry.

“We Would Sing to Lift Our Spirits”

Nashville was on fire in 1960: Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge opened its doors for the first time and The Porter Wagoner Show premiered on CBS. Musicians across the city served up hits with a dose of glitz and glamour, sending the Nashville sound riding on airwaves to the far reaches of the country. A struggle was unfolding in Nashville that same year, as students from the city’s four black colleges launched a Sit-In campaign to desegregate lunch counters and other public spaces. The movement came on the heels of the desegregation of the city’s schools in 1957, and the violence of that year was fresh in the students’ minds. Still, fueled by belief and bolstered by music, they persevered.

By this time Freedom Songs had emerged as a key part of the Civil Rights Movement. Some of the best known songs, like “We Shall Overcome” and “I Shall Not Be Moved,” were adapted from traditional slave spirituals designed to unite a community around a common cause. These freedom songs acted as the "work songs" of the movement, serving as a welcome distraction from imminent danger that surrounded protesters, coordinating marches and sit ins. No doubt these songs frustrated strike-breakers when protesters chose music over physical resistance. Students who participated in the Music City Sit-Ins of 1960 sang as they were arrested and clapped in time while taken to jail. While white mobs threatened their lives, the students sang during the Freedom Rides, and sang when they were sent to Mississippi’s infamous Parchman Prison.

The Civil Rights Room of the Nashville Public Library is a space dedicated to preserving Nashville’s role in the Movement, and has a wealth of materials documenting the importance of Freedom Songs.

Modern Entertainer Coaches

Middle Tennessee’s musical ambassadors often take to the road for months at a time, maintaining punishing schedules of concerts, talk shows, and late night television gigs. For those performers who can afford it, a customized entertainer coach is the preferred way to travel. Featuring lavishly finished interiors including marble floors and equipped with flat screen TVs and wireless Internet, these buses function as surrogate homes offering musicians and crewmembers respite from the stresses of the road. Among its other epithets, Nashville is known as the “Entertainer Coach Capital of the USA.”

These rolling domiciles would never leave the lot without the driver, and like stationary homes, a harmonious tour bus must be controlled. The professional bus driver acts as the king of these castles. He is the time keeper, the errand runner, the house cleaner, and the food and drink fetcher. Above all the professional bus driver has the responsibility for getting artists to gigs on time in a safe and secure manner. If one can imagine being responsible for the Rolling Stones or Led Zepplin, or Hank Williams Jr. or George Jones, one might understand the difficulty of keeping these homes in one piece and rolling down the road. Step inside a modern entertainer coach provided by Busforsale.com, and learn about life on the road from a duo of experienced tour bus drivers.

Vintage Recording Equipment – John Baldwin

When the New Yorker Ralph Peer went hunting for talent in 1927, he set Nashville’s future in motion. Peer set up his remote recording equipment outside Bristol, Tennessee, and with the help of Ernest “Pop” Stoneman, Jimmie Rodgers, and the Carter Family, captured the foundational sounds of what became commercial country music. Since then, artists and producers have devoted decades to catching and reproducing music, pushing technological boundaries in order to create new types of sound. Likewise, the technology available at any given moment, from wax cylinders to magnetic tape, hi-fi to digital, has shaped the captured sounds.

Mastering engineer John Baldwin will share his collection of vintage recording equipment and his knowledge of the evolution of recording techniques.

John Wesley Work III: “The Beautiful Music That Surrounds You”

Dr. John Wesley Work III was a most influential composer, educator, and folklorist. He came by his musical passions honestly. Born into a family of legendary scholars, composers, and folk song enthusiasts, his career could not have been more determined. His grandfather, the first John Work, was born a slave but was educated in New Orleans, where he developed an ear for choral music. After emancipation, Work brought his musical knowledge to Nashville, where he wrote and arranged choral pieces and led choirs. John Work II, credited for being one of the earliest and most influential black folk music scholars, attended Fisk University, travelled extensively with the Fisk Jubilee Singers, and was instrumental in developing the Fisk Men’s Quartet.

John Wesley Work III attended Fisk University and completed a Masters Degree at the Institute of Musical Art (now Juilliard School of Music). He taught music theory for many years at Fisk, directed the Fisk Singers, and actively collected black folk songs throughout the south. John Work III championed folk music in every community, treating it with the same respect and rigor as the European classical music he loved. From 1938-1942, Work traveled the south recording discs of folk performers including quartets, work songsters, sacred harp singers and was instrumental in the discovery of Delta bluesmen McKinley Morganfield, aka “Muddy Waters,” David “Honeyboy” Edwards, and “Son” Sims who were documented in the famed Library of Congress- funded, 1942 Coahoma County, Mississippi field study.

This exhibit is provided by the Arts Center of Cannon County located in Woodbury, Tennesee. The Center’s Spring Fed Records produced the Grammy-winning CD, John Work III: Recording Black Culture.

Les Leverett: Opry Photographer

In the days before digital cameras and digital manipulation made it possible for every amateur photographer to create the perfect image, photographers wheedled and wound their bodies into positions that offered them opportunity to secure “the shot.” Bound by the 36 exposures on a single role of film, photographers had to be quick and surefooted to capture their images. For 32 years, from 1960 to 1992, Les Leverett had a photographers’s “dream job” as official photographer of the Grand Ole Opry providing him with the unique opportunity to capture both public and private moments of the country music elite. During his long career, Leverett witnessed monumental shifts in the business as Gibson jumbos were replaced by Telecasters, the Opry moved out of its longtime home at the Ryman Auditorium, and early Opry stars like Roy Acuff and Sam and Kirk McGee gave way to outlaws and highwaymen. Displaying a passion for the music and a strong connection with the performers, Leverett’s images welcome the viewer to share the drama of the stage, the spectacle of country music, and private moments behind the scenes at Tennessee’s most famous music showcase. His work constitutes an outstanding personal archive documenting the heyday of the country music business.

Katy K’s Ranch Dressing

Katy K’s Ranch Dressing is a Nashville institution. Located in the 12th South neighborhood, her unassuming stone shop houses countless signed publicity photos, posters, and albums. The sounds of vintage country music float throughout the store, and individual rooms highlight different eras of style -- from vintage to western to boudoir wear. Katy K started in fashion in New York City, designing pieces for Cyndi Lauper and New Kids on the Block in the 1980s. Drawing inspiration from the creations of celebrated country couture tailors Nudie Cohn and Manuel Cuevas, and from the album covers of Dolly Parton and Kitty Wells, Katy relocated to Nashville and built a booming business serving a diverse clientele, among them: Porter Wagoner, Trisha Yearwood, Loretta Lynn, Hank Williams Jr., Robert Plant, Jack White, Chelsea Clinton, and Paul “Pee Wee Herman” Rubens.
Tourists from around the world show up daily at Ranch Dressing to pay their respects, drink in the ambiance, and drop some cash. K designs ornate western shirts, vintage-styled clothing, and rhinestones her tailored pieces with abandon. Katy K even has her own western swing themed jingle: “I was looking in my closet, feeling kind of blue/Call Katy K, she’ll know what to do! /Katy K, Ranch Dressing!/Katy K, you look smashing!/Katy K, that’s fashion!”

Hatch Show Print: A Great American Poster Shop

"Advertising without posters is like fishing without worms." The Hatch Bros
Hatch Show Print is a letterpress print shop that has been making “Show Posters” in Nashville since 1879. Operated by the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum since 1986 and owned by that organization since 1992, Hatch is still an active business, printing and designing posters that are distinctive and eye-catching. The shop’s style is the happy result of old technology – pressing hand-inked, hand-carved wood blocks, type, and metal plates onto paper – and the artistic flair and talent of Hatch’s craftsmen and women. Their work reveals an obvious passion for creating bold, colorful posters encompassing the entire spectrum of southern entertainment: sports, vaudeville minstrel shows, circuses, carnivals, movies, and country music.

Harmony and Discord: Music of the Civil War

Music was a powerful force during the Civil War: both North and South used music as a call to arms, expressing ideals, commemorating leaders, adding levity, and providing solace. Certain songs are forever linked with one side or the other, as they provided a way for people to define themselves and create sectional enthusiasm and pride. Among the North’s great patriotic rallying songs were Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and George F. Root’s “Battle Cry of Freedom,” while the South countered with Dan Emmett’s “Dixie’s Land” and “The Bonnie Blue Flag,” the “national anthem of the Confederacy.” These and hundreds of other war-related songs were heard in parlors, in concert halls, at rallies, in camp, and on battlefields. Singing of glory and pain, hope and despair, longing and triumph, this music constitutes a cultural heritage that resonates yet today.

The music publishing industry matured during the war years, leaving a rich record of sheet music, songsters, broadsides, and song books. This exhibit will compare and contrast popular music of the North and South during the war, with a special focus on how the conflict in Tennessee was expressed in song.

These exhibit materials are drawn from the collections of the Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University.

Martha White Bluegrass Bus Museum

The publicity photos of bluegrass superstars Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs with their Foggy Mountain Boys standing in front of their Martha White Flour touring bus burned a vivid image in the young mind of Don Clark. In 1987, Clark purchased a 1955 Flixible bus from a feed and tackle shop in Baldwin, California, and set about creating a period replica restoration of the travelling home of the Foggy Mountain Boys during the first decades of bluegrass. In addition to his eye for faithful recreation, Clark brought a fan’s passion and collector’s zeal to the project, eventually filling every inch of the bus’ interior with memorabilia.

Over the years Clark collected publicity photos, country music ephemera, and priceless autographs on the passenger panel of the “Biscuit Bus” front door - the first signatures being those of Bill Monroe and his son James. The bus also contains hundreds of autographed personal items from bluegrass and country music legends. Make sure you see the vintage clothing worn by Ralph Stanley and Johnny Cash, “The Man in Black,” as well as the promotional book of Bill Monroe matches.
For nearly a quarter of a century, the Bluegrass Bus Museum has travelled across the country to countless festivals, entertaining thousands of fans. Among those who have paid their respects with visits to the museum are Earl Scruggs, Marty Stuart, Ricky Skaggs, Grandpa Jones, and Dwight Yoakam.

Roy Harper: Musical Dinosaur

As a boy in Coffee County, Roy Harper (b. 1925) was struck by the lure of the railroad and the yodeling songs of Jimmie Rodgers, “The Singing Brakeman.” He started gaining firsthand experience with both before he was twenty, working railroad jobs in several parts of the country while also performing as an itinerant musician. During stints in Manchester, Tennessee, in the later 1940s and 50s, he became known throughout the region for his partnership with Blake Bynum in the Sand Mountain Boys. During the 1960s he began recording his huge repertory of both “blue yodels” and sentimental songs, and he also made a reputation for himself as a self-taught painter of railroad scenes from his own experience. Harper performed in the Tennessee program at the 1986 Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife and continues to maintain an active touring schedule at regional festivals and heritage music programs, where he is without peer in preserving the songs and vocal stylings of early country music.

In the 1980s Roy Harper began a second, self-taught artistic career. His daughter's gift of an oil paint set revived his earlier interest in visual art, which he pursued with the same perfectionism and subject matter as his music. Roy has since completed over 400 canvases, most of meticulously detailed train scenes. Each depicts a specific engine, train and general landscape, if not any particular section of track he remembers from his career as a brakeman. As he says, "I live my railroad past with a paintbrush."

Photo and text by Dr. Robert Cogswell, Tennessee Arts Commission

Packy Smith: Singing Cowboys and B-Western Movie Memorabilia

Packy Smith has been researching and writing about country music and Western movies for nearly 50 years. As a writer/editor/publisher he has been responsible for such diverse works as Don Miller’s Hollywood Corral, Filming the West of Zane Grey, Thirty Years on the Road with Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy: From the Page to the Screen, and John Frankenhiemer: A Conversation. He was a producer of the television series Happy Trails Theater With Roy Rogers and Dale Evans and Melody Ranch Theater With Gene Autry and Pat Buttram for TNN, as well as Winning the West Week By Week for PBS. Smith has worked with Bear Family Records researching and producing boxes featuring the complete work of Tex Ritter, Gene Autry, Wesley Tuttle, The Sons of the Pioneers and other Western singers. In 1972 he was one of the founders of the Memphis Film Festival and has been the Film Director of the Lone Pine Film Festival for 22 years. He is currently researching for a biography of Country Music Hall of Fame singer Tex Ritter.

Visit with Packy as he shares his extensive collection of Singing Cowboy memorabilia and B-western ephemera, including posters, promotional photos, and video clips.

Edison Cylinders: Music for the Masses

What would your voice have sounded like on a cylinder recording made 110 years ago? Come meet Martin Fischer, Audio Archivist for the Center for Popular Music, Middle Tennessee State University, to find out. Martin will record you – talking, singing ¬or whatever you like ¬– on a vintage Edison cylinder phonograph and play it back for you to hear, as you learn first-hand how early recordings were made.
The basis for all recorded music we listen to today began with Thomas Alva Edison's invention of the phonograph in 1877. Edison's original invention allowed its user to both record and playback sound from a sheet of tinfoil wrapped around a cylindrical drum. The phonograph (literally sound writing) utilized a stylus attached to a diaphragm, which indented sound vibrations into the tinfoil. In 1888 Edison greatly improved the process, replacing the fragile, short-lived tinfoil media with a more durable tapered bore cylinder made of a wax-like metallic soap compound. The stylus now incised the cylinder’s surface, creating a groove with sound vibrations on the bottom. The cylinder flourished until around 1915, when it began to be replaced by the flat disc record.

Luthiers: Creators of Sound
As both master craftsmen and caretakers, luthiers build, restore, and maintain stringed instruments like guitars, banjos, violins, and mandolins. Their job combines a delicate balance of design and attention to detail in a quest for perfect tonality and playability. In addition, luthiers must deal with the high expectations of demanding customers.

Instrument making is complex and exacting work. Luthiers bend and join the sides of the instrument, add interior bracing for strength, cut the dovetail neck joint, carve the neck, construct the fretboard, and create the intricate ornamental inlay on fretboards and pegheads that serve as a signature of the maker (and bragging rights for the owners). These and scores of other delicate tasks must be mastered. The National Folk Festival is proud to offer a closer look at the skilled work of dedicated instrument makers, whose love of music outweighs all.

Dan Knowles
Dan Knowles, the celebrated 2003 National Old Time Banjo Winner, is also an expert luthier. Known throughout the instrument-making world for his intricate inlay work, Knowles brings the same care and precision to his inlay work as he does to his claw hammer banjo playing. Visit with Knowles as he works on a variety of acoustic instruments, and shows off some of his meticulous, beautiful fretwork.

Brian Christianson
Brian Christianson channels his love of acoustic music into every aspect of fiddle repair. He apprenticed under luthier Fred Carpenter at Nashville’s Violin Shop after he earned his degree in Stringed Instrument Repair from Minnesota State Technical. His work is in demand throughout Music City, and professional musicians line up outside his cozy East Nashville shop to leave their instruments in his capable hands. Christianson also plays with Mike Snider in his old-time string band.

Geoff Roehm
Geoff Roehm has worked as a luthier for over forty years. He apprenticed with David Caron, a viola maker, where he learned the basics of working on a variety of stringed instruments. Roehm also apprenticed with Mike Longworth, the original author of the history of Martin Guitars. Longworth is also credited with reviving the Martin D-45, a favorite of traditional guitarists. These days he loves working on ukeleles in his workshop on beautiful Monteagle Mountain in Grundy County, Tennessee, while also working as a finisher for War Trace's famous Gallagher Guitars.

Richard Starkey
Master picker and authorized C.F. Martin repairman Richard Starkey has been actively involved with stringed instrument making and repair for more than 25 years. Starkey can answer just about any question posed on the history, construction and sound of the "C.F. Martin" guitar. Bring your acoustic guitar to the festival and Richard will put on a new set of Martin Lifespan strings for FREE. While you are there, you can take the “Great Martin String Challenge” to win even more Martin gear.

Tim May
Tim May is a master guitarist, mandolin player, instrument repairman and luthier. He has done violin and fretted instrument repair for the Violin Shop in Nashville since 2000, as well as free-lance repair for Gruhn Guitars and others. For the past 20 years he has built flat-top and archtop acoustic guitars, violas, mandolins and resophonic guitars.

Andy Smith
Andy Smith is a master restorer of guitars who trained at the Roberto-Venn School of Luthery in Phoenix, AZ. He started playing music at age 13, and was a member of of the award-winning old-time string band, the Stillhouse Reelers for 10 years. Smith worked at Gruhn's Guitars from 1980-1985 and now works at Cotten Music Center in Nashville’s Hillsborough Village. Smith still plays old-time music when he gets an opportunity.

The Arts Center of Cannon County
Woodbury, TN

The award winning Arts Center of Cannon County is a unique model for rural arts organizations. The Arts Center’s programming includes an award winning regional theater, concert series, Grammy winning record label, arts education programs, Cannon Cultural Museum, two gallery spaces and the annual White Oak Craft Fair. Situated in rural Woodbury, Tennessee, the Arts Center’s programming has something for everyone.

Tennessee Folklore Society
Woodbury, TN

The Tennessee Folklore Society was formed in 1934, when famed folksong scholar John Lomax pointed out to his friend J.A. Rickard that parts of Tennessee "were the richest in folklore of any portion of the United States." Many of Tennessee’s finest folk and traditional musicians can be heard on TFS’s records and now in its sixth decade of publication, the Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletin is the oldest continuously published regional folklore journal in the nation.

The National Folk Festival

Nashville, TN September 2-4, 2011 | FREE ADMISSION

Tennessee Folklife

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