Here at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum, we can’t sing the praises of teachers high enough – we love working with them and finding new ways to connect with teachers and their students. Teachers do too many amazing things for us to list them all. However, we are going to share our top six reasons why teachers ROCK, and because we are a music museum, we are using the guitar – a fundamental instrument of country music – and its six guitar string notes, listed from the bottom string up, as our inspiration: E B G D A E!

Graphic of a guitar neck with the strings labelled bottom to top as EBGDAE/123456. © KidsGuitarWorld.com

E String

Being a teacher is hard, but despite the challenges faced, teachers strive to encourage and excite their students to learn, think critically, and explore the world around them every single day. We often see the evidence of this with the student who come through our doors – many of them have learned about early country music or local history or technology in their classrooms already, priming them for a more meaningful experience and providing us with a lot of great questions and observations as we share the museum with them.

B String

And this leads to the tangible outcome of this prep – when teachers bring students to the museum. We are so grateful for the school field trips that are scheduled at the museum, and we’ve seen the number of these tours continually grow since we opened in 2014. Some teachers and students are coming for the first time; other educators bring their classes year-after-year. They come from our local Bristol, TN/VA schools, the Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia region, and even further afield, including schools in Georgia, Northern Virginia, and Iowa!

Not only do teachers bring students to visit the museum, but they also put a lot of effort into the planning of and during these field trips, which always makes the experience better for all of us.

A student group is introduced to the museum and the orientation film by docent Richard Horner. © Birthplace of Country Music

G String

We are also lucky to get useful guidance from teachers. Through school tour surveys, teacher in-service workshops, and one-on-one conversations, educators provide us with amazing feedback that help us to improve our programs for students and teachers alike. In 2020 and 2021, we worked with a focus group of teachers from the Bristol, TN/VA public schools to hear about their ideas, suggestions, wants, and needs for our museum-based lesson plan project, and we also had our first teacher intern who helped us on the project and to deliver two impactful in-service workshops for K-12 educators. The insights we gained from this experience were invaluable!

D String

The teachers we partner with strive to develop creative and interesting ways to engage their students with the museum and its content. We’ve had so many positive experiences working with different classes and learning groups – from the YWCA TechGYRLS production of a radio show to mark the Smithsonian’s Museum Day Live! event; the fun activities we’ve done with the Virginia Middle School after-school club (including square dancing, the science of sound, and an upcoming instrument petting zoo); the class that had been immersed in Johnny Cash’s music before our Johnny Cash/Folsom Prison special exhibit in 2022; and talking to a high school class about the things that go into curating a small exhibit, how to write museum labels, and ways to engage people with their own content.

Left: The YWCA TechGRYLS pose with the notice of their radio show in the museum lobby. Right: A group of students honor the “man in black” by wearing all black when visiting 1968: A Folsom Redemption in 2022. © Birthplace of Country Music

A String

As we said earlier, being a teacher is a hard job. But the teachers we know are amazing advocates for their students and for the joy of learning. And they are ALWAYS doing so much to support their students, to help them thrive, to be a positive person in their life, and so much more.

And they also advocate for us – by bringing their classes to the museum, by sharing events and other opportunities we offer to students and their families, and by letting our community know that the museum is an important educational asset.

E String

Finally, the teachers who visit the museum  encourage smiles and laughs from their students throughout their time with us. They play Banjo Bingo; they sing along in the karaoke booth; they give a whole host of answers to one of our favorite questions: how many grooves are on a record?; they dance in the Immersion Theater; and so much more. They show the kids that you can learn AND have fun at the same time!

Sullins Academy teachers and students took part in a vehicle-building exercise as part of the Things Come Apart special exhibit at the museum in 2017. © Birthplace of Country Music

Rene Rodgers is the Head Curator of the Birthplace of Country Music Museum and oversees its educational programming. She loves teachers!

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This month’s book is The Star Fisher by Laurence Yep, a book featured in Reading Appalachia: Voices from Children’s Literature, a special exhibit that was on display at the museum in 2019. Based on Yep’s mother’s childhood, The Star Fisher tells the story of 15-year-old Joan Lee, a Chinese-American girl who moves to West Virginia from Ohio in 1927. Joan and her siblings speak English but her parents only speak Chinese, and while she knows that they are all Americans, no one else seems to see her and her family that way. As they struggle to put down roots in their new town and run their laundry business, Joan encounters prejudice and racism but also kindness. Amidst these experiences, Joan believes that her desire for respect and acceptance mirrors the Chinese legend of the star fisher, a half-bird/half-human creature that sees with two sets of eyes – and so Joan sees life as an Asian and as an American. Aimed at upper elementary and lower middle school readers, this book wonderfully explores the story of an Asian American’s experience and the importance of treating everyone with empathy and respect.

Born in San Francisco in 1948, Laurence Yep published his first story – a science fiction piece – when he was only 18 years old. Yep has said that he often felt torn between mainstream American culture and his Chinese roots when he was growing up, and this theme has often come to fore in his writing throughout his career. Focused on children’s literature, Yep has written over 70 books and other works, including two Newbery Award winners in his Golden Mountain series. The Star Fisher was published in 1991 and was followed by a sequel called Dream Soul in 2000.

Portrait of Laurence Yep from a 2001 article in the Seattle PI. 

Please make plans to join us on Thursday, December 22 at 12:00pm for our discussion of The Star Fisher. You can find us on the dial at 100.1 FM, streaming live on Radio Bristol, or via the Radio Bristol app. The book is available at the Bristol Public Library, so be sure to pick up a copy and read it ahead of time – the librarians will be happy to help you find it! We look forward to exploring this book on-air, and if you have thoughts or questions about the book that you would like to share with our readers, you can email ebarker@birthplaceofcountrymusic.org (Subject line: Radio Bristol Book Club) – your book insights might appear on air with us!

Looking ahead: Our book pick for January 2023 is Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America by Beth Macy; we’ll be discussing it on Thursday, January 26. Check out a full list of the books we will read in 2023 here, where you can also listen to archived shows.

Rene Rodgers is Head Curator at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum and an avid reader.

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For those who don’t know, the Birthplace of Country Music Museum is a Smithsonian Affiliate museum, and so that connection inspired our July book club pick: The Lost World of James Smithson: Science, Revolution, and the Birth of the Smithsonian by Heather Ewing. British scientist James Smithson (1765–1829) left his estate to the United States to found “at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.” Congress authorized acceptance of the Smithson bequest on July 1, 1836, and ten years later the Smithsonian was officially founded. Drawing on unpublished letters and diaries from archives across Europe and the United States – including the entirety of the Smithsonian’s archive – Heather Ewing paints an in-depth and fascinating portrait of James Smithson. His compelling story takes us from his complicated beginnings as the illegitimate son of the first Duke of Northumberland to his career in science, the closest thing the 18th century had to a meritocracy. Against a backdrop of war and revolution, Smithson and his friends, who included many of the most famous scientists of the age, burst through boundaries at every turn, defying gravity in the first hot air balloons, upending the biblical timeline with their geological finds, and exploring the realm of the invisible with the discovery of new gases. This book presents readers with a wonderful journey through science, ambition, and philanthropic vision, resulting in the largest museum and research complex in the world!

Heather Ewing is a graduate of Yale University and the Courtauld Institute of Art. She is an architectural historian who has worked for the Smithsonian and the Ringling Museum of Art. She lives in New York.

Please make plans to join us on Thursday, July 28 at 12:00pm for the discussion of The Lost World of James Smithson: Science, Revolution, and the Birth of the Smithsonian. You can find us on the dial at 100.1 FM, streaming live on Radio Bristol, or via the Radio Bristol app. The book is available at the Bristol Public Library, so be sure to pick up a copy and read it ahead of time. The librarians will be happy to help you find the book. We look forward to exploring this book on-air, and if you have thoughts or questions about the book that you would like to share with our readers, you can email info@birthplaceofcountrymusic.org (Subject line: Radio Bristol Book Club) – your book insights might appear on air with us!

Looking ahead: Our book pick for August is The Thread That Runs So True by Jesse Stuart; we’ll be discussing it on Thursday, August 25. Check out our full list of 2022 Radio Bristol Book Club picks HERE, where you can also listen to archived shows!

* The featured image above is the original Smithsonian Institution building, Washington, D.C. in 1864. Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs. http://lccn.loc.gov/2017659613

Rene Rodgers is Head Curator at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum and an obsessive reader!

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First, can you tell us about Blind Alfred Reed?

Sure, I love to talk about him! Blind Alfred Reed was born in Floyd, Virginia, on June 15, 1880, though he spent most of his life in West Virginia, especially around the Princeton area. He was born blind, possibly using a slate and stylus to help him with writing, and he learned how to play the fiddle at a young age.

He was well-known in his area as a talented fiddler and songwriter, and his family remembers him as a multi-instrumentalist who might have also played banjo, guitar, mandolin, and even the organ! Alfred played music anywhere he could – churches, parties, night clubs, political rallies, and dances, and he recorded twice with Victor Talking Machine Company. He gave music lessons and wrote his own compositions, often selling broadsides of his songs.

As with many people during the 1920s and 1930s, Alfred relied on his garden and subsistence farming to help support his family. He also worked as a Methodist lay preacher – he didn’t have his own church, and often preached on street corners instead. Alfred passed away on January 17, 1956.

How did Blind Alfred Reed’s blindness affect his daily life and his musicianship?

Alfred and his sister were both blind from birth, and because they had grown up blind, they had a whole host of different tricks to help them negotiate daily life – from loudly ticking clocks, a wire leading from the house’s door to the outhouse, and memorizing the number of steps it took from different places in the house. Alfred also learned New York Point and American Braille, both tactile reading and writing systems for the blind.

As for music, Alfred’s blindness didn’t hamper his playing and performing. In fact, playing me brought him a lot of pleasure each and every day! He often busked on the streets of Princeton, walking three miles between our home and the city. However, a 1937 statute in the area where he lived banned blind street musicians, and this took away some of our musical money-making opportunities.

Where did Blind Alfred Reed get you?

I have a label inside of me that notes the name Giovanni Maggini and the date 1695, and for a while, Alfred’s family though that I was made by an Italian luthier way back in the past. However, Giovanni Maggini actually died in 1630 so that turned out to not be correct!

A New York violin dealer and restorer took a look at me and determined that I am a commercial instrument, possible advertised and sold through a mail-order company like Sears Roebuck or even from a local music store. Commercial instruments were often made “in the style” of famous instrument makers and so will bear a label inside to reflect that. Alfred owned me by around 1905—1910 so I am probably not much older than that.

 Were you part of the 1927 Bristol Sessions?

I certainly was! Ralph Peer personally invited Alfred and me to record at the 1927 Bristol Sessions, and Alfred’s son Arville brought us down from West Virginia to do so. Apparently Ernest “Pop” Stoneman told Mr. Peer about us and the regional popularity of “The Wreck of the Virginian,” a song Alfred wrote about a train wreck that occurred in May 1927. This song was one of the biggest sellers from the 1927 Bristol Sessions.

Besides his train wreck song, Alfred recorded three others at the 1927 Bristol Sessions – “I Mean to Live for Jesus,” “You Must Unload,” and “Walking in the Way with Jesus.” Soon after, he recorded several more songs for Peer and Victor in 1928 and 1929 for a total of 21 sides

In 2016, I traveled to Bristol for the first time since the 1927 Bristol Sessions to celebrate the publication of Blind Alfred Reed: Appalachian Visionary, a book and CD set.

Where else were you played?

As I noted above, a lot of our music-making together was at local events and through street busking. Mr. Peer did invite us – along with Alfred’s son Arville – to record several more songs in 1929 at the official Victor studios up in Camden, New Jersey and New York City. Sadly, after that recording session in December 1929, we didn’t record again, though Alfred kept playing music locally.

Looking back, Alfred probably would’ve been a more popular singer if the Great Depression hadn’t hit – not only did this affect the commercial viability of the music recording industry at this time, but Arville also went off to World War II and so Alfred didn’t really have the opportunity to travel to sing.

However, Alfred has been recognized for his contributions to music since his death. For instance, he was inducted into the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame in 2007.

Did Blind Alfred Reed have a favorite song he played on you?

Alfred didn’t necessarily have a favorite fiddle tune, but he sure loved to play me and he loved writing his own songs. Everything he wrote about was real, based in life’s trials and tribulations, its moments of happiness and sad times. He’s get his ideas from a lot of different sources – through the newspaper stories his wife read to him, by listening to the radio, family and friends telling him the news and local stories, and by reading his Braille Bible.

Alfred has a lot of songs that are recognized as important or particularly interesting songs, and he certainly used music to say something. For instance, his song “How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?” outlines the challenges of those living in poverty and thus was especially appropriate to the hard times of the Great Depression. This song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2020. Several of Alfred’s songs were aimed at social ills and other issues he saw as problematic in the 1920s – such as “Money Cravin’ Folks,” “The Prayer of the Drunkard’s Little Girl,” and “Explosion in the Fairmount Mines,” – and because of this socio-political commentary, Alfred is considered one of the early protest singers of the 20th century. However, he also injected some humor into his musical observations – his song “Why Do You Bob Your Hair, Girls?” made a to-do of women’s short hair styles in the 1920s, telling them to ask Jesus for forgiveness!

Despite his recognition as a skilled fiddler and talented songwriter though, Alfred often got his greatest pleasure later in life playing music for his grandkids and hearing them dance around and enjoy his music.

What are you doing now?

Alfred’s family values me and my connection to Alfred and his place in the history of early commercial country music. And so I still live with his grandson, another great musician!

Finally, what’s the difference between a violin and a fiddle?

Oh, this is a good one! The difference between a violin and a fiddle is that one of them has strings and the other one has strangs!

* Dr. Rene Rodgers is the Head Curator of the Museum. Special thanks to Denny Reed and Jane Thompson for their time and stories to help make this “Instrument Interview” possible!

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Our June book club pick is Crooked Hallelujah by Kelli Jo Ford. A saga about family, the bonds between women, and surviving in a world filled with challenges and dangers, Crooked Hallelujah tells the stories of Justine – a mixed-blood Cherokee woman – and her daughter, Reney, as they move from Eastern Oklahoma’s Indian Country in the hopes of starting a new, more stable life in Texas amid the oil bust of the 1980s. Justine’s mother Lula and her Granny were powerful forces in her life, and leaving them and the home she’s always known behind is hard. Throughout the book, Kelli Jo Ford explores the mother-daughter bond and the ways that this family sacrifices much for those they love, amid the larger forces of history, religion, class, and culture.

Courtesy of Grove Atlantic

Kelli Jo Ford is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. Crooked Hallelujah, her debut novel-in-stories, was longlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel, The Story Prize, the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, The Dublin Literary Award, and The Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize. She is the recipient of an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship, The Paris Review’s Plimpton Prize, a Native Arts & Cultures Foundation National Artist Fellowship, an Elizabeth George Foundation Grant, and a Dobie Paisano Fellowship. She teaches writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts.

Courtesy of Grove Atlantic, © Val Ford Hancock

Please make plans to join us on Thursday, June 23 at 12:00pm for the discussion of Crooked Hallelujah. You can find us on the dial at 100.1 FM, streaming live on Radio Bristol, or via the Radio Bristol app. The book is available at the Bristol Public Library, so be sure to pick up a copy and read it ahead of time. The librarians will be happy to help you find the book. We look forward to exploring this book on-air, and if you have thoughts or questions about the book that you would like to share with our readers, you can email info@birthplaceofcountrymusic.org (Subject line: Radio Bristol Book Club) – your book insights might appear on air with us!

Looking ahead: Our book pick for July is The Lost World of James Smithson: Science, Revolution, and the Birth of the Smithsonian by Heather Ewing; we’ll be discussing it on Thursday, July 28. Check out our full list of 2022 Radio Bristol Book Club picks here, where you can also listen to archived shows!

Rene Rodgers is Head Curator at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum and an obsessive reader!

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Our April book club pick is What You Are Getting Wrong about Appalachia by Elizabeth Catte. While the book is only 146 pages, it packs in a lot of history, culture, and analysis into its examination of Appalachia and the too-frequent stereotypes or perceptions of this region. Appalachia covers over 700,000 square miles, with counties in 13 states from Alabama to New York. Despite this huge area and the widely different characteristics and peoples who live and work here, Appalachia has too often been viewed over the years as a monolithic region and described predominantly with words like backwards, poor, white, uneducated, rural, isolated, etc. A lot of those perceptions were strengthened by J. D. Vance’s popular book (and now a movie) Hillbilly Elegy, published in 2016. Catte knows a different Appalachia – and her book is a powerful answer to the caricatures and assumptions made about the region as she explores its diverse peoples and voices and why stereotypes about Appalachia have been embraced.

 Elizabeth Catte is a writer and historian from East Tennessee. She writes about history, politics, and culture, and her work has appeared in the Guardian, the Washington Post, Guernica, The Nation, McSweeney’s, In These Times, the Boston Review, Gravy, and has been reviewed in The New York Times, Bookforum, New York Review of Books, and the Los Angeles Times. Currently she is an editor-at-large for West Virginia University Press and the co-founder of Passel, an applied history firm. She has a PhD in public history from Middle Tennessee State University and uses her master’s degree in museum studies to curate a website dedicated to food eaten on King of the Hill called Pork Chop Night. She also serves on the board of the Appalachian African-American Cultural Center in Pennington Gap, Virginia.

Author Elizabeth Catte.

 Please make plans to join us on Thursday, April 28 at 12:00pm for the discussion of What You Are Getting Wrong about Appalachia. You can find us on the dial at 100.1 FM, streaming live on Radio Bristol, or via the Radio Bristol app. The book is available at the Bristol Public Library, so be sure to pick up a copy and read it ahead of time. The librarians will be happy to help you find the book. We look forward to exploring this book on-air, and if you have thoughts or questions about the book that you would like to share with our readers, you can email info@birthplaceofcountrymusic.org (Subject line: Radio Bristol Book Club) – your book insights might appear on air with us!

Looking ahead: Our book pick for May is My Old True Love by Sheila Kay Adams; we’ll be discussing it on Thursday, May 26. Check out our full list of 2022 Radio Bristol Book Club picks here, where you can also listen to archived shows!

René Rodgers is head curator at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum and an avid reader.

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This month we are reading Come Sing, Jimmy Jo, a children’s book by Katherine Paterson. The story follows James Johnson as he sings and plays the music he loves. But approaching fame as the centerpiece of his family’s band on television – and the change of his performing name to Jimmy Jo – bring mixed feelings and anxiety. Jimmy Jo isn’t sure that this new music is for him, and he’s sad to leave his mountain home to be on stage. How does he reconcile these feelings and responsibilities with the music that is a part of him and with still being just a kid? Aimed at children 10 years and up, this book makes for a great story for adults too!

Katherine Paterson’s website shares this beloved author’s many achievements and accolades, but for many of us, the Paterson book that had the most impact on us is the wonderful but cry-inducing Bridge to Terabithia. However, she has written a multitude of books – more than 40, in fact, including 18 novels for children and young people. She has twice won the Newbery Medal, for Bridge to Terabithia in 1978 and Jacob Have I Loved in 1981. The Master Puppeteer won the National Book Award in 1977 and The Great Gilly Hopkins won the National Book Award in 1979 and was also a Newbery Honor Book. For the body of her work, she received the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1998, the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in 2006, and in 2000 was named a Living Legend by the Library of Congress.

Not only is she a prolific author, but she also gives her time and passion to children’s literature and reading. She is a vice-president of the National Children’s Book and Literacy Alliance and is a member of the board of trustees for Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is also a honorary lifetime member of the International Board of Books for Young People and an Alida Cutts lifetime member of the US section, USBBY. She was the 2010-2011 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature.

Author Katherine Paterson.

Please make plans to join us on Thursday, February 24 at 12:00pm for the discussion of Come Sing, Jimmy Jo by Katherine Paterson, followed by a conversation with the author! The book is available at the Bristol Public Library, so be sure to pick up a copy and read it ahead of time. We look forward to exploring this book on-air, and if you have thoughts or questions about the book that you would like to share with our readers, you can email info@birthplaceofcountrymusic.org (Subject line: Radio Bristol Book Club) – your book insights might appear on air with us! You can find us on the dial at 100.1 FM, streaming live on Radio Bristol, or via the Radio Bristol app.

Looking ahead: Our book pick for March is LGBTQ: Fiction and Poetry from Appalachia by Jeff Mann; we’ll be discussing it on Thursday, March 24. Check out our full list of 2022 Radio Bristol Book Club picks here, where you can also listen to archived shows!

Rene Rodgers is Head Curator of the Birthplace of Country Music Museum and a voracious reader.

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Our current special exhibit – The Way We Worked, here at the museum from the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service for just a few more days! – inspired the curatorial team to explore the connections between work and music, and in the process gave us a really wonderful playlist of labor-related songs. Check out some of these connections with the songs below and dig a bit deeper into this history with us!

The Way We Worked on display in the museum’s Special Exhibits Gallery. © Birthplace of Country Music Museum

Songs that reflect different forms of labor or jobs are common in early hillbilly music, as well as in contemporary country. The songs are often particular to the time period in which they were written or look back on the past with nostalgia. Several different types of labor are commonly reflected in hillbilly music – especially farming, timber and lumber work, coal mining, and work on the railways – and those themes are also found in later country music.

Farming

At the turn of the 20th century, almost half of all Americans lived on farms. Farm work and a rural lifestyle was a major part of their lives, though farming for subsistence or profit was – and still is – difficult and uncertain. Artists like Ernest Stoneman sang about that uncertainty. For instance, his 1934 recording “All I Got’s Gone” reflected the impact of the Great Depression on rural people who had bought more than they could afford before it hit, only to lose everything once the stock market crashed so that they had to go back to subsistence farming or survive without much else to support them.

Other songs of the era focused on both the importance and the precariousness of the farming life, songs like Fiddlin’ John Carson’s “The Farmer is the Man (That Feeds Them All)” (1924) and “The Honest Farmer” (1925). Carson’s 1924 recording was later taken up and sung by Pete Seeger as a protest song. One of The Carter Family’s songs – “The Homestead on the Farm” (1929) – is told from the perspective on a man who has left his family farm behind to make his way in the world and remembers it fondly with lyrics like “You could hear the cattle lowing in the lane / You could almost see the fields of bluegrass green.”  Many modern country songs hearken back to the farming days with nostalgia and also celebrate the work that farmers do – for example, “International Harvester” by Craig Morgan (2006) and even “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy” by Kenny Chesney (1999)!

Timber

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, abundant and rich natural resources, coupled with low land costs, made Appalachia the site of a major boom in the logging industry. This brought huge changes in land ownership and usage – with land being taken over by outside investors and corporations – and often had devastating environmental and social effects on the region. And it wasn’t just the Appalachians that saw the growth of timber work; other areas of the country (and beyond) have a similar history, and as with farming, songs were sung about this common labor. For instance, the lyrics to “Once More a-Lumbering Go” was written down by a New England lumberman named John Springer in the 1850s, and several versions of the song were later recorded in the field by song collectors and ethnomusicologists. Smithsonian Folkways produced an album in 1961 called Lumbering Songs from the Ontario Shanties, and the library at the University of Wisconsin-Madison created a K-12 lesson plan about Wisconsin’s lumberjack songs. Later artists have also recorded songs about the timber industry, including Johnny Cash’s “The Timber Man” from his 1975 children’s album and Bill Stains with “The Logging Song” (1979).

Coal Mining

Coal mining has been a major part of Appalachian communities for over a century and holds a special place in the economic and environmental history of this region. Therefore, it is only natural that working in coalfields and living in coal towns has provided a source of musical inspiration for many, including songs about the hazards and dangers of this labor and the conflicts between workers and the coal companies that employed them. Blind Alfred Reed’s “Explosion in the Fairmount Mines” (1928) and Hazel Dickens’ “Black Lung” both highlight the very real dangers miners faced, both deep in the mines and after they’ve left them behind.

One of our favorite songs about coal mining is “Sixteen Tons,” written by Merle Travis and recorded by Bristol’s very own Tennessee Ernie Ford in 1955, along with a host of other artists over the years. Travis’s lyrics reflected the bravado of the men who toiled underground in dangerous conditions and then later sometimes came to blows in their down time, but most importantly it also focused on the struggles that miners and their families faced living in a company town and owing their bosses their wages to survive. With lines like “You load sixteen tons, what do you get / Another day older and deeper in debt” and “I owe my soul to the company store,” those economic hardships certainly become clear to the listener. Songs like Florence Reece’s “Which Side Are You On?” Joe Hill’s,” Hazel Dickens’ “They’ll Never Keep Us Down,” and numerous songs about union activist Joe Hill underline the struggle workers’ too often faced for safe working conditions and livable wages.

Railroads

Railroads were also a major industry – and hugely important to the transportation of resources like timber and coal – in the United States in the mid- to late-19th century and early 20th century, and large numbers of Americans worked for the railroad. Train songs were particularly popular in the early 20th century and covered a wide variety of subjects, including railroad construction and changing technology (for example, various songs about John Henry, the “steel-driving man”), rail travel, train bandits, the wandering hobo living life on the rails (Jimmy Rodgers’ “Waiting for a Train,” 1929), and even as a spiritual metaphor within sacred and gospel music (The Carter Family’s “The Little Black Train,” 1937). And sometimes songs turn the usual story on its head – for example, Amythyst Kiah recently recorded “Polly Ann’s Hammer,” a song based on the John Henry tale, though this time told from the perspective of Henry’s wife.

However, railway songs very often focused on train wrecks – an all-too-frequent danger of the early railroading years. Some lamented passengers who lost their lives, but most of them memorialized the crewmen killed in the line of duty on the rails, along with celebrating their heroism. Songs like Henry Whitter’s “Wreck of the Old 97” (1923), Blind Alfred Reed’s “The Wreck of the Virginian” and Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Baker’s “The Newmarket Wreck,” both recorded at the 1927 Bristol Sessions, and “Engine 143” by the Carter Family (1929) share the news of these tragedies in chorus and verse form. Later artists hearken back to these days in song too – for example, “The Great Nashville Railroad Disaster (A True Story),” recorded by David Allan Coe in 1980.

A train wreck near Benhams, Virginia, in the 1920s. Photograph reproduced with permission from the Bristol Historical Association

Work and Music

This post just touches on the tip of the iceberg for songs about work – there are so many out there, and so many themes and topics explored in those songs that there’s not room in one post to cover them all! For instance, just a few include Hattie Burleson’s “Sadie’s Servant Room Blues” (1928), which notes the indignities of work when you are required to work long hours for low pay, while being treated with little respect due to race; Dollie Parton’s “9 to 5” (1980), a beloved movie theme song that was inspired by a women’s activist movement that fought for equal pay and treatment in the workplace; Johnny Paycheck’s “Take This Job and Shove It” (1977), chronicling the frustration of a man who worked for years for little reward – and then, being a country song, he also lost his girlfriend or wife; and Sam Cooke’s “Chain Gang” (1960), a song that reflects the harsh realities of Southern justice through unpaid labor in the Jim Crow era.

You can check out the Virtual Speaker Series presentation we did on this topic in December here, along with three related playlists: here, here, and here! I hope this post and the music it celebrates give you a starting point for exploring the history of work through song!

The Way We Worked special exhibit is on display at the museum through Sunday, January 23 so come see it while it is still here! And tune into our Radio Bristol Book Club show on Thursday, January 27 at 12:00pm as we continue our exploration of work history through a discussion of Denise Giardina’s Storming Heaven, followed by an interview with the author.

René Rodgers is Head Curator at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum. Erika Barker is the museum’s Curatorial Manager.

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We also contributed a country music playlist for the Appalachian Peace Education Center’s MLK Day programs this past weekend. Country music has been influenced by a wide variety of different musical traditions over the years. Enslaved people from Africa brought the knowledge and memory of the banjo – a common instrument in country and bluegrass – with them when they were forcibly transported to these shores. And since its early days in the 1920s, Black artists have contributed to the history and sound of country and old-time music. Our playlist celebrates several of those artists.

The museum’s Spotify playlist to mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2022.

El Watson, Tarter & Gay, and the Tennessee Chocolate Drops played on early country music recording sessions in East Tennessee (though their songs were categorized at the time as “race records” rather than “hillbilly records”). El Watson was the only African American musician to record at the 1927 Bristol Sessions, putting down two songs: “Narrow Gauge Blues” and “Pot Licker Blues.” He also played bones on a few songs recorded by the Johnson Brothers, and Charles Johnson played guitar on Watson’s recordings – these are some of the earliest integrated recordings in country music. Ralph Peer of the Victor Talking Machine Company came back to Bristol in 1928 to record more musicians from this area, and this time the sole African American act was a duo called Tarter & Gay. As with El Watson, they recorded two sides – “Brownie Blues” and “Unknown Blues” – that were marketed as race records. The Tennessee Chocolate Drops – made up of brothers Howard and Roland Armstrong and Carl Martin – recorded “Knox County Stomp” for Vocalion at the Knoxville Sessions in 1930.

Lesley Riddle worked with A. P. Carter as they traveled around Southern Appalachia to collect songs for The Carter Family to perform and record. He also taught them several songs, including “The Cannon Ball,” and his guitar playing influenced Maybelle Carter’s guitar style. Riddle later moved to Rochester, New York, where he sometimes played music in small venues around the city in the 1960s and 1970s. He met Mike Seeger in 1965 and recorded music for him and performed as part of the urban folk revival.

Elizabeth Cotten, guitarist and banjo player, was an important influence in American folk music; her connection to the Seeger family, especially Mike Seeger, played an important role in her amazing musical talent being recognized and celebrated. Her style and repertoire – based on earlier African American music and instrumental traditions and delivered in her unique left-handed playing – impacted a variety of musicians who followed her. Honored as a National Heritage Fellow in 1984 and winner of a Grammy at the age of 90, the Smithsonian recognized her as a “living treasure” before her passing in 1987.

Elizabeth Cotten playing guitar. Credit: Library of Congress

Brownie McGhee, born in Knoxville but raised in Kingsport, made his mark in music locally, but also put down songs for a recording session in Chicago in the 1940s. Alan Lomax later recorded McGhee, providing an important record of his musical talent – and as with other Black musicians whose music intersected with early traditional and old-time music, he was also active in the folk revival. McGhee recorded “Sittin’ Pretty” with fellow artist Sonny Terry.

DeFord Bailey, a talented harmonica player, was the first African American artist to perform on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville in the 1920s. Bailey was nicknamed “the harmonica wizard” by George Hay, WSM’s station manager – one of his most famous pieces on the show was “Pan American Blues,” which recreated the evocative sounds of a locomotive. Bailey recorded for various labels and performed live throughout the South and Midwest, but sadly his music career was curtailed by a business dispute; he later opened a shoeshine parlour.

These early African American performers gave way to later musicians who have made their own mark on country and old-time music. Charley Pride, once a Negro league professional baseball player, rose to fame in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He became a very popular country music star and is one of only three Black members of the Grand Ole Opry. “All I Have to Offer You (Is Me)” was his first number one hit.

Album cover for Charley Pride’s Country, released in 1979 by Reader’s Digest.

Dom Flemons and Rhiannon Giddens are founding members of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, an important Black string band; they now have thriving solo careers. Both artists use their music to illuminate African American histories. In 2018, Flemons released an album focused on Black cowboys through Smithsonian Folkways. He chose to feature “Lonesome Old River Blues,” a song originally recorded by Roy Acuff and the Crazy Tennesseans in the 1930s, on this album in order to illuminate the influence of African American traditions on early country music. Giddens’ musical output has consistently helped to tell the story of the Black experience, and she recently led an all-female banjo “supergroup” called Our Native Daughters that shares African American histories and stories from the female perspective. Her version of “Freedom Highway,” a 1964 Civil Rights protest song, is taken from her second solo studio album and features fellow artist Bhi Bhiman.

Amythyst Kiah, a local musician and singer from Johnson City, Tennessee, did her degree at ETSU in the Bluegrass, Old-Time, and Country Music program and contributed to the exhibit content at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum. She is part of the Our Native Daughters group and has recently released a new Rounder Records solo album, Wary + Strange. Her song “Black Myself” was first released on Songs of Our Native Daughters and then re-released on Wary + Strange – the song’s powerful lyrics, coupled with Kiah’s amazing voice, pack a real punch.

Jerron “Blind Boy” Paxton is a young singer and multi-instrumentalist originally from the Watts district of Los Angeles, California. His playing styles are akin to pre-WWII blues and jazz in the vein of artists like Fats Waller, Bessie Smith, and Lonnie Johnson. The Southern roots of his grandparents who moved from Louisiana to California in the mid-1950s provided the influence that became his signature sound. The song we feature is “Railroad Bill,” the B-side of a single released on Evangelist Records of London, England, which also happens to be a product of his first-ever professional recording session. Paxton has appeared in the documentary film The American Epic Sessions, as well as voicing a character in the animated miniseries Over the Wall. We have been very lucky to have Paxton play here at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum and the Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion Festival.

Texas-born Charley Crockett is a blues, country, and Americana singer-songwriter with 15 albums under his belt starting with 2015’s A Stolen Jewel through to his 2021 release Music City USA. Crockett has been steadily gaining popularity and is an established part of authentic roots music’s current youth movement. Also having appeared at the Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion, Crockett has garnered a faithful local fanbase. The track “Jamestown Ferry” is a mid-tempo honkytonk number from 2017.

Charley Crockett performing on stage at Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion in 2021. © Birthplace of Country Music; photographer: Billie Wheeler

These African American artists are just a few of those that have made their mark on roots, country, and old-time music. We hope you enjoy our playlist, and that it leads you deeper into this history and music!

About the Authors

René Rodgers is Head Curator at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum. Scotty Almany is the museum’s Digital Media, Programming, & Exhibit Logistics Manager.

The post A Celebration of Black Contributions in Country Music appeared first on The Birthplace of Country Music.

Our first book of 2022 is Denise Giardina’s Storming Heaven. This 1988 novel follows the journeys of four residents of Annadel, West Virginia, who live in the midst of conflict between the mining community and the coal industry that dominates the small town. From activists and union men to a local nurse and a Sicilian immigrant whose sons lost their lives in the mines, Giardina uses their personal and every day stories to explore “forgotten events in history,” including the Battle of Blair Mountain, the largest labor uprising in United States history. Giardina’s book is a complement to The Way We Worked, a Smithsonian exhibit currently on display at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum. This exhibit traces the history of work in America over the last 150 years, including the impact of unionization on workers’ rights and working conditions. The museum has also created a supplementary display focused on local and regional work history, and one section of the display explores coal mining and includes a wide variety of objects and images loaned to us from the Buchanan County Historical Society. The exhibit will be open through January 23, so be sure to stop by and visit it before it goes!

Denise Giardina was born and raised in West Virginia. Storming Heaven, her second book, was a Discovery Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club and received the 1987 W. D. Weatherford Award for the best published work about the South. She is the author of Good King Harry, Saints and Villains, The Unquiet Earth, Fallam’s Secret, and Emily’s Ghost. Her Appalchian novels have been taught in university courses. Giardina has been ordained as a deacon in the Episcopal Church, and she is also a community activist and a former candidate for governor of West Virginia.

Please make plans to join us on Thursday, January 27 at 12:00pm for the discussion of Storming Heaven by Denise Giardina. The book is available at the Bristol Public Library, so be sure to pick up a copy and read it ahead of time. We look forward to exploring this book on-air, and if you have thoughts or questions about the book that you would like to share with our readers, you can email info@birthplaceofcountrymusic.org (Subject line: Radio Bristol Book Club) – your book insights might appear on air with us! You can find us on the dial at 100.1 FM, streaming live on Radio Bristol, or via the Radio Bristol app.

Looking ahead: Our book pick for February is the children’s book Come Sing, Jimmy Jo by Katherine Paterson; we’ll be discussing it on Thursday, February 24. Check out our full list of 2022 Radio Bristol Book Club picks here, where you can also listen to archived shows!

Rene Rodgers is Head Curator of the Birthplace of Country Music Museum and a voracious reader.

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