BROAD SUBJECT AREAS
Berea's Celebration of Traditional Music has been held
annually since 1974 and continues to the present. The numerous
singers and musicians heard on Celebration recordings document
the full range of Appalachian music's ethnic, vocal, and instrumental
diversity. The formative musical influences, repertoire, and
playing styles of African American performers at the Celebration
of Traditional Music have recently been explored by Appalachian
Music Fellowship recipient Ajay
Kalra.
Old Regular Baptist Singing and Preaching traditions
in Eastern Kentucky, Southwestern Virginia, and Western North
Carolina are the primary focus of recordings in this subject
area. Much of this material was compiled by music scholars, Jeff
Titon and William
Tallmadge, over several years time from the late 1950s through
the early 1990s.
Old-Time
Fiddlers and Banjo-Players, especially those from
the eastern half of Kentucky, are the focus of field recordings
made by several musician-researchers between 1970 and 1990.
Consisting of more than 400 hours of playing and interviews,
these recordings offer unprecedented opportunity for the
study of the repertoire, techniques, lore, and historical
interaction of the region's traditional musicians. Transcriptions of
some selected fiddle tunes from these collections have recently
been produced by Appalachian
Music Fellowship recipient Erynn
Marshall. Traditional musicians from North Carolina,
Tennessee, Virginia, and West Wirginia are documented as
well. See separate web page for North Carolina banjoist J.
Roy Stalcup.
Eastern Kentucky folklore field recordings by Leonard
Roberts are extremely important as social and folklore
documents. Dating from 1946 through much of the 1950s, the
recordings are particularly strong in documenting magic tales
and other stories. Sound recordings of the region's folklore
from this time, well before the "folk revival" of the 1960s,
are otherwise quite rare.
Appalachian writing and scholarship is represented in
interviews and lectures by such figures as Wendell Berry, Harry
Caudill, Muriel Dressler, Wilma Dykeman, Helen Lewis, Jim Wayne
Miller, Artus Moser, Gurney Norman, Leonard Roberts, Henry Scalf,
James Still, Jesse Stuart, Don West, Cratis Williams, and Jess
Wilson.
Berea College history and campus life are documented
in extensive oral history interviews, convocation performances,
and addresses by scholars, theologians, activists, and others
of note dating from the 1950s to the present.
Commercial country music recordings of the 1920s, 30s, and
40s. Tape copies of 78 rpm discs include virtually every
artist and string band of stature from these years. Many of
these recordings have never been re-issued. Interviews include
such early Kentucky artists as Blind Duck Burnett, John V.
Walker, and Ernest Martin.
Commercialization of traditional music is documented
in early radio programs, later festival performances, and recorded
interviews relating to such performers as Doc Roberts, Bradley
Kincaid, Lily May Ledford, Bascom Lamar Lunsford, John Lair,
and the McLain Family Band. Additionally, for Bradley
Kincaid, John
Lair, Bascom
Lamar Lunsford, Doc
Roberts, and the McLain
Family Band, there are extensive archival collections that
include letters, photographs, radio scripts, and print advertising
materials.
Historical Kentucky radio broadcasts from Louisville's
WHAS and the CBS network, 1936 to the mid 1950s, document a wide
range of state, national, and world political figures and news
events. Entertainment programs include soap operas, musical variety
shows, and country music. Sporting events include the Kentucky
Derby and the University of Kentucky football. Going beyond the
limitations of words on paper, these rare recordings make possible
hearing in the present the same accents, emotions, and issues
that entertained and informed a past generation.
Storytelling and humor is represented by such able practitioners
as Richard Chase, Loyal Jones, Ray Hicks, Maude Long, Patrick
Napier, Leonard Roberts, Beverly Sexton, Jackie Torrence, and
Marshall Long. Also included are recordings of the Appalachian
Humor Festival held at Berea in 1983, 1987, and 1990.
Traditional crafts and occupations are documented in
more than a hundred recordings that include work-related environmental
sounds as well as intervies of crafts people about the art and
science of their work. Subjects include chair making, musical
instrument building, quilting, weaving, vegetable dying, blacksmithing,
pottery making, coal mining, farming, and logging.
ACCESS TO THE ARCHIVE
The Archive is located in the Department of Special Collections
and Archives of Berea College's Hutchins Library. Hours are 9:00-12:00
and 1:00-5:00 Monday through Friday. Calling or writing in advance
to arrange for use of Archival material will allow staff to
give optimum attention to each research request.
Written inquiries may be addressed to Harry S. Rice, Sound Archivist,
Hutchins Library, Department of Special Collections and Archives,
Berea College, Berea, KY 40404. Phone: 859-985-3249. Email:
.
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