The story and tradition of the music of the Appalachians can be traced back to Scottish and English ancestral roots. The book “Tennessee Strings” by Charles Wolfe does a good job of finding the path from traditional ballads such as Barbara Allen and those of Lorena during the Civil War into the present day. It also traces a clear path from the early 20th century performers like Fiddlin’ John Carson to the sounds of Uncle Dave Macon and the early years of the Grand Ole Opry.
In this episode of Deeper Roots, we acknowledge the contributions of Tennessee to the country Americana art form, that drew both from sources in the white rural music of East and Middle Tennessee as well as from the church music of the singing congregations and the blues and jazz emanating from urban Memphis. With the commercialization of this musical fusion through radio and recordings, Tennessee soon became a national center for country music.
Featured performers include G. B. Grayson, Al Hopkins and His Buckle Busters, Uncle Dave Macon, and a couple of sets that feature the songs about Tennessee. We’ll hear about Nashville before it became the center of commercialism that it is today, the 1927 Bristol Sessions, and the Grand Ole Opry when it only resembled a dance hall social with WSM radio microphones held in an insurance building’s gathering hall. We’ll also hear a number of pieces celebrating the state of Tennessee.
We’ll be remembering Woodrow Wilson “Woody” Guthrie (July 14, 1912 – October 3, 1967). Deeper Roots: A Century Of America’s Music host Dave Stroud visits the many different songs performed by Woody, his contemporaries, and some of the artists he influenced. In addition, we’ll hear excerpts from the Library of Congress interview where Alan Lomax asks Woody to share some of his personal stories and Woody makes the best of it.
From the Oklahoma Hills where he was born to the Great Northwest where he composed songs for the Columbia River project and into the heart of New York City, Woody spoke for those who would not be heard and railed against injustices that would not be spoken of out of fear. We’ll hear from Bruce Springsteen, The Byrds, Arlo Guthrie, and Billy Bragg (to name a few).
We venture a bit deeper…into the well of Pre-Depression music. The Jazz Age had settled in and the broad and diverse sounds of jazz out of the big cities, popular tunes from Broadway, blues from the south, and folk music of the mountains, had begun to reach areas of the country that had no clubs or venues, only a couple of new technologies: radio and Victrola phonographs. These new machines would become household staples and create an industry almost overnight revealing themselves as a mainstream means of cultural dissemination. This was, of course, before some of the lesser-known artists, once sought out by recording studios, would be dropped as the Great Depression would find their funding dry up almost overnight.
We’ll hear the sounds of Al Jolson alongside those of Louis Armstrong, Tampa Red, Mississippi John Hurt, and Barbecue Bob as Dave Stroud hosts a new episode, “Pre-Depression Music”, on Deeper Roots: A Century of America’s music.
“I had heard all the symphonies there were and all the chamber music and the best jazz and I said ‘this is the greatest music’”… Alan Lomax
