An early view of West Elk Ave., now home to retail stores such as Ingles and Peebles. James T. Dowdy Sr. Photographs, Courtesy of Archives of Appalachia, ETSU.

Archives a window to the music, social fabric of Appalachia

By Kathy Helms-Hughes
STAR Staff
khughes@starhq.com

   The Grammy Award-winning "old-time music" soundtrack from the hit movie "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" breathed new life into the music and lifestyle of Appalachia. Party-goers, dressed as their favorite "Brother," now gather to relive the political campaign of Pappy O'Daniel, governor of the great state of Mississippi, who sailed to victory on the strains of The Carter Family's "Keep On The Sunny Side."
   Pappy knew good music when he heard it. He pardoned "The Soggy Bottom Boys," whose record, "I Am A Man of Constant Sorrow," became an instant hit and generated cash flow after their escape from prison. Seizing the day, Pappy made The Soggy Bottom Boys his campaign "brain trust" after they confessed to the error of their ways and promised to become law-abiding citizens.
   But death awaited smooth-talking Everett and his chain-gang companions, Pete and Delmar, at the end of a noose. Only by divine intervention did they escape the jaws of death as a great flood generated by TVA washed the valley clean and carried them away on the back of a floating coffin.
   It's tales such as these which are woven in Appalachia, and the Coen brothers, who wrote "O Brother," did their homework. As a result, interest in the Southern archetype is growing.
   But the rest of the world is a little behind the times. Folks at East Tennessee State University's Archives of Appalachia began compiling a rich cultural repository of the music and times that are distinctly "Appalachia" in the 1970s. The Archives now house more than 450 collections of audio and video recordings, musical performances, oral history interviews, photographs, manuscripts, business and organization records.
   A $96,818 grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission has been used to preserve audio and video recordings of three collections: Broadside Television Inc., Bernard Rousseau and Barnicle-Cadle. Those contain original sound recordings and video footage documenting American musical traditions, Appalachian folk culture, and social activism.
   Broadside Television produced programming for local TV stations and cable companies. The collection consists of 674 open-reel video recordings from 1980, featuring performances and interviews with folk singers Utah Phillips and Mike Seeger; bluegrass musicians Bill Monroe, Ralph Stanley, and Doc Watson; and African-American guitarist Elizabeth Cotton. The collection also includes performances at bluegrass festivals and the A.P. Carter Store in Hiltons, Va.
   The Bernard Rousseau Collection contains 187 reel audiotapes of bluegrass and country music dating from 1957 to 1982. Rousseau recorded bluegrass performances at various fiddlers' conventions, music festivals and nightclubs. A portion of the recordings were made at his home studio for planned commercial recordings but were never released.
   The Barnicle-Cadle Collection is the result of Mary Elizabeth Barnicle, an English teacher and folklorist who collected folklore and folk music through field recordings made on instantaneous acetate discs. After marrying Tillman Cadle, a coal miner and union organizer in Kentucky in the 1930s, she continued her pursuits with his assistance.
   One of her primary subjects was Leadbelly, whose music ranges from work songs to blues to hymns and spirituals. From 1935 to 1955, Barnicle and her husband recorded ballads, coal mining songs, fiddle tunes, spirituals, and stories in small communities in Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia. Cadle donated the nearly 70 hours of recordings to the Archives after his wife's death.
   Norma Myers, assistant director of the Center for Appalachian Studies and curator of the Archives, said the Broadside project which began in 1980 is expected to be completed this summer.
   "We copied some of them a long time ago, but a portion of them had never been copied into a usable format, so we're cleaning and copying those."
   Myers said Rousseau was a bluegrass music enthusiast who traveled to all of the fiddlers conventions and bluegrass festivals and recorded them. "There are recordings of Union Grove and Galax. He would go to clubs in Washington, D.C., Atlanta and Florida and record bluegrass performers there. He had a house fire at one time and some of the recordings were damaged by smoke so we've been trying to clean those up and record them," she said.
   Interest in Appalachian studies began at ETSU in the 1970s with two professors in particular, Dr. Thomas Burton and Dr. Ambrose Manning, who had their students collect and record folklore, folk singers, storytellers, and persons reminiscing about life in the mountains, Myers said.
   "In 1978, President Arthur DeRosier created the Archives of Appalachia and the Institute for Appalachian Affairs, which sort of made a center for Appalachian studies," she said. Dr. Richard Kesner, the Archives' first director, began a campaign to gather materials.
   "We have a huge railroad collection," Myers said. "It's got the records of the Carolina Clinchfield & Ohio Railroad and East Tennessee & Western North Carolina Railroad, as well as collections of railroad enthusiasts and the East Tennessee & Western North Carolina Historical Association records."
   Dr. Burton studied serpent handling in church services in the region, Myers said. "We have a large amount of material on that," including documentaries. There is also information on the Coal Employment Project, an organization put together to help female coal miners with everything from harassment to obtaining gloves and equipment.
   The Archives depends on people in the community for some of its acquisitions. "If people have family papers and don't know really what to do with them, this would be a good home for them where they could be kept together and protected for future generations of the family, rather than stashed away in an attic where they could get damaged," Myers said.
   She plans to write a grant this year to help in restoration of two new film collections which have come in: One is the WCYB News Film Collection; another contains 1,800 reels of film from Virgil Q. Wacks.
   Last year's state budget cuts resulted in closure of the Governor's School, which was part of the Center for Appalachian Studies. This year, the center is "living in fear" of upcoming cuts, Myers said.
   The Governor's School gave high school students the opportunity to spend four to five weeks participating in in-depth specialty studies at university campuses across the state. ETSU's Governor's School focused on Tennessee heritage, including folklore history, archaeology, historic buildings and more.
   "That was totally cut out and that was a big cut for us," Myers said. "For years we haven't had increases to keep up with inflation, so the budget is definitely on our minds."
   Volunteers are welcome at the Archives and financial support from the community "really can make a difference in having the supplies and things that we need," Myers said.
   The Archives has two foundation accounts: one general account and one used to buy supplies for the photographic collections. Donations may be mailed to: Norma Myers, Archives of Appalachia, P.O. Box 70295, ETSU, Johnson City, TN 37644. Checks should be made to Archives of Appalachia Fund/ETSU Foundation.
   The Archives, located on the fourth floor of the new Sherrod Library, is open to the public 9 a.m. -4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. For more information or to volunteer, call 439-4338.