Tennessee Folklore Society Annual Meetings -- Another Online Sampler

(See the previous online sampler here)

The Tennessee Folklore Society was founded in 1934 to encourage research and documentation about Tennessee folk culture. Since then it has continuously published the Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletin and, except during World War II, held annual meetings with lectures and screenings about a wide range of Tennessee folklife topics, from traditional music to folktales and verbal arts, practices and customs, and material culture. Over the years, TFS meetings have provided an important forum for members and guests and helped sustain a statewide advocacy network for the field. This year, the Covid-19 pandemic (like gas rationing during WWII) now unfortunately prohibits the society from holding its face-to-face annual meeting for 2020.

In its stead, the TFS is posting an online sample of outstanding sessions from annual meetings in recent years, made possible by the recording and editing of longtime TFS member and videographer Martin Fisher. The videos demonstrate the diverse interests embraced by the society members and its mission, and we hope they will help increase awareness of the TFS and invite new audiences to join in its future activities:

For a playlist of the below presentations click here

“Jamboree Time: Remembering Radio in East Tennessee”  (Bradley Hanson, 2015,  30:46 minutes).  This documentary video is the result of Hanson’s lengthy research , initiated in fieldwork for the Tennessee State Parks Folklife Project and culminating in his doctoral dissertation,  on one community’s musical and broadcasting history.  The Tennessee Jamboree was a weekly musical “barndance” event in LaFollette, Tennessee, broadcast on local radio station WLAF from 1953 to 1978.  Drawing on Hanson’s interviews and rare surviving film clips, the video details the story of this small-town cultural scene, the musicians and businesses  who helped it succeed, and its contributions to the life of the community.  

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“The Day of the Dead Alive and Well in Middle Tennessee”  (Patricia Gaitley,  2018, 27:40 minutes).  Gaitley ‘s talk considers how a traditional Mexican calendar celebration—“The Day of the Dead” —is being commemorated and adapted in Tennessee.   Mexican communities and families uphold traditions of Dio de los Muertos to honor and sustain the memory of the deceased.  As the state’s Mexican population has grown, The Day of the Dead has taken on other significance and purposes in celebrations beyond Mexican communities.  Gaitley recognizes this process in reporting on the Day of the Dead  celebration at Nashville’s Cheekwood Museum of Art, where artistic aspects of the tradition are highlighted, Mexican artists are showcased, and community members invited.   As the event embodies support for Mexican Nashvillians, the inclusiveness of its programming (also welcoming involvement by other Central and South American communities who do not celebrate Day of the Dead) is also tending toward a pan-Hispanic event.  Gaitley’s  interviews with vendors and participants, both Hispanic and non-Hispanic, provide insights into a celebration in transition.

“Cockfighting in East Tennessee and Western North Carolina:  An Interpretation from Oral History.”   (Charles Gunter,  audio only from 1978,  28:33 minutes).    A geography professor at ETSU, Gunter drew upon student interviews with two cockfighters to report on this controversial  form of gaming long practiced in the rural South.  His talk identifies numerous aspects of folk lingo and customs shared among cockfighters, and it focuses on four topics:  the raising and conditioning of game fowl; the mechanics of fights or “derbies”;   legal issues in respect to cockfighting;  and the views of cockfighters regarding their involvement in a sport prohibited by law.  Soon after his presentation, a published version of the paper appeared in the Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletin, and it was later reprinted in the 2009 TFS anthology A Tennessee Folklore Sampler.  Images accompanying this audio track were not part of his original presentation, and they were compiled mostly from later sources.

“Linnie Johnson:  Unaccompanied Ballad Singer”  (audio only from 1981 & 1984, 24:03 minutes).   Linnie Johnson (1910-1997) of Johnson  Chapel , DeKalb County, was among Tennessee’s few surviving unaccompanied ballad singers when she was documented for the Tennessee State Parks Folklife Project  in 1981 by Betsy Peterson, who is now director of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.   Mrs. Johnson’s tradition was very much a domestic one.  She learned  most of her  tunes from her father’s singing in the family household, and she in turn sang mostly at home from youth through adulthood.    Like many singers of local and family songs, she often referred to a hand-written ballad book full of song lyrics, which preserved remnants of British balladry, later sentimental love songs, and historic songs native to her area.  One of the jewels of her repertory, “The Raftsman’s Song,” was included in Historical Ballads of the Tennessee Valley ( TFS-105) a documentary LP released by the society in 1982.  The following recordings come from her first public performance at the 1981 TFS meeting, and from her singing at the 1984 meeting , where with Bob Fulcher’s assistance,  she cut the cake in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Tennessee Folklore Society.

“Bud Garrett:  Bluesman”  (audio only from 1981,  22:30 minutes).  Patriarch of the rural African American community in Free Hill, Tennessee, near Celina, Bud Garrett (1916-1987) was a widely-known character among  players  of the unique “rolley-hole” marble game local to surrounding counties along the Tennessee-Kentucky line.  His handmade flint marbles were prized by shooters throughout the region, and the marble yard that Bud maintained on Free Hill was an active social scene among the game’s many enthusiasts—black and white alike.  Bud also grew up around music and became a skilled guitarist and singer, exposed to a wide variety of musical influences.  As  a bluesman, he followed the stylings of postwar urban blues, and was drawn to wide-ranging novelty songs that suited his outgoing manner, some of which he wrote himself.  He had aspirations to record and some contacts in Nashville’s R&B recording scene, but he only released a single 45 on the Excello label.
Betsy Peterson’s 1981 work with the Tennessee State Parks Folklife Project led to Bud’s frequent appearances as  both as a marble-maker and a performer at regional events and at the 1986 Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife, for which his engaging personality made him especially well-suited.  Bud was also featured on “Free Hill A Sound Portrait Of A Rural Afro-American Community” (TFS-107) a documentary LP released by the society  in 1985, and he was later the subject of Peterson’s doctoral dissertation.  The following recordings come from Bud’s performance at the TFS 1981 annual meeting .