This is the story of how the music in the Grammy Nominated "Old-Time Smoky Mountain Music" CD was originally recorded and includes historical insights into the language spoken in the Smoky Mountains. An excerpt from "Smokies Life" magazine produced by Great Smoky Mountains Association, official non-profit partner of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. / https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu_books/1165/thumbnail.jpg

Ideas and practices related to sustainability have become more common in academia since the foundation of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education network and the growing currency of all things "green" in the business, structure, and daily life of higher education. In discussing elements of sustainability that I have incorporated into a course entitled "Ethnomusicology and Appalachia," I show how they are not part of a trend, but are foundational and transformative parts of both Appalachian studies and the study of people making music. Ethnomusicology is based in ideas of “music as culture” and as the study of musical activity, not idealized and autonomous “musical objects” (per Rice). Considering sustainability challenges notions of autonomy, which is crucial to understanding Appalachia's fluid tension (as described by Filene) between "insider" roots and "outsider" pressures. Essential scholarship on regional music-making by Jeff Titon is a model of this kind of integration, both in terms of compassionate and broad consideration of “musical sound” and in the socioaesthetic (per Kisliuk) ramifications of his conclusions. I will conclude my presentation by leading participants on an abbreviated soundwalk (per Westerkamp and Ferrington) to emphasize the importance of integrated and humane consideration in the study of music and Appalachia

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Excerpt: A majority of the early settlers on the Appalachian frontier were immigrants from Lowland Scotland or from Northern Ireland (the Scots-Irish, who descended primarily from Lowland Scots).

Excerpt: Visitors to the Crooked Road and the Mountains of Music Homecoming will hear both old time and bluegrass music, though the difference between the two is sometimes unclear.

Robert Morgan's Nonfiction Books

James Still remains one of the most beloved and important writers in Appalachian literature. Best known for his acclaimed novel River of Earth (1940), the Alabama native and adopted Kentuckian left an enduring legacy of novels, stories, and poems during his nearly seventy year career. The Hills Remember: The Complete Short Stories of James Stillhonors the late writer by collecting all of Still's short stories, including his stories from On Troublesome Creek (1941), Pattern of a Man and Other Stories (1976), and The Run for the Elbertas(1980), as well as twelve prose pieces originally published as short stories and later incorporated into River of Earth. Also included are several lesser-known stories and ten never-before-published stories. Recognized as a significant writer of short fiction in his day―many of his stories initially appeared in The Atlantic and The Saturday Evening Post and were included in The O. Henry Memorial Award Stories and The Best American Short Stories collections―Still's short stories, while often overshadowed in recent years by his novels and poetry, are among his most enduring literary works. Editor Ted Olson offers a reassessment of Still's short fiction within the contexts of the author's body of work and within Appalachian and American literature. Compiling all of James Still's compelling and varied short stories into one volume, The Hills Remember is a testament to a master writer. / https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu_books/1166/thumbnail.jpg

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Rising poverty rates, increases in joblessness, and the depletion of traditional means of livelihood (such as agriculture and large industry), are all forces working to diminish the ability for the rural Appalachian to make a living (Appalachian Regional Commission, 1993). Many rural development professionals interested in cultivating new options are including the concept of the cooperative as a tool for economic development. However, there is some controversy over whether the cooperative form of organization is an optimal method of economic development for rural America. The same had been said about tourism as a contributor to economic development. This thesis uses case study analysis to examine three current cooperatives and their contributions to the community, using a Weberian lens of formal versus substantive rationality. Results indicated a tentative relationship between amount and type of contributions of the tourism-related cooperative organization and type of rationality for its existence. / Master of Science