No description available.

Journal Summary: The International Country Music Journal is a publication of the International Country Music Conference and is is a collection of articles by scholars Tex Olson, Patrick Huber, Tony Russell, Linda Daniel, Nolan Porterfield, Fred Hopetner, Andrew Smith, Curtis Ellison, Anthony Kosar, Ed Morris, Jim Clark, Tex Morton and Don Cusic. Topics include the Bristol Sessions, Singing Cowboys and artists Dianne Leigh, Brad Paisley, Bill Walker, Townes Van Zandt, Jimmie Rodgers and Ralph Stanley.

Political Economy in Practice: Career Contributions of Dwight Billings to Appalachian Studies Dwight Billings has contributed to shaping the conversation in Appalachian studies over the past forty years through his academic focus on political economy and his commitment to equity in who’s at the table in that conversation. The presenters will discuss his career contributions as scholar, teacher and mentor, social justice activist, and colleague.

No description available.

Excerpt: Ralph Peer’s 1927 Bristol Sessions were revolutionary in their influence, but the Johnson City Sessions recordings, overseen by Columbia’s pioneering A&R scout Frank B. Walker, reflect Walker’s more eclectic tastes and keener sense of humor. Indeed, the recordings from the Johnson City Sessions provide a distinctly different portrayal of Appalachian music.

A cycle of songs and spoken pieces from the verses and essays of Ireland's master poet, W. B. Yeats, In the Deep Heart’s Core is a stunning evening of musical theatre. The Chicago Tribune called it "A joy--poetry to the ears, alternately tender and rousing." Featuring Joseph Sobol and original cast member Kathy Cowan. Performers include Lee Bidgood, Dominic Aquilino, Clara Ray Burrus, and Robbie Link.

Press Release: http://www.nchumanities.org/news/2014/06/09/railroad-work-songs-2014-theme-riddlefest-appalachians

Drawing from scholarship on play, ritual, and performance, I propose that Czech bluegrass thrives – as does my fieldwork – in a state of in-betweenness, in a territory that is between work, play, here and there, self and other. Being comfortable with this kind of in-between state is important for fieldwork, and for music-making – play, I find, is both a central activity and metaphor in both. The bluegrass play I discuss in this essay can become a response to the encroachment of Americanization in economic and cultural globalization, but also a way of being “Americanist” – and entirely Czech.

Excerpt: In a 1988 essay published in the book “Country: The Music and the Musicians,” music scholar Nolan Porterfield observed: "Music historians and others fond of dates and places have a special weakness for 'Bristol, August 1927.' As a sort of shorthand notation, it has come to signal the Big Bang of country music evolution."

Book Summary: The state of Tennessee is widely recognized as a home of great music, and its geographic regions are as distinct as Memphis blues, Nashville country, and Bristol old-time sounds. Tennessee’s literary heritage offers equal variety and quality, as home to the Fugitive Agrarian Poets, as well as a signature voice from the Black Arts Movement. Few states present such a multicultural panorama as does the Volunteer State.The poems in The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume VI: Tennessee engage the storied histories, diverse cultures, and vibrant rural and urban landscapes of the region. Among the more than 120 poets represented are Pulitzer and Bollingen Prize-winner Charles Wright, Brittingham Award-winner Lynn Powell, and Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize-winners Rick Hilles and Arthur Smith.The book includes an introduction from renowned poet Jeff Daniel Marion, who in 1978 received the first literary fellowship from the Tennessee Arts Commission. Too, the book celebrates relatively young and gifted voices. This important anthology will stand for many years as the definitive poetic document for the state of Tennessee.Conceived by Series Editor William Wright in 2003, The Southern Poetry Anthology is a multivolume project celebrating established and emerging poets of the American South. Inspired by single-volume anthologies such as Leon Stokesbury’s The Made Thing, Gil Allen’s A Ninety-Six Sampler, and Guy Owen and Mary C. Williams’ Contemporary Southern Poetry: an Anthology, The Southern Poetry Anthology aspires to provide readers with a documentary-like survey of the best poetry being written in the American South at the present moment.Published exclusively by Texas Review Press, the series provides the most comprehensive representation of Southern poets currently available and is currently being used in university classrooms across the South.