Doug Orr

Partial Transcript: I’m Doug Orr, ah, co-author of the book, Wayfaring Strangers, The Musical Voyage from Scotland and Ulster and Appalachia, and I am a retired higher education educator for15 years, President of Warren Wilson College, still do some consulting with that. But certainly a great passion for me and my wife, ah, is the traditional music, ah, and the origins of the American folk music tracing back through the family tree to Scotland, Ireland, and many, many other places.

Partial Transcript: Ah, I’m a 1960s folkie, was very much into the folk music era of the 60s. My family is of Scotch-Irish ancestry and I heard some of the old songs from Scotland from my father and some others. Ah, so I was playing music throughout those years and beyond.

I met my wife, Darcy, through the music in the 1980s. AH, she’s an Appalachian dulcimer player, ah, and I’m a guitar player and a singer, and it was also in the early 80s that I met Fiona Ritchie from Scotland, who came to America, ah, and became part of the University of North Carolina Charlotte, where I was a Vice-Chancellor and, ah, wanted to volunteer. One thing led to another and she was volunteering and then working at the new public radio station we had in development work but then asked if she could, ah, try a local program of Celtic music, which we did. AH, three years later it went national, and the rest is history.

So, ah, all of those connections, ah, enhanced and deepened my interest in not only the folk music but the, the roots of it—the family tree of it. And, ah, my trips to Scotland and Ireland only enhanced that, and Fiona became great friends and colleagues with us; and she certainly has been a source and mentor, and as far as, ah, the music on the other side, she is the expert, I guess, in the world. Now with her program has been running over 35 years with the _______ channel.

Partial Transcript: The roots of balladry are deep. It is sometimes said that it goes back to the whisper of the Middle Ages. Southern France, called Aquitania, ah, where the troubadours thrived. They were the lyric poets of their day. And there were men and women. AH, they were supported by the noble houses, the royalty, and the Church. Ah, their era passed, however, because of the winds of change and some, ah, persecution, quite frankly. But their tradition was carried on by the wandering minstrels who spread out through Europe into the British Isles, into Scotland and England, and Ireland.

Ah, their music appeared in some of the courts of the day, but they also were entertainers on the streets and the squares, telling the news of the day through song. But, ah, also magic acts, juggling; you name it, to get a crowd. Ah, they would post their songs, their broadsheets, ah, on any bulletin board they could find, ah, and then, of course, that filtered into family traditions, ah, and to Scotland, particularly the Northeast of Scotland, Aberdeenshire, ah, balladry was…the, ah, the cradle of Scottish balladry. And in the borders area, along next to England, and the collecting of Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott, ah, and then, of course, the story continues from Scotland into Ulster, Northern Ireland, and across what they call “The Sea of Green Darkness,” the Atlantic, ah, with the emigration of ah, a quarter million Ulster Scots within the 18th century to America.

Partial Transcript: The music really was multi-faceted in that, ah, it, it would tell stories—sometimes they were rumors, sometimes it was, ah, real news—ah, it seems like things never change, doesn’t it? Ah, but, yes, it was a way of carrying forth new news because in the early days, you didn’t have newspapers, much less all the electronic media we have, so the broadsheets were the newspapers of the day, and their era really, ah, went in decline with the invention of the newspapers.

But it was, ah, multi-faceted, really. It was telling family stories. Ah, when they made the emigration across, ah, the, the ship captains and owners of the emigration ships would hire as their first priority the ship’s surgeon, naturally, but the second priority was a fiddler because every day, above and below deck, there was dancing. For aerobic exercise, although we didn’t have that term at the time, but also for recreation, ah, and also, song circles, balladries(?), so while those immigrants didn’t have much in the way of worldly possessions—probably everything they owned was in a single trunk—what was most important was what they carried with them in their hearts the emigration story, and that would be their ballads, their stories, their fiddle tunes, their dances and all the rest, and that was, ah, that’s transportation and carrying across the Atlantic into America that gave us this very rich tradition that we have today of Appalachian music.

Partial Transcript: Well, of course, there are a lot of, a lot of songs that reflect, ah, the making of the whiskey, and making the whiskey, what we call moonshining, really goes back to Scotland because in 1713 the English implemented a whiskey tax, where the Scots simply said, “We’re having none of that, and so we’ll make our whiskey rather than during the day when you can see the smoke, we’ll make it under the light of the moon,” moonshine, and, ah, they carried on that tradition and brought it with them across the Atlantic. Ah, there’s an old ballad entitled Copper Kettle:

My daddy, he made whiskey; my granddaddy, did, too;
And we ain’t paid no whiskey tax since 1792.

So ah, so there you go. It’s deeply routed in the culture and the emigration story and appears in, in many songs. There’s even ah, a fiddle tune entitled Farewell to Whiskey. Whiskey in the jar, so it goes.

Partial Transcript: Well, initially the migration of the Scots into Ulster, Northern Ireland, was ah, a result of King James offering free land in Ulster, ah, the so-called “Plantation Scheme.” And basically what he was trying to do is, ah, settle, ah, Ulster with Protestants to offset the Catholic influence. AH, consequently, many, many of our ancestors made that crossing over the North Channel. Some parts of Ulster, Northern Ireland, you can actually see Scotland, so, at its closest distance, 12 miles, so easy to make that back and forth as they did, ah, during those days. They settled into Ulster, ah, and shared their music, ah, integrated; there was intermarriage, Protestant and Catholic.

But the Ulster Scots began suffering some discrimination, economic and religious; they were caught in the squeeze between the Catholics and the Anglicans. There was what was called “rent-racking,” in which the rent on these tenant farms kept escalating. They couldn’t afford it anymore. So, ah, they began looking again, ah, at another destination. They were suffering—always had—with wanderlust. They were wayfaring strangers, and news of a land of opportunity, America, Canon’s land, ah, began appearing in notices, bulletins.

And, ah, meanwhile, ah, in America, particularly Pennsylvania, they were sending flax seeds, ah, by ship to, ah, the British Isles for the linen mills. Ah, and the flax seeds were being converted into linen. And the ships had to make the crossing back, empty holds. Why not fill them with something, and they came up with the idea of advertising America, and, ah, immigrants could get shipping, for a fee, across the Atlantic.

Consequently, starting in about 1716, ah, throughout the 1700s, a quarter of a million Ulster Scots emigrated to America, primarily through Pennsylvania because Pennsylvania was, number one, Quaker, and religiously tolerant; and, number two, you already had the linen trade, and the shipping, going back and forth. They entered into the harbor of Philadelphia, William Penn’s Garden City, ah, the largest town in America at the time, about 25,000 people.

Many were redemptioners, meaning they had to pay for their crossing by working for three or four years for, on a farm or retail store or whatever; others were freeholders, and they had enough money for the crossing; and, ah, suffering from wanderlust, they started heading west following the great Philadelphia wagon road into the Shenandoah Valley, ah, down to the south, and many spilled into the southern Appalachians. Some stopped along the way in Pennsylvania and Virginia into our southern Appalachians and Piedmont carrying with them their ballads, their stories, their fiddle tunes; and as they settled into the coves and hollows of the Appalachians, these became time capsules, sanctuaries, for the music so that when the song collectors (we call them “song catchers”) came along later, they found these, ah, mother lodes of the music that in some cases was better preserved than back in the old country.

Partial Transcript: Well, we have to keep in mind that as the music migrated across the Atlantic and filtered into, ah, different corners of America--Colonial America at the time--this was not ah, a linear journey. There were many side trips, and it was the oral tradition largely. AH, oh, some of the early song collectors like, ah, Sir Walter Scott and Robert Burns were writing them down, they were collecting them, in case of Burns doing a lot of compositions.

Nevertheless, ah, as the music was carried over generations and over continents and seas, ah, they were relying on memory, ah, and, ah, ah, there is an expression that comes from Scotland called “a carrying stream,” and that is the, the music was a carrying stream with many, many tributaries and side trips along the way, ah, and that’s why today as we research and look back at some of the old ballads, there are many variants. AH, ah, sometimes it might just be a word here and a word there, or a whole line, but there even are variations sometimes in the melody. There would be the adoption of, ah, melodies on this side; much, and very much so, a change in titles.

For example, an old Appalachian fiddle tune by the name of Leather Britches, ah, had its origins as Lord MacDonald’s Reel. Well, for goodness sake, these immigrants were trying to get away from Lord MacDonald so they were coming up with their own names and own interpretations, and what was ah, a non-linear journey and one that was carrying on an oral tradition.

Partial Transcript: Ah, the titles changed, some of the lyrics changed, and the other thing that happened, too, that, particularly with the fiddle tunes, ah, the melodies and the fiddle playing was stripped down to be more basic, not with all the fancy ornamentation that, ah, you might have found in Scotland and Ireland which, ah, was very much connected to classical music and some of the Renaissance music of the day. But these were folks out in the backwoods in places that the Scots liked to call “the back of beyond,” and so to carry on the traditions, they often simplified, ah, say, the fiddle tunes, and, as far as the lyrics were concerned, ah, ah, made up lines if they couldn’t remember, ah, everything.

Ah, and then there were, oftentimes, the braiding and weaving of lyrics and melodies. For example, the title of our book is Wayfaring Strangers, ah, with a subtitle, of course, ah, and just in that one song encapsulated is the braiding and weaving of melody and lyric. For example, ah, Wayfaring Strangers is an old American, ah, camp meeting song, a spiritual many of us learned in school, but the melody comes from the borders area of Scotland, that is, the area between Scotland and England.

Ah, an old song entitled, The Vary Bends of the Arrow, (?) and that story repeats itself many times over with, ah, other ballads and songs as well.

Partial Transcript: Well, the role of music in early Scotch-Irish communities in our Appalachians was not unlike what you would see over on the other side, ah, a…

One of the strongest messages of this music is the community ____. It was a way of gathering, ah, at hearthside in the cottages in Scotland and Ireland or in the Kila houses where they would gather, and there were singing schools. Ah, it was a way of making friends, of, ah, diminishing differences, be it religious, economic, title, whatever it might be. These were folks coming together from all backgrounds and just sharing the music and the tunes.

Consequently, ah, as they made the crossing on board the ship and as they were in the Conestoga wagons traveling down the southern Appalachians and as they settled into the cabins, the music was a sense of community. Ah, in the southern Appalachians, it would often be on the front porches, which were favorite gathering places, ah, to share the songs, ah, and people would come together from different backgrounds. And to this day we find that music is a great common denominator to bring people together.

Ah, in my own experience with the music and founding The Swannanoa Gathering at Warren Wilson College, bringing people together, what they leave with more than anything else, more than, ah, fiddle technique or guitar licks, song lyrics, is the community of the music. The people that meet, the memories they have of getting together, of being in a class, or at midnight, ah, with the moon coming up and trying to remember the old songs, ah, that doesn’t change, and, you know, in a technological and electronic age, of all these devices, we could lose that tradition very easily, of the face-to-face sharing and the community of music.

Ah, so as we have music camps, like The Swannanoa Gathering, as we write books like Wayfaring Strangers, and as we rely on public radio and documentaries, ah, we need ways of carrying on this great tradition of the music, and to not be lost in the technological age.

Ah, one of our interviewees, and we interviewed 43 individuals for our book, ah, commented that this rich folk music in Appalachian music is the music that America comes home to because in many ways it was our original music, ah, with an infusion…

Yeah, that the community of music is really one of the essences of what our music is all about, Ah, it’s ah, it came over in an oral tradition, face-to-face, or knee-to-knee, as is often said about telling the stories or teaching the songs to the next generation, ah, and in a technological age we could lose much of that. AH, it becomes much more impersonal. AH, there’s an instant gratification of, ah, going online and, ah, and yet the human factor diminishes so, ah, we very strongly feel that in doing a book like Wayfaring Strangers or in doing a documentary as you are doing, or in initiating a music camp like The Swannanoa Gathering, we have a responsibility to sustain and enhance the tradition of music face-to-face that builds community.

Ah, we live in a fragmented world and fragmented society, ah, and we need to find commonalities and music often can be that thread that brings people together regardless of their backgrounds or differences.

Partial Transcript: We mention in our book that, ah, this music is part of a carrying stream or a family tree of the music with, ah, many tributaries or many branches, ah, which makes a fascinating and very complex story. Our editor at the University of North Carolina Press called it a braiding and weaving as we tried to bring all the different parts together.

Ah, certainly the basic soundtrack of the Appalachian music would be the music that the Ulster-Scots, we call over here the Scotch-Irish, brought with them. But in researching the book, ah, we found and, and we deepened our understanding of the fact that the music really is a tapestry and we use that term in the book. Ah, there are many threads to it, ah, certainly the Scotch-Irish, but there are other European influences such as the Welsh, the German, the French, the English. And then there is the Cherokee influence on this side. Ah, the, the dancing, the percussion elements, the flute playing and most underestimated of all is the considerable African-American influence that adds to the tapestry. And that is why our book enlarged considerably as we researched and started writing because it became a much richer and deeper story.

As far as the Appalachian, as far as the average Americans are concerned, it’s generally understood that the banjo came from West Africa, as a gourd instrument, which it did, brought over by the slaves, played on the plantations, and evolved over time into what we know today as our very popular Appalachian music. But, ah, at the time of the Revolutionary War, half the fiddle players in the South were African-American. They were learning the fiddle on the plantations from their masters. They would add their own interpretations, however, the blues, the slides, the syncopated notes, and then teach those back into kind of a loop process, ah, to their slave masters, their teachers. But it entered into the vernacular of Appalachian fiddle styles.

And then there were the songs, the hush lullabies, the call-and-response songs from the fields, the spirituals from the churches. There were African-American string bands, something that’s not well understood--ah, the banjo, the fiddle, and later adding the base, the guitar, the mandolin. Those African-American string bands would often play for dances in the Piedmont and the mountains. They would come up from Charleston. They played for dances in African-American and white communities.

Ah, and then over a period of time there was an era of black-faced minstrelsy. It, really, it was wildly popular, but it was a caricature, and it turned off the African-American community. It turned them off to what was their instrument, the banjo, so they turned in other directions, to the guitar, the blues music, which was also part of the family tree of the music, ah, to jazz, ah, which had some of its origins in the, in the jug bands, playing the jugs with a kind of a trumpet sound.

Ah, and it wasn’t until the last couple of decades that the African-American community began reclaiming the banjo through the Black Banjo Reunion, through the great work of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, who we interviewed for our book. Ah, they more or less sort of brought back some of that jug band/banjo sound, ah, and, as they should. Ah, they commented in interviews that they respected, ah, the, the suffering that their forbearers had to go through, but they were not going to be constrained by that in terms of reclaiming the music that is so much of not only the African-American tradition but the Appalachian and American tradition; ah, so that tapestry is a marvelous aspect of this music America comes home to because you’re not just coming home to, ah, Scotch-Irish music, you’re coming home to all of those different influences that, ah, after all is part of the American story. We are a pluralistic society from many, many sources.

And encapsulated in the southern Appalachian music is, ah, one part of that story, but with the Appalachian music and all of the strains…

Partial Transcript: Well, as the Ulster-Scots—called over here the Scotch-Irish, as I said--settled into the Appalachians, ah, they naturally would, they came into contact with the Native Americans, and especially in our part of the world here with the Cherokee. And there was a good bit of inter-marriage. Ah, in our book, we have a sidebar about the Scoto Indians. These would be the Scottish Native Americans, who trace their parentage to Scotch-Irish and Cherokee.

John Ross, who was a famous tribal leader for over 50 years, ah, parents were of, ah, Scotch-Irish and Cherokee origins. And he came face-to-face with Andrew Jackson many times, ah, in argument, and certainly over the unfortunate, tragic Trail of Tears story.

But the fact is the Cherokee did have many similarities with the Scots and their history, their tribal structure, the Scottish clans, the love of the music, the love of the dance, the way in which, ah, music…deep into the evening or in families or in gatherings of the tribe or the clan were a common bond or a glue that more-or-less brought them together.

So, ah, the Ulster Scot settlers immediately found, I think, kindred spirits, a bit of an irony because many of the Colonial governors were encouraging this emigration through Philadelphia into Colonial America to go out into the, ah, outer reaches, ah, ah, or into the Appalachians to be buffer or protection against the Native Americans, offering them rewards of land and oftentimes a jaw harp, of all things, to carry with them. But, ah, yes, ah, many of the Native Americans were not exactly happy to see these interlopers, but they befriended each other as well; and consequently, there was intermarriage and an intermingling of their cultural traditions including the music.

Partial Transcript: There’s a great tradition in this music of song collecting and performing and singing that goes back to their, Scotland with Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott and others in Ireland, of course, ah, and then, ah, over the years, ah, song collectors, ah, such as Cecil Sharp from England, who came over here in 1916 and spent three summers collecting with Maud Karpeles, his female associate, ah, Bascom Lamar Lunsford from nearby South Turkey Creek, ah, Madison County--that’s South Turkey Creek, not North Turkey Creek--ah, was a great collector. Over 3,000 of his collections are in the Library of Congress, ah, and their work is carried on up to the present day, ah, ah, including people like, ah, Jean Ritchie at Eastern Kentucky, who in the 1950s made the crossing to Scotland and Ireland and England under a Fulbright Grant to collect the old songs, ah, bring them back over and play them and revitalize interest in the dulcimer, the Appalachian dulcimer.

But then there were many others, of course, ah, ah, Pete Seeger, a great collector, the Lomax family, Alan and John Lomax, were making the crossing to the other side collecting were also collecting over here as well, and then as we bring things to, ah, the current day David Holt, ah, a great steward of the old songs, a performer for many, many years performed with Doc Watson before Doc died. Sheila Kay Adams, seventh generation of the storytellers and the ballad singers. Ah, an interesting aspect…

Many of the, many of the legends of Appalachian music such as Jimmie Rodgers and Doc Watson, ah, A. P. Carter of the Carter Family, ah, Bill Monroe, ah, collected, performed, but what we found interesting as well, they all had African-American partners or mentors. Ah, Doc Watson would have never been known as Doc Watson, the great American guitar player and singer, had he not met Jerry Ricks, a blues guitar player in Philadelphia. When Doc was young, despondent, was about ready with homesickness to come home, and Jerry Ricks said, “Young man, I see that you’re homesick. I’ve got a clean bed and I’m a chef and blues guitar player; let me take you in,” and the rest is history. He stayed on.

Ah, A. P. Carter, ah, ah, traveled with a fellow by the name of Riddle, who knew where many of the songs were buried in the Appalachian tradition. And so it goes. And all attributed and recognized these African mentors to their work. AH, so individuals we think of as mainly performers like Doc Watson, like Pete Seeger, ah, Bill Monroe, and others were also doing a whole lot of collecting. And they were stars, they were searchers in their own way and deserve credit for carrying on a tradition as well as performing on the stage; they were tradition bearers but they also were song catchers.

Partial Transcript: Well, right next door in Madison County, we find ah, a great treasure trove of the music that carried on. Bascom Lamar Lunsford, of course, ah, living in Madison County did a lot of collecting there. You go back into the coves and hollows. He was a lawyer, he was a State Legislator, he was an IRS agent, but what he really loved to do was sell fruit trees because he would have a transaction with a local farmer, establish a rapport, and then as he was leaving, say, “Hey, you got a song or fiddle tune you could share with me?”

Ah, there were many others, ah, ah, Betty Smith, a great singer who wrote the book about Jane H. Gentry, and one of the great female song collectors from over in Madison County. There was Olive Dame Campbell, for whom the Campbell Folk School is named, was a collector. Many of her ballads collected were infused into the Cecil Sharp collection.

Ah, today we have, ah, individuals like Sheila Kay Adams, ah, from Madison County, from Sodom Laurel, who has the stories. Ah, she, they were handed down along with the songs knee-to-knee from her granny and aunt. Her protégé and David Holt’s protégé like the very gifted Josh Goforth, ah, from Madison County, who is a storyteller, collecting the songs, and traveling the country carrying on the tradition, a…

And, of course, ah, here in Asheville, ah, we have such a great tradition of the music and the mountain dancing folk festival. It was founded in 1928 by Bascom Lamar Lunsford and reoccurs every year in August involving some of the old-timers. Bascom’s no longer with us, but his grandson, Ed Barron/Herron (?) introduces the three-night festival every year. We play music in it.

And that tradition is celebrated. You have young people; you have dance teams and all the rest. Ah, so whether it’s Madison County or here in Buncombe County or some of the surrounding counties, ah, ah, it’s important to carry on this great tradition of the music and not allow it to get lost in the technological age or what is the latest Top Ten pop…tune list of the day because this old music perpetuates; it continues regardless of what is the Top Ten tune and, ah, thankfully, ah, we have, ah, music camps such as ours, we have public radio and television; we have documentaries that do a great justice to what is this wonderful American tradition of the music that’s so multi-faceted in its sources, and as I say, it really reflects the American story which comes from many tributaries because we are a melting pot, and so is our Appalachian music.

Partial Transcript: Cecil Sharp, an Englishman, ah, was deeply interested in collecting and recording, and tracing the origins of some of the great, ah, fiddle tunes and ballads in England and Scotland and Ireland, ah, and he decided to make the crossing and, ah, find out how the family tree of the music had crossed the Atlantic and followed the Conestoga wagons into the Appalachians and other corners of America.

Ah, so starting in 1916, ah, he wound up in the southern Appalachians and, indeed, in Asheville, and some of the surrounding counties, and four or five of the surrounding states. And he and his, ah, his collecting partner, Maude Karpeles, would trek, sometimes five or six miles down a back road, ah, to trace ah, a source of the music, ah, and he discovered very quickly that here was a treasure trove of these old ballads and fiddle tunes, often times better preserved than back home. And he was sending that message back home.

So he was so enamored with what he found that, ah he and, he and Maude together would record, ah, ah, the melody and the lyrics, and, of course, as they travel around they would find that there were many different lyric versions of the song, say, like Barbara Allen, which has 197 variants and three different melodies, but that was the oral tradition, so you would expect that and sometimes it might’ve been just a line difference here or there, but these were handed down in families. Well, in that first summer, in 1916, he found that this was such a treasure trove that he had to come back. And he did, and the next two successive summers of collecting more and more and compiled that in a two-volume set of collected songs.

About 40-45 percent were Scottish in origin; the rest were English; and there was infusion and sometimes confusion about exactly what were the exact sources because these fiddle tunes and songs were traveling back and forth over there as well, in Scotland, England, and Ulster, Northern Ireland. Ah, there is a Cecil Sharp Center today in London, ah, that records a lot of what he was doing, ah, and then he triggered a lot of other collectors who came after him, as well. And Bascom Lamar Lunsford was one of those, but so was Jane H. Gentry and Olive Dame Campbell and, and many, many others. And that collecting tradition continues to the present day.

And it’s so important to interview these old-timers, ah, for example, since we finished our book, Wayfaring Strangers, we interviewed 43 individuals and six of those interviewees are no longer with us, such as Doc Watson, such as Pete Seeger, Mike Seeger, ah, Jean Redpath, the great Scottish singer, and many others. Ah, consequently, we were reminded-- capture these voices now--which is why what you’re doing with this work, with this film documentary, is so critically important to American and Appalachian culture because these voices are not going to be with us forever, we can’t take them for granted. AH, and so get their voices, get their tunes now, ah, and we committed to doing that.

Partial Transcript: Yeah, the collecting of the old songs, the ballads, the fiddle tunes, the stories continues today and, indeed, it must because just since we published the book, ah, we’ve lost, ah, five or more of our interviewees: ah, Pete Seeger, Mike Seeger, Doc Watson Jean Ritchie, Jean Redpath, the great Scottish balladeer, and so we are reminded of the fact capture these voices now to carry on the tradition, ah, because it’s a great tradition, ah, and they are the storytellers as well as the singers, ah, from both sides. AH, and we’re in an era, I think, of, ah, of short attention spans and sound bites, and all the others, and yet this is a carrying stream of the music that traces itself back across the Atlantic, across, not only hundreds, but even a thousand years, ah, and we don’t wanna lose that because otherwise we lose an importance of American culture, ah, and I applaud many of you who are working to carry on traditions and to tell the story because it’s an important piece, of not only Appalachian culture but American culture as well.

Ah, this indeed is the music that America comes home to because it was the music that came over on the early emigration vessels and then infused itself into the American melting pot of influences from not only other European countries but from the African-Americans and from the Native Americans and others. So, to our way of thinking, the Appalachian music story is very much an American story, ah, with all of these different influences which makes it such a very great music and it is a real mistake to look at Appalachian music--be it fiddle playing or ballads--as something that’s strictly out of one culture or one story line or one family tree. It’s multi-faceted, ah, and in itself I think does represent the American melting pot, the music that America comes home to.

Partial Transcript: Well, when Cecil Sharp came over for the first time in 1916, he already was, ah, concerned about the loss of traditions including the old songs, the music, the fiddle tunes, in England and Scotland and Ulster in Ireland, ah, so that when he came into the southern Appalachians he found this treasure trove of the old stories, the fiddle tunes, and the songs, and he wanted to find a way of preserving them. That’s why he returned twice and why he has this two-volume set of the songs, ah, to carry on that tradition that could have been, ah, lost over time. And that threat is only exacerbated over the years in a technological age, ah, as, ah, we have, ah, YouTube and so many other ways of accessing music but, ah, electronically, ah, when there is a benefit of accessing the music, but electronically there is the benefit of accessing so much, but also there can be a real loss of the traditions that were handed down knee-to-knee and family-to-family, ah, and community-to-community.

Consequently, ah, his work, ah, preserved through his two-volume set, through the Cecil Sharp Center, ah, in London, but also by those who followed in the Cecil Sharp tradition over here, the other song catchers, ah, leading up to the present day, and we must never forget the great service being provided by, ah, current-day song catchers such as David Holt and, ah, Sheila Kay Adams and, ah, Bobby McMillan (?), ah, and, ah, many others who you have been interviewing, ah, for this, ah, very, very significant series that captures a great American tradition.

Partial Transcript: Something very special and deep in the American culture can be lost if we don’t preserve these songs and stories and all of the rest, and certainly in the southern Appalachians, ah, those traditions, ah, could have been very much lost by out-migration, ah, during the Depression years, of course, ah, families were hit hard, ah, many were out-migrating into, ah, the Midwest, into the factories in Illinois and Indiana and Ohio and other places, ah, and this emptying out of, ah, ah, did threaten the culture. AH, they carried on some of their traditions with them but it wasn’t the same, ah, as if they were still, ah, in their homes in the southern Appalachians.

Now, after the Great Depression there was some return migration, ah, and, ah, after the Second World War, I think, there began to be ah, a greater recognition of the importance of preserving this tradition, ah, and hence individuals like Bascom Lamar Lunsford went to work in continuing to collect the old songs and the fiddle tunes and all of the rest. But, ah, this is a culture and a song and melody tradition that could easily have been lost, ah, had it not been for the collectors, ah, for the support of, ah, governments, grants, and others, ah, to collect the old songs, to work in preserving a very important piece of American culture; but, having said that, the threat is still there today, and in a world and society that’s in a constant state of flux and change and where you can access information and film and songs at the touch of a button, ah, attention spans get shorter, and we would be a soulless community and culture, I think, if we lose some of these traditions, be it Appalachian or be it others as well.

Certainly, ah, the melting pot of America includes, ah, culture groups from all over the world and it’s important we, we not lose those identities. It might be, ah, it might be Mexican; it might be African-American; it might be Asian; it might be European; but here, I think, encapsulated in a microcosm of the Appalachian story and of the, ah, Ulster Scots coming over is an American story, ah, of what’s enriched the American melting pot but also could be diluted and lost over time if we don’t make sure we find ways to preserve it through the tradition bearers, through, ah, the media, such as public television and radio, ah, ah, through the music workshops and camps like The Swannanoa Gathering, and through the family storytelling because families are diminished today without storytelling, ah, and it’s easy to lose that. We go to restaurants and see families sitting there all on their iPhones rather than telling stories and having conversations. So I think we’re getting into an issue here that is very much at the heart of the preservation of a culture, ah, and, ah, ah, the story of the, of the Scots and the Ulster-Scots who came down the great wagon road, ah, into these southern Appalachians. It is not just a story of this Appalachian music; it is an American story; it is a worldwide story; and, in a way, of how some cultures can get lost unless we make efforts to maintain those rich traditions because the American melting pot is certainly much richer, ah, if we, while we respect all the different cultures, we also have some preservation of these great traditions that we have because that’s what makes us ah, in a rich culture in America.

Partial Transcript: American music and certainly Appalachian music is, ah, using the metaphor, a carrying stream with tributaries and turns and twists along the way, so that in the case of the music that came over on the boat from Ulster and Scotland and Ireland and England, ah, it went through many transformations, ah, on the boat, upon arrival, and as it infused itself into the American melting pot, ah, with, ah, many tributaries entering in. Ah, the music of these mountains and it was carried over on the boat, ah, resulted in many offshoots along the way. AH, Appalachian fiddle tunes and songs gave birth to, ah, bluegrass music in the 1940s, Bill Monroe and others originated. With some different interpretations, the banjo, ah, five-string banjo being the lead instrument more so than the fiddle, for example, but a lot of overlap, ah, is just one branch that leads to another. And you can continue that, ah, certainly, ah, American blues, jazz, had influences tracing back to the emigration boats, ah, that were carried over along the way.

Ah, so, ah, it’s all infused; it’s, in many ways, it’s the American story of many different, ah, tributaries and giving birth to many different forms of, of the music so that, ah, for example, the, ah, the old, ah, ah, jug band sound from the African-American community, ah, found its way into New Orleans blues and jazz and other interpretations. AH, so it is a fabric; it is a melting pot; it is ah, a rich tapestry of all these different strands, ah, which, ah, makes it so, so interesting. Rock and roll certainly has its roots in this music as well tracing back to, ah, rhythm blues and influences from, ah, the old ballads of the mountains, ah, going back to the 40s and 50s and 60s. AH, it’s just a rich, rich, intertwining story.

Partial Transcript: The songs and fiddle tunes would often evolve and change, ah, even the titles would change at times. Ah, the basic essence of the fiddle tunes and ballads is that Bascom Lunsford liked to say really remain true to the origins but a whole lot of interpretations because after all they were carried on, over mainly in an oral tradition; they weren’t writing them down.

And there is ah, ah, one story, ah, from a famous song collector over on the other side, in Scotland, who reprimanded Sir Walter Scott, ah, for writing them down because, he said, “When you do that, you kill them. They’re dead. They’re no longer an organic process, alive.” On the other hand, you can make a counterargument that had Sir Walter Scott not collected a lot of the old songs, many could have been lost forever. So that dynamic tension goes on, ah, to the present day in terms of, ah, the collecting and the preserving as well, ah, and it, it does make it certainly a richer story. AH, there are many different strands of this in the collecting and thank goodness we still have these collectors going on today.

Ah, one of the persons doing a great service for this is David Holt, ah, who has interviewed for public television oftentimes some of the old-timers. He will place a picture of them up before the camera and tell their stories because he knows that their voices sooner or later will be lost. He was a music partner of Doc Watson’s. So I was always fascinated to watch David and Doc Watson in concert together because basically that was not only a music concert, it was an interview with Doc Watson, whose ancestors came over to this country in the 1740s, ah, out of the Scottish tradition and settled into these mountains and then carried out that tradition, ah, over the many different generations, so it’s a generational thing; ah, that is, ah, makes it so interesting in the family tree of the music, and I’ve been struck by the fact that wherever we give presentations about the book Wayfaring Strangers, it strikes a chord in the audience because they’ve heard the stories in their families, they’ve heard the songs.

Ah, most often, of course, with the Scotch-Irish, but not just with the Scotch-Irish, it could be with the African-American, with the English, ah, with the Spanish or whatever because the basic carrying stream of the music with many tributaries is also their family story as well, so it always resonates with individuals wherever we go. AH, we just were at ah, at ah, a great storytelling festival, ah, called…in Burnsville, North Carolina, that has been going on for about eleven years, and I was struck by how many people wanted to talk afterward about their own family story and what they heard and how the music in a way can be a vehicle for carrying on, not only songs but stories and individuals as well.

Partial Transcript: Well, one of our favorites would be Barbara Allen because of all the, of the old ballads, that’s perhaps the oldest and with the most variations. Barbara Allen was ah, ah, collected back in the 1600s in Scotland, ah, and, a little Scottish ballad it was called, ah, and over the years because it’s ah, a Romeo and Juliet story really of misunderstood lovers, ah, that made the crossing, and today there are 197 variants of the lyrics and three different tune families.

Ah, sometimes even the names of the individuals, ah, change, ah, within a story. Sweet William can be, ah, Allen or John or someone else because it is the tradition there, so that would be one, ah, case in point, the oldest, that little Scottish ballad that, ah, ah, ah, was recorded by Dolly Parton, who writes the forward to our book and recorded it with an Irish singer, ah, and, of course, is a favorite of the song collectors because in that one song you have the story of the song collecting of ballads that could have been lost, ah, with the three tune variations and many different interpretations, but the many different, others as well, a... There are fiddle tunes, for example, ah, that, ah, could be called Lord Bateman, wherever it might be, where they would change it over here, ah, to ah, ah, a…a title that reflects the mountain setting, whatever that might be because they were trying to get away from the Lord Batemans.

Ah, they were seeking an egalitarian life over here and, ah, that’s what attracted them, and the music needed to reflect that. So, whether it was the songs or the ballads that would often be stripped down but carried on usually in an oral tradition because many of these folks were not literate. Storytelling and, and singing were very much a part of what brought families together.

In the early days, they didn’t have television; they certainly didn’t have computers and other things, so gathering around the family traditions at night were very much a part of telling the stories, and they were doing it from memory so little wonder we have so many variations and, in the, using the metaphor of the, of the stream, the carrying stream, they’re a lot of different offshoots in tracing down the origins and we owe a great debt of service to those early collectors from Cecil Sharp to Bascom Lamar Lunsford to the current song collectors like David Holt and Sheila Kay Adams and Bobby McMillan(?) AH, and the list goes on because they are, ah, really carrying on an…important American tradition.

Partial Transcript: This project for us, ah, was a very personal thing. Ah, I grew up with folk music—I was a 60s folkie-- learned some of the songs from my parents. I’m of, ah, Scotch-Irish ancestry so my father knew some of the old ballads as well, so it was a very personal aspect as well. I, ah, met my wife Darcy through the music at a music jam in Charlotte. She was playing the Appalachian dulcimer and I was playing the guitar. I met Fiona Ritchie when she came over as an exchange student at the University of North Carolina Charlotte and volunteered to start a little radio program for the local radio, local public radio, that was just being carried locally, and I said, “Go for it, Fiona,” and she did. The program was carried locally for two or three years and now has become one of the most popular music programs in public radio with a listening audience of ranging over the years to 200,000 to 300,000 people, so it became what was ah, a very personal family hobby and tradition of the music and the stories and tracing our own family’s Scotch-Irish ancestry.

Ah, it also was part of my friends, my marriage, of bringing me to Asheville and Warren Wilson. I didn’t come here just for the music, but when I came to Warren Wilson as, ah, as President, I stepped on the campus and my first thought was not of administrative detail but, “What a great place for a music camp.”

And hence we initiated The Swannanoa Gathering around seven different themes now, from a Celtic week to an Appalachian week, to a fiddle week, and so it goes. It literally brings people from all over the world, from as far away as Australia, but certainly from Europe to preserve a tradition, and, ah, and here in the Asheville area in Western North Carolina we are right at the heart of it, and I think all of us have an obligation to, ah, be good stewards of that tradition, to carry on the stories and the music, ah, I think of public television and radio and documentaries have ah, a great role because this is an American story and it’s, ah, greatly fulfilling for us to play music and perform and as we do also at all of our book events and book launches. I mean it would not be appropriate for us, as we do, meet with different book clubs and festivals as we did just this past week, ah, and just tell the story and read from the book. We play and sing music, ah, because we wanna keep that tradition alive and so much of our great traditions of all kinds from Celtic to African to Yiddish to Asian can be told in songs and stories and, consequently, we want to be a part of that, ah, and ah, a…

Consequently, I was in a bookshop at a festival a couple of years ago, ah, and there was a sign on the wall referring to the importance of carrying on the music, and it said that “the story never ends.” And if you think about it, when we have family stories or even if we (clears throat), excuse me, read a good book, we carry on that story in our own minds in some ways, and that is the purpose, part of the purposes of our book, Wayfaring Strangers, is for the people who read it, whether musicians or not, we encourage you to follow your own family story, tell the traditions, tell it to the kids and the grandkids, whatever the ethnic group, because otherwise we are a much poorer culture without the storytelling and the sharing of the tunes and having the music jams that the Scottish and the Irish called Kila. Ah, if we lose something, we lose something right at the fabric of American culture.

Partial Transcript: You know, in our society today we have more information at the click of a button than we’ve ever had in history, some say the amount of information that we have at our disposal, ah, is increased, ah, in a multiplier of two or three every year. Ah, so attention spans are shortening. Ah, w, we can lose respect for those who came before, some of the traditions, some of our forbearers, so it seems to us it is so important to carry on the traditions or the stories, of the songs, be it a family, be it a community, be it ethnic group.

I think one of the great aspects of American culture that it is a melting pot of people coming together from all origins. But in a melting pot, you don’t want cultural identities to be lost, either. Ah, those ought a be respected and learned from and, in a way, that is one of the themes and plot lines of our book because Appalachian music has been something of a melting pot as I’ve mentioned. There are many different strains that have worked their way into Appalachian music, ah, and we need to respect those different origins, ah, but also we are a poorer country by far if we, if we, ah, lose some of the carrying stream and all of the tributaries that have fed into this marvelous culture that we have in America, ah, because the electronic access we have to information and the short attention spans and all the rest can blur the lines.

Ah, consequently, those of you who are working to carry on the traditions and, and the stories, be they individual or family or community or cultural group, ah, are really, ah, tradition bearers and very much a part, I think, of the American story.

Partial Transcript: One of our favorite aspects of the music, which is our hobby, as well as part of my profession when I was at Warren Wilson College and initiating The Swannanoa Gathering, is that, the way it can bring people together, ah, in a common bond going back to the Kila and song sessions in Scotland and Ireland and England and in other places, and we will be a poor culture indeed if we, ah, ah, didn’t have that way of bring people together because at the end of the day and at the end of a music camp. ah, what people tell us they remember the most is not simply the songs they’ve collected but whether they’ve improved their fiddle technique a little bit, It has been those late-night sessions under the moon when you have a, ah, a small gathering of folks be it a song circle or playing the old fiddle tunes and stopping and telling the stories with each other and getting to know each other, that’s what stays with them, the community of the music, and that is a bond of people that goes back to the earliest days.

I’m sure that, if we could trace going back to the cave-dwelling days, they were, telling the stories was their main art form,, and perhaps at some point they began using, ah, whatever they found as a musical instrument, at least in a percussive kind of way. And over time we had the troubadours starting to collect music and telling the stories and all of the rest, ah, so something very valuable to our culture is, is there and folks come together under the light of the moon, ah, and tell the stories and share the fiddle tunes and tell stories as they go and sing the old songs, ah, it’s one of the most fascinating dynamics that we experience, and our lives have been enriched by it, by The Swannanoa Gathering and other, ah, similar endeavors around the country and there are certainly other music camps and workshops that we see, and it’s interesting to me that at The Swannanoa Gathering during Appalachian Old-Timer Week we get, last summer we had a dozen from Australia. Ah, we’ve had folks from, ah, Japan, a lot of Canadians, Europeans, of course, ah, and, ah, the music is a balm that brings people together; they’re interested in the storyline and where it comes from, ah, but I think what they leave with most of all is the community of the music.