Patrick Huber
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807832257
- eISBN:
- 9781469606217
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807886786_huber.6
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
This chapter illustrates how, as early as 1924, the hard-drinking textile millhand Charlie Poole was already broadcasting his high-spirited, percussive dance music throughout the mountains of ...
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This chapter illustrates how, as early as 1924, the hard-drinking textile millhand Charlie Poole was already broadcasting his high-spirited, percussive dance music throughout the mountains of southwestern Virginia even before he appeared on radio or records. Besides performing for paying audiences at formal stage shows, the renowned five-string banjoist and his brother-in-law, fiddler Posey Rorer, often entertained in private homes for parties and dances around Franklin County, Virginia, where Rorer had been born and raised. Sometimes the duo “broadcast” using their host's hand-crank telephone, thereby sharing their music, via the telephone party line, with avid listeners in the community. During the mid- to late 1920s, even after he became one of Columbia's best-selling recording stars, Poole and his revolving ensemble of stringband musicians, the North Carolina Ramblers, regularly spent weeks playing the towns and villages of southwestern Virginia and southern West Virginia, sometimes for paying audiences but most often just for the sheer pleasure of making music.Less
This chapter illustrates how, as early as 1924, the hard-drinking textile millhand Charlie Poole was already broadcasting his high-spirited, percussive dance music throughout the mountains of southwestern Virginia even before he appeared on radio or records. Besides performing for paying audiences at formal stage shows, the renowned five-string banjoist and his brother-in-law, fiddler Posey Rorer, often entertained in private homes for parties and dances around Franklin County, Virginia, where Rorer had been born and raised. Sometimes the duo “broadcast” using their host's hand-crank telephone, thereby sharing their music, via the telephone party line, with avid listeners in the community. During the mid- to late 1920s, even after he became one of Columbia's best-selling recording stars, Poole and his revolving ensemble of stringband musicians, the North Carolina Ramblers, regularly spent weeks playing the towns and villages of southwestern Virginia and southern West Virginia, sometimes for paying audiences but most often just for the sheer pleasure of making music.
Patrick Huber
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807832257
- eISBN:
- 9781469606217
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807886786_huber
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
Contrary to popular belief, the roots of American country music do not lie solely on southern farms or in mountain hollows. Rather, much of this music recorded before World War II emerged from the ...
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Contrary to popular belief, the roots of American country music do not lie solely on southern farms or in mountain hollows. Rather, much of this music recorded before World War II emerged from the bustling cities and towns of the Piedmont South. No group contributed more to the commercialization of early country music than southern factory workers. This book explores the origins and development of this music in the Piedmont's mill villages. It offers vivid portraits of a colorful cast of Piedmont millhand musicians, including Fiddlin' John Carson, Charlie Poole, Dave McCarn, and the Dixon Brothers, and considers the impact that urban living, industrial work, and mass culture had on their lives and music. Drawing on a broad range of sources, including rare 78-rpm recordings and unpublished interviews, the author reveals how the country music recorded between 1922 and 1942 was just as modern as the jazz music of the same era. The book celebrates the Piedmont millhand fiddlers, guitarists, and banjo pickers who combined the collective memories of the rural countryside with the upheavals of urban-industrial life to create a distinctive American music that spoke to the changing realities of the twentieth-century South.Less
Contrary to popular belief, the roots of American country music do not lie solely on southern farms or in mountain hollows. Rather, much of this music recorded before World War II emerged from the bustling cities and towns of the Piedmont South. No group contributed more to the commercialization of early country music than southern factory workers. This book explores the origins and development of this music in the Piedmont's mill villages. It offers vivid portraits of a colorful cast of Piedmont millhand musicians, including Fiddlin' John Carson, Charlie Poole, Dave McCarn, and the Dixon Brothers, and considers the impact that urban living, industrial work, and mass culture had on their lives and music. Drawing on a broad range of sources, including rare 78-rpm recordings and unpublished interviews, the author reveals how the country music recorded between 1922 and 1942 was just as modern as the jazz music of the same era. The book celebrates the Piedmont millhand fiddlers, guitarists, and banjo pickers who combined the collective memories of the rural countryside with the upheavals of urban-industrial life to create a distinctive American music that spoke to the changing realities of the twentieth-century South.
Thomas Goldsmith
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780252042966
- eISBN:
- 9780252051821
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252042966.003.0003
- Subject:
- Music, Popular
The piedmont areas of North and South Carolina provided much of the music that Earl Scruggs heard in his youth. After hearing the music of banjoists such as Charlie Poole, Snuffy Jenkins, Fisher ...
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The piedmont areas of North and South Carolina provided much of the music that Earl Scruggs heard in his youth. After hearing the music of banjoists such as Charlie Poole, Snuffy Jenkins, Fisher Hendley, Smith Hammett and Mack Woolbright, Scruggs created his own three-finger style. Poole was a successful recording artist and model performer whose banjo playing resembled the classic style. Snuffy Jenkins is most often cited as Scruggs’s predecessor in three-finger banjo. Fisher Hendley was a businessman and civic figure as well as a musician. Woolbright was a blind musician who made a deep impression on Scruggs. Smith Hammett played a three-finger style perhaps inspired by a traveling African American musician. Hammett experienced a violent death. Scruggs came up with his own style when 10 or 11 years old while playing in the parlor of his family home in Flint Hill. Jim Mills explains Scruggs’s unique step forward.Less
The piedmont areas of North and South Carolina provided much of the music that Earl Scruggs heard in his youth. After hearing the music of banjoists such as Charlie Poole, Snuffy Jenkins, Fisher Hendley, Smith Hammett and Mack Woolbright, Scruggs created his own three-finger style. Poole was a successful recording artist and model performer whose banjo playing resembled the classic style. Snuffy Jenkins is most often cited as Scruggs’s predecessor in three-finger banjo. Fisher Hendley was a businessman and civic figure as well as a musician. Woolbright was a blind musician who made a deep impression on Scruggs. Smith Hammett played a three-finger style perhaps inspired by a traveling African American musician. Hammett experienced a violent death. Scruggs came up with his own style when 10 or 11 years old while playing in the parlor of his family home in Flint Hill. Jim Mills explains Scruggs’s unique step forward.
