Old-Time Smoky Mountain Music: 34 Historic Songs, Ballads, and Instrumentals Recorded in the Great Smoky Mountains by "Song Catcher" Joseph S. Hall (review)

Over the course of the last decade, reissues of early American commercial country music, both popular and obscure, have become more affordable and available than ever before (mostly through the efforts of various European labels). Old-Time Smoky Mountain Music, compiled and annotated by two prominent scholars in the field of Appalachian studies, enhances these reissues with a refreshing alternative: a select group of thirty-four noncommercial recordings from Appalachia's Great Smoky Mountains, all collected in 1939. At a time when American old-time music appears increasingly in the academy, inspiring curricula and ensembles everywhere from community colleges to Ivy League institutions, such a release stirs excitement, playfully rekindling the myth of undiscovered, authentic mountain music.¹

Following its inauguration in 1934, Great Smoky Mountains National Park began a controversial process of "purchasing" land. The main obstacle here remained human: many people lived inside the proposed 500,000-acre park. In an effort to appease concerns and protests about displacing thousands of families, the National Park Service sponsored a project documenting the mountain culture that faced its removal. Enter scholar Joseph S. Hall, more of a linguist than a "song catcher," who accepted an assignment to study the language of the outgoing residents. Beginning in 1939, Hall spent nine months in the Smokies with portable recording equipment, taping a variety of conversations, stories, legends, sayings, and music. He based his operations from CCC (Civilian Conservations Corps) camps, the temporary housing for workers building the park. His research sparked subsequent visits and a career interest, and Hall went on to publish at least four books on Smoky Mountain speech and folktales over the course of his lifetime.

Until now, the music that Hall documented was only available at the park's archives and the Archives of Appalachia at East Tennessee State University. The Great Smoky Mountains Association, an organization that assists the park with educational, historical, and scientific initiatives, produced this anthology, the entire proceeds of which benefit the park. Ted Olson, an Appalachian studies faculty member at ETSU, chose the thirty-four selections from over one hundred of Hall's recordings, and the package includes a forty-page booklet of notes, photographs, song lyrics, and two essays.

Overall, Olson's selections remain first-rate and diverse, including ballads (both British and Native American), instrumentals (fiddle tunes, banjo tunes, guitar solos, and a harmonica feature), lyric folksongs, early country, and a sprinkling of parlor song, gospel material, play party music, and even a "laughing song" ("Ticklish Rubin"). The sound quality is quite acceptable, albeit somewhat inconsistent at times. While most of the material comes from the familiar canon of American traditional music, the performers consist of an obscure mix of local residents and CCC camp members. Nevertheless, the music remains good, with several selections featuring talented musicians and compelling performances.

Bessie Rabb of Haywood County, North Carolina, sings "Down in the Willow Garden" with terrific strength and intensity, but the unidentified guitar accompaniment appears equally as impressive. It uses a more static harmonic progression, creating particular tensions with the melody that are refreshingly different from most performances of this ballad. Other ballad material includes Jack Johnson's (Blount County, Tennessee) version of "I Started Out A-Courting" that interpolates a verse from "Come All You Virginia Girls" in the middle, an oddity curiously absent from the liner notes. However, the most interesting ballads are two Native American ones, "The Big Bend Killing" and "Up on Big Pigeon." Both are hauntingly rendered (although the latter inexplicably fades out after less than two minutes), recounting a 1930 double murder that occurred within the park's present-day boundaries in Haywood County.

The anthology includes many more songs than ballads. With a clear, striking voice not unlike Cynthia May Carver...