"Y'all Come and Have Fun": Discovering a New Jersey Country and Western Music Scene in a Box of Postcards

Several years ago, Rutgers University's Special Collections and University Archives was given a checkbox containing fifty-six postcards advertising country and western music shows at venues around New Jersey. The postcards, primarily from the 1960s, promoted shows featuring Grand Ole Opry stars like Wanda Jackson, Hank Thompson, and Elton Britt. Preliminary research revealed that the postcards touted performances by regional and local musicians, as well. A closer look at the cards began to expose how a small, hyper-local ephemeral collection could bring to light and contribute to a larger history; in this case, a once thriving but little explored New Jersey country and western music scene. The research that forms this article focuses on one venue, the Copa Club in the city of Secaucus, and its owners, brothers and musicians Shorty and Smokey Warren, as a specific case study. This collection of postcards, like so much ephemeral material in archives, could have remained undervalued and under-researched. In this case, a close consideration set forth a journey that included research in local archives and interviews with scene participants. As a result, this article explores the past of an important musical genre that evolved along with social changes in the United States. This piece contributes to the scholarship around uses and value of ephemera, as well as scholarship that continues to challenge the southern origin story of country music and examine vital locales of country music outside the South.