| ||||||||||
 
Dr. Ronald P. Rogers CHIROPRACTOR Support for your body's natural healing capabilities 270-384-5554 Click here for details 
  
Columbia Gas Dept. GAS LEAK or GAS SMELL Contact Numbers 24 hrs/ 365 days 270-384-2006 or 9-1-1 Call before you dig 
Visit ColumbiaMagazine's Directory of Churches Addresses, times, phone numbers and more for churches in Adair County Find Great Stuff in ColumbiaMagazine's Classified Ads Antiques, Help Wanted, Autos, Real Estate, Legal Notices, More... 
|
Tom Chaney: Sept. 24, 2006, Of writers and their books, Montell By Tom Chaney email: bookstore@scrtc.com ROOTS OF LOCAL MUSIC: Gospel Singing book, Grassroots Music in the Upper Cumberland by Dr. Lynwood Montell features chapters on Adair County plus 15 other nearby Upper Cumberland Counties Our debt to William Lynwood Montell is great. For those not in the know, Dr. Montell has made a career in the study of the folkways of the upper Cumberland region and south-central Kentucky. He is emeritus professor of folk studies at Western Kentucky University and incisive interpreter of folk customs in this region. Montell's Ghosts Along the Cumberland: Deathlore in the Kentucky Foothills; The Saga of Coe Ridge: A Study in Oral History; and Don't Go Up Kettle Creek: Verbal Legacy of the Upper Cumberland are all seminal studies enriching our understanding of who we are and from whence we come. A favorite is Singing the Glory Down One of my favorite of his studies is Singing the Glory Down: Amateur Gospel Music in South Central Kentucky 1900-1990. Published in 1991 the book is an excellent discussion of the development of gospel music in the twentieth century from the rise of singing schools at the beginning of the century through the demise of shape-note schools and singing conventions after World War II leaving in their wake the amateur gospel quartets which yet persist. The useful appendix of Singing the Glory Down lists the active and once-active gospel quartets by county after World War II and identifies singing school teachers by county. The Hart County list contains 46 quartets and ten singing teachers. New book, Grassroots Musiccomes 15 years after Singing the Glory Down Now fifteen years later Montell has edited a companion study to the earlier work. His Grassroots Music in the Upper Cumberland (University of Tennessee Press, 2006) is a county by county study of local music in the sixteen counties of the upper Cumberland region with a chapter devoted to each county. The Kentucky counties consist of Adair, Clinton, Cumberland, Metcalfe, Monroe, Pulaski, Russell, and Wayne. In Tennessee the counties included are Clay, Cumberland, DeKalb, Fentress, Jackson, Macon, Overton, and Putnam. In the best written chapters, among which are the ones on Monroe County (Kentucky) by Montell and Clay County (Tennessee) by Myra Burnett, the standards of scholarship are high, and the threads of influence are easily followed. The various chapters include thumbnail sketches of various artists of the county. There is a bit of pushing and shoving when an artist is from one county with ties to another. The focus of Grassroots Music is on a much broader range of styles than is Singing the Glory Down. While the latter is narrowly focused on gospel music, this later volume deals with a broad range of musical types -- English ballads, bluegrass, modern country, rock and roll as well as gospel. Headhunters included in latest book Grassroots Music places musicians with national reputations within their upper Cumberland context. Musicians such as Lester Flatt, Stringbean Aiken, Finley Belcher, and the Headhunters are placed in the local traditions out of which they emerged. And, of course, the stories. Always the stories. The reader can begin to see how the legacy of music is transmitted from generation to generation. Professor Montell has done fine service to the folk origins of music in south-central Kentucky and the upper Cumberland Plateau in these two volumes. Both deserve a space on the Montell shelf of those who would learn how we have come to live and speak and sing. Tom Chaney can be found telling stories, smoking pipe-weed, and occasionally selling books at: THE BOOKSTORE Box 73 / 111 Water Street Horse Cave, Kentucky 42749 270-786-3084 Email: Tom Chaney bookstore@scrtc.comVisit website: The Bookstore This story was posted on 2006-09-24 14:31:54
Printable: this page is now automatically formatted for printing.
Have comments or corrections for this story? Use our contact form and let us know. More articles from topic Tom Chaney: Of Writers and Their Books:
Tom Chaney: Of writers and their books. Finding Courtney Tom Chaney: Aug. 5, 2006. Of Writers and Their Books. Wendell Berry Tom Chaney: July 19, 2006. Of Writers and Their Books. Trillin Tom Chaney: July 16, 2006 Of writers and their books Tom Chaney: July 9, 2006 Of writers and their books TOM CHANEY June 20, 2006: Of Writers and Their Books TOM CHANEY June 4, 2006: Charles Dowling Williams' poetry TOM CHANEY May 28, 2006: Memory of Old Jack TOM CHANEY May 21, 2006: Rumpole and the Primrose Path TOM CHANEY: The Sacred Power of Stories View even more articles in topic Tom Chaney: Of Writers and Their Books |
 
115 Jamestown St. Columbia, KY. 270-384-2496 
  
   
 Provided by the Adair Co Fiscal Court and the Adair Co. Emergency Mgt. Agency 
|
||||||||
|
| ||||||||||
|
Quick Links to Popular Features
Looking for a story or picture? Try our Photo Archive or our Stories Archive for all the information that's appeared on ColumbiaMagazine.com. | ||||||||||
|
Contact us: Columbia Magazine and columbiamagazine.com are published by Linda Waggener and Pen Waggener, PO Box 906, Columbia, KY 42728. Please use our contact page, or send questions about technical issues with this site to webmaster@columbiamagazine.com. All logos and trademarks used on this site are property of their respective owners. All comments remain the property and responsibility of their posters, all articles and photos remain the property of their creators, and all the rest is copyright 1995-Present by Columbia Magazine. Privacy policy: use of this site requires no sharing of information. Voluntarily shared information may be published and made available to the public on this site and/or stored electronically. Anonymous submissions will be subject to additional verification. Cookies are not required to use our site. However, if you have cookies enabled in your web browser, some of our advertisers may use cookies for interest-based advertising across multiple domains. For more information about third-party advertising, visit the NAI web privacy site.
| ||||||||||
