On this episode of our mini-series Sepia Tones, Dr. William Turner and Dr. Ted Olson examine music within rural communities with guests Earl White, Larry Kirksey, and Kip Lornell. Each of our guests has been on their own quest, whether seeking the musical kinship of other black performers past and present, finding a life outside of Kentucky coal camps, or documenting the rich musical landscape of rural communities.
Earl White is an accomplished fiddler and prominent figure of old-time music and dance. He was a founding member of The Green Grass Cloggers, and his energetic and rhythmic fiddle style is showcased through his vast repertoire of Appalachian music. He resides in Floyd County, VA, where he and his wife run a farm and bakery.
Larry Kirksey grew up in Harlan County in the Appalachian region of Kentucky, sharing a lifelong friendship with our host Dr. William Turner. He went on to become a respected coach in the NFL, achieving victory at Super Bowl XXIX with the San Francisco 49ers. From his beginnings in eastern Kentucky, his work has taken him all over the United States and to other countries.
Kip Lornell is a professor of American music and ethnomusicology at George Washington University. He has written a number of books, articles, and essays and was awarded a Grammy in 1997 for his contribution to Smithsonian Folkways’ Anthology of American Folk Music. He studied African American music for many years and completed field work in various areas, including the Appalachian region.
Dr. William Turner is a long-time African American studies scholar who first rose to prominence as co-editor of the groundbreaking Blacks in Appalachia. He was also a research assistant to Roots author Alex Haley. Turner retired as distinguished professor of Appalachian Studies and regional ambassador at Berea College. His memoir called The Harlan Renaissance is forthcoming from West Virginia University Press.
Dr. Ted Olson is a professor of Appalachian Studies at East Tennessee State University and the author of many books, articles, reviews, encyclopedia entries, and oral histories. Olson has produced and compiled a number of documentary albums of traditional Appalachian music including GSMA’s On Top of Old Smoky and Big Bend Killing. He’s received a number of awards in his work, including seven Grammy nominations. The East Tennessee Historical Society recently honored Olson with its Ramsey Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Music selections include:
On this episode of our mini-series Sepia Tones, Dr. William Turner and Dr. Ted Olson examine music within rural communities with guests Earl White, Larry Kirksey, and Kip Lornell. Each of our guests has been on their own quest, whether seeking the musical kinship of other black performers past and present, finding a life outside of Kentucky coal camps, or documenting the rich musical landscape of rural communities.
Earl White is an accomplished fiddler and prominent figure of old-time music and dance. He was a founding member of The Green Grass Cloggers, and his energetic and rhythmic fiddle style is showcased through his vast repertoire of Appalachian music. He resides in Floyd County, VA, where he and his wife run a farm and bakery.
Larry Kirksey grew up in Harlan County in the Appalachian region of Kentucky, sharing a lifelong friendship with our host Dr. William Turner. He went on to become a respected coach in the NFL, achieving victory at Super Bowl XXIX with the San Francisco 49ers. From his beginnings in eastern Kentucky, his work has taken him all over the United States and to other countries.
Kip Lornell is a professor of American music and ethnomusicology at George Washington University. He has written a number of books, articles, and essays and was awarded a Grammy in 1997 for his contribution to Smithsonian Folkways’ Anthology of American Folk Music. He studied African American music for many years and completed field work in various areas, including the Appalachian region.
Dr. William Turner is a long-time African American studies scholar who first rose to prominence as co-editor of the groundbreaking Blacks in Appalachia. He was also a research assistant to Roots author Alex Haley. Turner retired as distinguished professor of Appalachian Studies and regional ambassador at Berea College. His memoir called The Harlan Renaissance is forthcoming from West Virginia University Press.
Dr. Ted Olson is a professor of Appalachian Studies at East Tennessee State University and the author of many books, articles, reviews, encyclopedia entries, and oral histories. Olson has produced and compiled a number of documentary albums of traditional Appalachian music including GSMA’s On Top of Old Smoky and Big Bend Killing. He’s received a number of awards in his work, including seven Grammy nominations. The East Tennessee Historical Society recently honored Olson with its Ramsey Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Music selections include:
Sepia Tones, Episode #2
“Driving (and Fiddling) While Black, Appalachian Music at Home and on the Road”
Hosts: Bill Turner, Ted Olson
Guests: Earl White, Larry Kirksey, Kip Lornell
[00:00]
[Guitar and banjo music and singing / "John Henry" by Amythyst Kiah and Roy Andrade from Big Bend Killing]
Earl White
…He said, "Now, I’m gonna tell you, if I ever catch you playing the fiddle on my route ever again, I will make sure that you get put under the jail." And I said, "Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you so much, Officer. And you will never, ever, ever see me playing the fiddle while driving my car on your post ever again…"
Karen Key
Welcome to Smoky Mountain Air and our special mini-series Sepia Tones: Exploring Black Appalachian Music. I’m Karen Key and that was fiddler Earl White, one of three guests who spoke with Dr. William Turner and Dr. Ted Olson for this, our second episode, sharing lively discussions about the roots of Appalachian music and preserving those musical traditions today.
This mini-series is funded through the African American Experience Project in collaboration with Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Dr. Turner and Dr. Olson spoke with guests Earl White, Kip Lornell, and Larry Kirksey on an online video chat.
[01:10]
[Continuing guitar and banjo music and singing / "John Henry" by Amythyst Kiah and Roy Andrade from Big Bend Killing]
[01:20]
Ted Olson
Welcome to Sepia Tones. I’m Ted Olson with my co-host Bill Turner. Bill and I would like to introduce you to three people who know a great deal about our subject. They come from different backgrounds, but what they have in common is a love for black Appalachian music. They grew up with the music, they’ve studied the music, they carry the music into the 21st century through their passion and through their performances.
Our first guest is Earl White. Earl grew up in Newark, New Jersey, but his family roots are in eastern North Carolina, where he spent a lot of time as a child and throughout his life. He has a vast repertoire of Appalachian fiddle music that he shares with the world through performances and workshops. Earl was also a founding member of the great clogging group The Green Grass Cloggers. He's multi-talented in his work and in his passion for Black Appalachian music. So he’s going to share with us some wonderful perspectives.
Our second guest is Larry Kirksey. Larry grew up in Harlan County, KY, not far from where Bill grew up. Their association dates back many, many years. And through our episode today, they share stories and reflections of growing up in Eastern Kentucky and the role of music in their lives. Larry is an acknowledged master of coaching in the NFL. One of Larry’s students in his career in the NFL as a coach was, of course, none other than the great Jerry Rice, as he was part of the San Francisco 49ers Super-Bowl-winning outfit back in the 90s. A wonderful legacy of success on the field, but Larry also brings important reflections upon the meaning of music in a Black community in Eastern Kentucky and elsewhere.
And our third guest today is Kip Lornell. Kip grew up in upstate New York, and he knows a great deal about American music. Kip studied African American music for many years and interviewed many of the masters of African American music in Appalachia. And he’s here also to provide reflection upon the importance of our series and our theme of studying Black Appalachian music.
Let’s kick things off today with a recording from the Mountains of Music Homecoming CD on which Earl White and his string band are prominently featured. This is a recording called "Shuckin’ the Brush," which is Earl’s signature piece. It also appeared on Earl’s solo album. This recording comes from an album released by The Crooked Road: Virginia’s Heritage Music Trail.
[03:49]
[String band music / "Shuckin the Brush" by The Earl White Stringband from 2018 Mountains of Music Homecoming CD entitled In the Key of Blue]
[04:38]
Bill Turner
Well, I see we’ve been joined by Larry Kirksey. Welcome, Larry. How are you, sir?
Larry Kirksey
Morning, Bill how you guys doing?
Bill Turner
Great.
Kip Lornell
Morning!
Ted Olson
Great. Welcome.
Bill Turner
Go right ahead, Ted.
Ted Olson
Larry, we were kind of starting off this morning by giving folks an opportunity to talk about their connection to music from where they came from, and with your growing up in eastern Kentucky I guess in the same general area as Bill, would you be willing to share your thoughts? What was your musical environment like growing up in eastern Kentucky?
[05:08]
Larry Kirksey
Well, it’s funny, I was talking to Bill earlier, but something just struck me about Harlan County, Bill—and Bill can tell you about this—we had an annual event, I think it’s almost 65 years old now, and I’m 70, so… It’s called Poke Salad Festival. Bill, remember that? And everybody would gather there, and they would cook this poke salad, and they'd actually eat it. But they would play music during that time also. So, we got to experience that music at the same time. My background growing up in Harlan—again I was a young guy—but most of it was mostly gospel, or we listened to country music. But at the same time, there was a show in Harlan County on the radio that every day, I guess I’d have been nine or 10 years old when I finally got into music in my community and all that. But they would play the Coca-Cola Top Four, and that’s when we would get to the soul music, the black performers to start playing. And they only played that part of the day at four o’clock. And then they played four songs, and that was it. The rest of time was mostly bluegrass, country music there in Harlan County.
But, I don’t know if Bill told you, but my parents are from the south, both from Alabama. And growing up in Kentucky as one of 11 kids, you know, I had all those brothers and sisters, but whatever they listened to, I had to listen to. Just growing up in that community, you know, music was very important to us at that time.
Bill Turner
Incidentally, Larry and I grew up in Harlan County, Kentucky, a kind of coal mining space. The local radio stations would have an hour on Saturday at four o’clock when they would play what they called ‘black music,’ which is basically kind of, you know, rock ’n roll. And then the other music we would listen to always came out WLAC, that kind of 50,000-watt clear channel station we talked about before out of Nashville.
But on a daily basis, the music played was country music and bluegrass primarily, and I think for some reason we probably associated that with a way of life that was not typical of blacks in coal camps. Everybody kind of migrated there out of central Alabama around Birmingham, and so we heard more blues than we heard Bill Monroe. And when we heard Bill Monroe, most people said, "Ah, that’s ‘white’ music," and go another direction. So maybe Earl can help us with that.
Earl White
Yeah, I had a similar experience. You know, I used to watch my grandfather and my great uncles around the barnyard. My grandparents were farmers in eastern North Carolina. And, you know, on Saturday afternoon or basically during breaks when they weren’t working, they’d be standing around, and as a kid I didn’t understand it, but they were doing mostly hamboning and flatfooting, of which I didn’t know it was flatfooting at the time. It wasn’t until later when I became a Green Grass Clogger that I realized, "Wow, what my grandfather was doing back there is what I am now— have segued into doing." But, you know, for us as a kid, if it wasn’t ‘shake your booty,’ it wasn’t dancing. And, again, it took me a little while to make that association.
But from the radio standpoint, as a kid I always found myself drawn to what I later came to realize was Earl Scruggs and his group playing the Mountain Dew theme song. "Yahoo! Mountain Dew!" followed by Flatt and Scruggs playing their little ditty on it. And I always, every time that would come on, I was just all in it. And again, later in my life finding out that, wow, I always had an affinity for it. And the things that I have learned along the way in terms of the black association to it and the black contribution to it, you know, it became even more apparent how it wasn’t out there. It was ‘white’ music and so most of the blacks primarily just steered away from it. If it wasn’t blues or soul, we had no association with it.
Bill Turner
I'm sure, Kip, you have some ideas on that too…
Kip Lornell
In listening to folks speak so far, one of the things that I was really struck by the conversation thus far is: You cannot segregate the airwaves. That’s one thing I tell my students. If you’re listening to Duke Ellington broadcasting over the air in 1930, you couldn’t stop white folks from listening to Duke Ellington. You couldn’t stop black folks from listening to Duke Ellington. You couldn’t stop somebody like Earl listening to his counterpart Earl Scruggs, and that’s one of the things that I think is really important to note. You may not be able to go into that bathroom. You may not be able to go in that restaurant. But if you hear something on the radio you like to listen to or phonograph records—if you like the music that you’re listening to, be it radio or phonograph records, you are able to gather that music up in a way that kind of subvented the Jim Crow era that we’re talking about right now, and I think that’s an important, important thing.
[10:22]
Earl White
Yeah, if I can interject here just for a moment. So, just to go back a little bit and reflect on what you said about "You can’t segregate the airwaves." Well, part of the problem was that the music was segregated prior to the airwaves. The Baxter Brothers, for example, The Georgia Yellow Hammers, I mean, these are bands that played radio stations, but the radio stations did not reveal the fact that they were black string bands.
And in a similar sense, I mean, I met Joe Thompson, and when he saw me playing, I thought he was going to die. He later said, "You know, I thought I’d seen a ghost." Because, you know, when I met him again, I was on a plight. My goal was to find other black fiddlers, because every place I went, every place I played, all the fiddlers conventions that I played at Galax, Mount Airy, all those places, I always had people walking up to me saying either they’d never seen a black person playing or someone saying, "You know at one point there were scores of blacks who would go to the Galax Fiddlers Convention." Well, my question was, where are they?
Kip Lornell
Earl, you may you made another really important point there that requires I think some further discussion. When I say the airwaves aren’t segregated, they are and they aren’t. What’s on the airwaves is not segregated; what gets on the airwaves is segregated. There’s a—you made a very good and important distinction. With white colonialism and white power in terms of the airwaves, black voices were not typically heard, you know. WDIA coming on the air in 1948 was the first black oriented radio station in the country. And so in urban areas that started to become more possible in the late 40s, and certainly if a radio station was going to play the Georgia Yellow Hammers or the Baxter Brothers Victor recordings from the late 1920s, there would be no way that anybody would know. Would you know that there was a black musician playing on The Georgia Yellow Hammers?
Earl White
No. [chuckles]
Kip Lornell
No, no one would know. So, then no one would have that or that the Tennessee Chocolate Drops, although the name would be a giveaway. The Tennessee Trio Vocalion recordings were done by a small group of black musicians. So, there’s a lot of that stuff that’s just hidden in the mix that, in retrospect, we know about because we have discographies, and we have now reissues of this material. But it would be really interesting if there had been a more diverse airwaves out there and more opportunity for other voices to be heard. And that did happen to some degree in smaller rural radio stations.
[13:02]
[Strumming and fiddle music / "G-Rag" by The Georgia Yellow Hammers with Jim and Andrew Baxter]
Ted Olson
We just heard "G-Rag," a recording made on August 9, 1927, by the Georgia Yellow Hammers, also featuring Jim and Andrew Baxter, African American musicians from north Georgia. A very important early recording in country music history because it’s one of the first times whites and blacks shared the recording space and made a record together.
Kip, could you tell us a little bit about where you grew up, and most importantly, how you got interested in in studying music, in general, vernacular music traditions of the United States in general, but also specifically African American music?
Kip Lornell
So, I became interested in country blues in my teens. I was living around Albany, New York, at the time. And when I was in high school, I ended up doing field work in Albany and recording down-home blues musicians, most of whom had migrated to Albany from the Carolinas and Georgia, which resulted in several albums of field recordings for Flyright Records and a series of articles for Living Blues back in around 1971 and ’72 in that time period.
When I got out of high school, I worked for two years before I went to college, which was unprecedented among my peers. Everybody was going to go to college, immediately went to college. And I said, no, I want to work for a while. And a part of that work was continuing work around Albany. But when I decided to go back to school, I decided North Carolina was a good place to go because it would allow me to pursue a variety of academic and other interests. And some of those interests musically included doing field work recording mostly blues. But then I stumbled across some black fiddle and banjo players going back and forth between, you know, Durham and Greensboro, because I was in Greensboro initially in undergraduate school and then moved directly to Chapel Hill in 1975 to go to the folklore program at Chapel Hill. So, a lot of that time period was spent doing field work.
And I continued my interest and started to focus more on what was, I think, an even more important journey in terms of field work and documenting and that was black fiddle and banjo players.
And, you know, sometimes people think that "all the field work’s been done in a state. You don’t have to look anywhere else because it’s all been finished." Well, I was just looking at a small number of counties and not really in depth. This was just one of my side hustles, my side gigs. And I always wondered and suspected that there were other black Americans who were part of this tradition that nobody had stumbled across.
And that’s one of the kind of frustrating things is, if there had been more people documenting these traditions, whether it’s hamboning or buck dancing or black American banjo playing, we would know a whole lot more than what we know right now.
[16:28]
Ted Olson
Kip, if you wouldn’t mind talking about your experience of recording and getting to know the Foddrell Brothers…
Kip Lornell
Well, the Foddrell Brothers were really an interesting set of folks there. They lived in Stuart, Virginia, which I know Earl knows where Stuart is, right near the North Carolina and Virginia line. That’s just north of Winston-Salem by a bit. Turner ran a general store there. We ran across them rather capriciously back in the mid-1970s. And they ended up coming to the Blue Ridge Folklife Festival. I ended up doing a lot of recording with them, as did a few other folks at the Blue Ridge Institute, because at the time I was working at the Blue Ridge Institute at Ferrum College. And they cemented a couple of interesting things in terms of music. One was, because Turner had that general store there and because of his personality, he was like a lot of folks, you know. He got along with everybody. His store was kind of a hangout place. And he played guitar with bluegrass bands occasionally, and he would play with a wide mixture of musical genres. But also race was less— not entirely gone—but less of an issue than it would have been in some other context, just because of location, personality, etc.
So it was really fascinating to hear he and his brother talk about music making in churches, music making with white musicians who are coming through, music making in old-time music and in bluegrass. It was really in many ways kind of a microcosm of what rural life was like with more, at least in that part of Virginia, and to some degree certainly much more so than my time in Memphis, which was a much more segregated place in rural northern Mississippi than living in, you know, Piedmont North Carolina and then in kind of south-central Virginia as I did. So, there was personal interaction more so and musical interaction.
But I only carried this stuff so far. So it’s really up to folks who are still, like Earl, living in a particular place who have that ability to track down stuff that I no longer can, because you really have to be in a place, I think, and live there to understand what you’re looking for and dig into a community to really find it. So, the Foddrells gave us a glimpse into that world, and it’s been really encouraging to me to see other folks picking up that mantle and bringing it forward and seeing a few of the younger relatives of the Foddrells playing some music. They were really a significant family that I wish in retrospect we had done even more digging into
[19:18]
[Bluesy strumming music and singing / "Driftin’ and Driftin’" by the Foddrell Brothers]
[20:29]
Bill Turner
Hey, Larry, let me ask you a follow-up question. I know personally I’ve known you all my life, and I know that you spent at least a total of 20 years as a coach in the National Football League. How prevalent was people playing traditional country/bluegrass/mountain music? Do you ever hear guys listening to that? You know, guys in the pro football leagues?
Larry Kirksey
Well, you got all kind of genres, you know. And even in football practice, Bill, what they do—one day they may have rap, the next day they would have soul, the next day they have country, the next day they have bluegrass. And that way they, you know, everybody had an opportunity to listen to music. When I came along, we didn’t play a lot of music, but in coaching, if you go to college football games, NFL practices, and all that, it’s all about music now. And different genres, and if you go to a game, you got different genres playing, you know, just depending where you are. But it’s a big thing now.
Bill Turner
I’d like to ask a question, going from the music to what people do during the music. So, I was reading more about the distinction between flatfoot dancing, buck dancing, and clogging. And, you know, I can remember very well, and I know Larry does too, when you hear the idea that some of the old folks are out in the backyard doing a buck dance at the family reunion. Earl, what is this distinction, because I understand that some purists who say those aren’t the same thing.
Earl White
Right. When I was traveling, and, yeah, I was one of the founding first members of the Green Grass Cloggers, especially traveling and doing dance competitions. What I generally tell people is that clogging, that's a traditional American dance, a real traditional American dance, and it basically encompasses the buck dancing, which, you know, has more high kicks. A lot of times that was attributed to the Native Americans where the bucks would be the ones who would do the dance, generally in times of war, which again it comes with more high kicks.
The black Americans, black slaves, contribution to it was the flatfooting, which was more brushes and slides, dancing in the dirt, no real distinct beats. And then your Scotch-Irish contribution to it was the step dancing. So, when you hear clogging, as Green Grass Cloggers, when we dance… like the English were very straight laced—did not move their hips very much in their presentation of dance. But you take clogging, like when I dance, I’m doing high kicks. So I’m doing combination buck dancing, it also encompasses the flatfooting, so I’m doing low brushes and slides. I’m also doing distinct beats—ta-da-da-da-da, ta-da-da-da-da. So, you get that drum aspect in there. But if you ever listen to Irish step dancing, I went to a contest once in upstate New York where the contestants were dancing on a two-foot square board. And the judges were standing under the stage basically listening for—all their dances had very distinct patterns to it. So that’s—in the judging of the step dancing, that’s what they were listening to. Again, clogging being a combination of all of those ethnic contributions to, you know, what we consider to be a traditional American dance.
You’ll also find regional differences. Like a lot of people in western North Carolina, clogging is a way of life around here in this part of Virginia. And again, you go over to East Tennessee, and they’re clogging style is very different. They still call it clogging. Again, there is that difference.
Now, in my travels, what I’ve learned also was that a lot of the, what the blacks called ‘frolics,’ the whites called ‘hoedowns.’ But they were basically the exact same aspect of gathering and dancing to the music, so…
Bill Turner
Larry, do you hear any rhythms of your grandparents in what Kip and Earl have just said about dancing? Was there a lot of music around your house? I mean you sound like—my family had 10 brothers and sisters. You had 11, you say? So, what was the music like in the Kirksey household?
[25:01]
Larry Kirksey
Well, again, Bill, it was one that, you know, everybody listened to, and was in movement with the music. So, they actually got up and danced. And back then, if I’m not mistaken, I think we called it fast dancing. It was a form of swing dancing, right. And if it wasn’t that, Bill, then, I saw my older brothers and sisters doing the cha-cha, you know. It was more individual dancing, and I guess it’s a combination of movement, however you want to look at it. But it was just a part of the family that, when music was on, someone was doing something. Somebody was dancing, doing something. And so, we all joined in as kids, you know, watching, our parents do that, and older brothers and siblings. So that was just part of our family too, the dancing part of it.
And you know that in our community, we had this big old building we called ‘the hall.’ And every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night that place from Lynch, Cumberland, Hazard, Harlan, or whatever, would be in this one place eating and dancing, and you, Bill, was chasing my sister at the time probably. But at the same time, you know, that was just part of our upbringing. Music was very important to us.
Bill Turner
Yeah, what we call the ‘juke joint’
[Laughter]
Larry Kirksey
Absolutely.
[Laughter]
Kip Lornell
Now, you just mentioned juke joints, and that resonates something with Earl said. So, the whole idea of where you are in a place is significant in terms of how people name things. Because in my in my experience in talking to black musicians, the word ‘frolic’ came up, of course, all the time with community gatherings where music and dance occurred. I never heard anybody use the word ‘juke joint’ ever in North Carolina, so that’s just one of those regional differences. You hear it—when I was in Memphis going to graduate school, I’d hear the term ‘juke joint’ used in Mississippi and the mid-South. I never heard it used in Virginia and North Carolina when I was living there.
Earl White
Well, I grew up in Newark, New Jersey, as my parents, like so many blacks of their generation, did not want to be farmers, so they migrated from the south to the northeast. But I spent all my summers with my grandparents on the farm. And after I got my driver’s license, driving my grandfather to the juke joint on the weekend was something that was part of my job description. Saturday after the work was done, it was me driving him to the juke joint in Greenville, North Carolina, which, you know, for many blacks it was basically the only—you couldn’t go to a bar—so it was one of the places you can go and have a drink. And generally there was music and, yeah, I called it a party, but, [laughs] by my standards.
Bill Turner
Well, you know, when you talk about these juke joints, Kip, Larry and I—they were just all over eastern Kentucky in the coal camps. It was the only place that black people could gather, as Earl just said.
But, back to black fiddlers, if you could call together all the black fiddlers you know, how many would be with you this morning?
Earl White
How many would be with me this morning? That I know, less than ten. Less than ten, and, you know—which is sad. But part of my plight has been to, get out there… I had a call from the school system up in around Martinsville, Virginia, recently where they were asking me if I would be interested in playing through their school system. And again, part of it is just, again, just being able to get out there—I think, for more of the younger people these days is having the exposure and the education aspect, informing them of the black connection to Appalachian string band music.
Tell you a funny story… I was playing on the street of Santa Cruz one day, and—I hate to practice. I never practice. My goal has always been to just play a lot. So, we were playing on the street, my wife and I. And I noticed walking down the street about a block away there was this elderly black couple who was approaching and, you know, they were basically looking around. Appeared to be more window shopping, and as they got closer to me playing, they basically looked down or were just looking at the ground walking by. And so, just as they passed me, I stopped playing and I ran over to them, and I just wanted to know. I said, "Excuse me, I don’t mean to bother you, but I’ve noticed that as you were walking past me, you walked by as if you didn’t even hear the music. You didn’t acknowledge my presence or even the fact that people were standing there playing music." And I said, "I couldn’t help but just want to know why." And what they said to me was that they saw me from down the street, they could hear me but seeing me, a black person, standing there playing Appalachian string band music, playing old-time music, reminded them of an era from their past. And in that era of their past, you know, there were blacks who played old-time music, but there was also a lot of prejudice and a lot of segregation. And so, what they said was that seeing and hearing me play that music reminded them of that time, and it made them sad. That it didn’t bring a happy feeling. It was more of a sad feeling, so I understood that and thanked them for their feedback. But again, it just enhanced that desire in myself to, you know, any opportunity I have to share this music, to spread this music, to educate and bring it to the attention of the black community… and I step forward I’m one of the first people to raise my hand to step forward and get out there to do it.
[31:14]
[Lively fiddle and bass music with the percussive sound of clogging and joyful shouts from the dancers / The Green Grass Cloggers from 1978]
Bill Turner
Let me ask you this question, going back to what Earl just said about this couple who seem to be saddened, if you will, by the memories that came up with this old-time music. Is it not true that, if we go back to just after the Civil War with the black string bands being properly in the 1700s—is it not true that whites would play this old-time music in blackface, that white men would put the black on their—I did some work with Alex Haley, and in Roots, you know, Chicken George was part of the fiddlers playing. And so my understanding is that there were whites who would play this music, but they would, in copying the style of the black people they learned it from, they would actually put themselves in blackface. Can any of you respond to that history?
Earl White
You want to jump in there, Kip?
Kip Lornell
Yeah, this is a topic that I talk about on a regular basis in my courses. We’re talking about minstrelsy, and minstrelsy started—it’s really the first form of American popular entertainment. Started in the 1830s—thinking Daddy Rice. And his theme song was—wait for it folks—"Jump Jim Crow." That’s where the term ‘Jim Crow’ comes from is from a minstrel song in the 1830s and 40s. And minstrelsy was essentially largely a white interpretation of black American expressive culture, including music. And there were—the most popular of the minstrel shows—there was a combination. Some of the minstrel shows appeared in black face, whites appearing in blackface, some of them didn’t use blackface. But largely was interpreting storytelling, music, and a lot of Americans who were exposed to minstrelsy didn’t realize that they were essentially being exposed to an exaggerated interpretation of what these white, rural, largely rural, musicians were portraying as black culture.
A lot of the times they would do a skit that would be in dialect. The music was largely informed by rural black southern music. And one of the things that is important to realize here too is, and my students are almost always amazed, that the banjo comes from west Africa by way of the Caribbean diaspora. And it’s been fascinating for me to see how much research has been done on this transposition of, you know, a varied stringed instrument that became the banjo, using different names during the 19th century to become the standardized instrument that we know today by the late 19th century. They always assume well it’s a white instrument. Well, no actually it’s very much a black American instrument. There are so many things that people think of as white culture that actually have their roots in black American culture. Minstrelsy, white musicians were exploiting black American music in such a way that a lot of people didn’t realize that that was exactly what was happening.
[35:36]
Earl White
Yeah, I do a presentation that I call "Black Americans in Old-time Music, Then and Now" and a lot of, again, what I point out in that presentation is that it’s not a black music, it’s not a white music. It’s a music that was basically played together. And in pointing that out, it’s like, well, how did the whites learn from the blacks if they weren’t playing with them?
And to give you an example, we as the Green Grass Cloggers were dancing at, I believe, it was the Angier Fiddler’s Convention in Angier, North Carolina. And the Bill Monroe Band was backing up the Green Grass Cloggers. And Bill Monroe walked up to me and says, "You know, you remind me a lot of this fella I used to play with back many, many, many years ago." And again, there was no name, there were no names attached to the guy. Just as you see a lot of pictures of black musicians holding the banjo, holding the fiddle, but there’s no name associated with them.
One of the first tunes I learned was called "The Devil in the Straw Stack." I learned it from Tommy Jarrell, grandfather of old-time music down in North Carolina. And on the album he said that "I learned this tune from an old colored fella who used to walk past our house every Sunday morning playing this tune. And as he got close to our house, he’d play real quiet." Well, he and his brother got up and went down and asked the guy to learn them that tune. And the guy played it for them. They went back and learned it and basically played it. And again, when I heard that "the old colored fellow," well what’s his name! How do we find out what’s his name?
So anyway, Bill Monroe walks up to me and makes that statement, said about how he used to play with this guy. Didn’t give a name, and then when I started doing this research and trying to look for black fiddlers, turned out the guy’s name was Arnold Schultz.
Bill Turner
Oh yeah…
Earl White
And you know, I was flabbergasted. I was like, well, gee! I’m reading this information about this guy, and he was a person who was responsible for Bill Monroe getting one of his first gigs, which was playing a square dance. And again, later on, more stuff that I found was that Bill Monroe attributed a lot of his style in playing the mandolin from playing with Arnold Schultz and basically having an opportunity to frequent the black community. So his stylized in his bluegrass, you know, had a lot of a blues or basically a lot of black influence.
Bill Turner
Is that your fiddle behind you there?
Earl White
Actually, it is my fiddle behind me here.
Bill Turner
Oh, I thought you was getting ready whip out a little ditty for us there.
Earl White
You know what, I can play that "Devil in the Strawstack" for you guys.
Bill Turner
What do you think about that?
Larry Kirksey
Yes…
Kip Lornell
Absolutely.
[38:34]
[Sound of fiddle tuning followed by lively fiddle music / "Devil in the Strawstack" performed by Earl White]
Earl White
"Devil in the Strawstack…"
Bill Turner
I thought Ted was gonna dance there for a minute.
[Laughter]
[40:31]
Bill Turner
Earl, you mentioned that you knew less than 10 black fiddlers. Where are they? Where do they live?
Earl White
Not in Virginia. [chuckles]
Bill Turner
Okay. Well, I think that that basically was leading me to a list I was looking at in terms of some of the younger African Americans who are carrying on this traditional music, people like The Carolina Chocolate Drops, although they’re not together anymore. Rhiannon Giddens, Don Flemons. And there’s Otis Taylor. That group out of New York City, I guess Brooklyn, called the Ebony Hillbillies. So when you think about it, none of these people are in the Appalachian region, are they?
Earl White
No they’re not, they’re not…
Bill Turner
And so that’s very interesting when you look at Larry and I both, having grown up in the heart of Appalachia in eastern Kentucky. It sounds like we can’t name any black fiddlers or black country music people we know of because it’s almost an extinct kind of category of people who carried on that tradition. It’s almost like it stops somewhere for some reason. And you mentioned, Earl, that your parents moved northeast from east Carolina because they didn’t want to be on the farm anymore. I think in a way of a kind of cultural cutoff that might explain in part why we don’t have a whole passel of black fiddlers and banjo players anymore. Because people wanted to get away from what they associated with enslavement.
Earl White
Yeah. There’s a documentary called Slavery and the Making of America. And I’m in part two of that documentary. It’s put out by WNET-TV in New York. We did the filming in Saint Mary City, Maryland, and parts of it also around Annapolis. Basically, both those cities were the biggest slave ports in the United States. And anyway, in the documentary, I’m a slave musician. And a lot of what, you know, came from doing that documentary was learning a lot about the history of, you know, just slavery.
But even more so, even from the research that I did about slave musicians—well, generally the slave musicians were the best dressed slaves on the plantation. They were commodities that a slave master could hire to the next plantation to make extra money because they hired these musicians out to play for parties and play for gatherings. Well, the slave musicians were also the ones who had more of an opportunity to escape traveling between the plantations.
If you were an escaped slave, a lot of times the only reference they had that could lead to your capture was a scar on your face, scar on your back. Sometimes the billing would say, "Escaped slave, plays the fiddle." Because a lot of these fiddlers, that’s the way a lot of them would basically try to make their living is by playing their instrument.
And a lot of the ones that actually did escape basically found refuge in the Appalachian Mountains, found refuge in the Appalachian Mountains by being taken in by the Native Americans and also by a lot of people of Irish descent, who by many of the English were considered as low as the next black slave standing next to him. So as a result, that’s where a lot of the black contribution to old time music, I mean, some people can’t distinguish between, like when you’re doing this for example. Here’s a tune and the black contribution to the old time music kind of put that back beat into it that down to earth aspect of it, so this is a tune…
[44:43]
[Fiddle tune performed by Earl White]
So this part right here, if you’re listening to a lot of Irish music, you know how they have that—it’s almost like a constant drone. And then that drone, then the notes will dance around that. Okay, and then…
[Fiddle tune performed by Earl White]
Okay, so then add that and add the black contribution to that. So you put that together with a lot of the syncopation aspect of it, which comes out of mostly that Appalachian region. But again, I’m mostly just pointing out that in Appalachia, that combination of that black contribution to the old-time music took it more out of that straight up Irish/Scottish flair, and it’s been a good thing. [laughs]
Bill Turner
Fantastic, fantastic.
Hey, Earl, I can’t let you get away without one question. You mentioned your piece that you learned, "Devil in the Strawstack." Would you tell us this story about—let me contextualize it first. Many of us, Larry included, despite his long-standing NFL career, has probably been stopped ‘driving while black,’ alright. Now, Earl, I understand that you were once stopped ‘driving while black,’ playing a fiddle. Would you tell us that story?
Earl White
Oh yes, well, as a respiratory therapist, I did a lot of home care. And I was traveling between upstate New York coming back down to Virginia to visit my kids. And, because I spent a lot of time in the car, I basically multiple times would just pick up my fiddle and play. Well, my fiddling style when I first started playing was more like a longbow, and what I found when I would play in the car, if I had the window down I couldn’t hear myself play. So I rolled the window up, and as a result, my bowing got more like this instead of like that. Well, I was cruising down route 81, and I had my stereo blasting, and I was just playing away. And I used to have this bald spot on my right knee from steering. But I was bailing down route 81, and I happened to look over, and there’s a patrol car. And the guy looks at me, and he just shook his head, and he just said pull over. And I was like, oh no, oh my god, this guy’s going to put me under the jail.
And so I put my fiddle down, pulled over, and the guy walks up and he says, "Now son, please tell me that I didn’t just see you playing the fiddle while driving." And my fiddle was laying right there. I said, "Yes, officer, I was playing the fiddle." And so, he shook his head. He said, "Just get out of the car. Get out of the car come with me." So I get out of the car and I start following him to his patrol car. And he says, "No, no, no, no, no, stop. Bring your fiddle because nobody’s going to believe this. I don’t even know how to write this up." So basically what they do is, I guess, when they decide they’re going to pull somebody over, they call their buddies in the area. So he takes me to his patrol car and he said, "Now I’ve never seen anything like this in my life." And, you know, again, "I don’t even know how to write this up. But I want to know whether you can really play that thing." And so, he opened his intercom and he had me play, and I played the "Devil in the Strawstack."
He had me play, and I played that tune, and in the background I could hear all of his buddies basically clapping. And from that he says, "Well, by God, you can play that damn thing." And he says, "Okay, you know, because I don’t know how to write this up, I’m going to give you a ticket, but I’m going to give you a ticket for defective equipment. And I said, "Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you so much, Officer. Thank you. I really, really appreciate that." He said, "Now, I’m gonna tell you, if I ever catch you playing the fiddle on my route ever again, I will make sure that you get put under the jail." And I said, "Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you so much, Officer. And you will never, ever, ever see me playing the fiddle while driving my car on your post ever again.
And I took the ticket, I got in the car, I started driving. And when I got about 50 miles down the road, I took my fiddle out and I finished my tune.
[Laughter]
[50:17]
Bill Turner
Hey, Larry, I’d like to hear you say something about that. I know it’s been part of my journey, and that is going all around as you did over that long career in the National Football League, what was the typical reaction when somebody said, "Where are you from?"
Larry Kirksey
Bill, in my travels when I first, when I was out recruiting, and they said my dialect was different—they said, "Where you from?" I said, "From Kentucky." They called me ‘country.’ But my first job, I recruited southeastern Ohio. They call that ‘The River Rat’ going up down Portsmouth, Ohio; Ironton, Ohio; all the way up to Wheeling, West Virginia; and over to Youngstown—all that area. But when I went to those areas as a young black man, a lot of times there weren’t a lot of blacks in those areas, Bill. Kind of like Appalachia, you know, you think about Harlan County, you know. We had our little camps and all that, but in my travels, a lot of times I was the only black in those areas that I recruited. And of course, you know, me with my personality, I got along with everybody, and there was no problem.
And you mentioned earlier, I’ve been pulled over in certain places because I was driving a brand new car, and I was a young black man. And I’m from Kentucky in the Appalachians. And they would say, "Why are you driving this brand new car? You must have stolen it." And I said, "No," I said, "I’m at Miami University or University of Kentucky, wherever, and I’m here recruiting." And once I showed my credentials, I was free to go. But at the same time, I did encounter a lot of different people in my travels, but it made me a better man, a better recruiter, a better coach.
And, you know, our roots in Kentucky, in Harlan County, Bill. You know when that sun set, we had to be where? Growing up as kids.
Bill Turner
Not downtown.
Larry Kirksey
Oh, if we got caught downtown, we were in trouble when the sun set. We knew what that was all about living in the Appalachians, you know.
But I’ve I met a lot of different people, and being from Harlan, you know how tough it was. You know, being from Lynch, and those coal miners, what they had to endure going in those mines all the time. And we had friends die in those mines, you know that. But just my upbringing and being in Harlan, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. But it’s taken me all across the United States. It’s taken me out of the country to Tokyo, to Mexico, I mean, just different places.
But, you asked me that question, but at the same time, I know this has to do with music. I’m not musically inclined. I can’t sing. I can’t play an instrument. But I’m from the Appalachians, and we’ve all endured and we’ve all—and Bill can tell you, there’s been a lot of great people come from the Appalachians, haven’t they, Bill?
Bill Turner
That’s right. Well you know, when I when I think about Ted Olson’s knowledge and what Kip has written, you know, the very idea that I’m so glad that these young white kids, as they say they were at one point, got hooked into black music, because in some sense the educational journey of many blacks who studied various aspects of African American life and culture—all that we think we’ve read about in terms of black Appalachians, we find that the least that we know is probably about music.
Larry Kirksey
Well, like I said, you know, I appreciate you just letting me be a part and listen to this. It’s been very educational for me. But you guys, you’re on the right track because there is history here. There is history here and it needs to be told, and people need to know about it.
Bill Turner
There you go.
Ted Olson
Bill, do you have any concluding thoughts, I guess, as we kind of wind up?
Bill Turner
Just to say that I’ve really enjoyed this. I think that the back and forth has been great. Earl, I really appreciate your impromptu concert and having the framing of Kip’s scholarly work and Larry’s personal journey that intersects with my own so well. Thank you all very much, everybody.
Ted Olson
And thanks to all of you for sharing your stories and your knowledge and your heart with us. Thank you so much.
Earl White
Thank you.
Kip Lornell
Thank you.
Larry Kirksey
Thank you.
[54:25]
[Guitar and banjo music and singing / "John Henry" by Amythyst Kiah and Roy Andrade from Big Bend Killing.
Valerie Polk
Thank you to guest hosts Dr. William Turner and Dr. Ted Olson, who will be bringing us this podcast mini-series, Sepia Tones, over the next several months.
Karen Key
Dr. William Turner is a long-time African American studies scholar and retired Distinguished Professor of Appalachian Studies and Regional Ambassador from Berea College. He was also a research assistant to Roots author Alex Haley and co-editor of the groundbreaking Blacks in Appalachia. His memoir called The Harlan Renaissance is forthcoming from West Virginia University Press.
Dr. Ted Olson is a music historian and professor of Appalachian Studies at East Tennessee State University. He is the author of many books, articles, reviews, encyclopedia entries, and oral histories. Olson has produced and compiled a number of documentary albums of traditional Appalachian music including GSMA’s On Top of Old Smoky and Big Bend Killing. His work has received a number of awards, including seven Grammy nominations. The East Tennessee Historical Society recently honored Olson with its Ramsey Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Valerie Polk
Special thanks also to guests, Earl White, Larry Kirksey, and Kip Lornell.
Earl White is an accomplished fiddler and prominent figure of old-time music and dance. He was a founding member of The Green Grass Cloggers, and his energetic and rhythmic fiddle style is showcased through his vast repertoire of Appalachian music. He resides in Floyd County, VA, where he and his wife run a farm and bakery.
Larry Kirksey grew up in Harlan County in the Appalachian region of Kentucky, sharing a lifelong friendship with our host Dr. William Turner. He went on to become a respected coach in the National Football League, achieving victory at Super Bowl twenty-nine with the San Francisco 49ers. From his beginnings in Eastern Kentucky, his work has taken him all over the United States and to other countries.
Kip Lornell is a professor of American music and ethnomusicology at George Washington University. He has written a number of books, articles, and essays and was awarded a Grammy in 1997 for his contribution to Smithsonian Folkways’ "Anthology of American Folk Music." He studied African American music for many years and completed field work in various areas, including the Appalachian region.
[Bluesy strumming music and singing / "Driftin’ and Driftin’" by the Foddrell Brothers]
Music featured in this episode includes:
"John Henry" performed by Amythyst Kiah and Roy Andrade from GSMA’s album Big Bend Killing;
"Shuckin’ the Brush" performed by The Earl White Stringband, from the 2018 Mountains of Music Homecoming CD entitled In the Key of Blue, used courtesy of the Crooked Road: Virginia’s Heritage Music Trail;
"G-Rag" performed by the Georgia Yellow Hammers accompanied by Jim and Andrew Baxter, recorded in 1927;
"Driftin’ and Driftin’" performed by the Foddrell Brothers, accompanied by Lynn Foddrell, at the Berea College Celebration of Traditional Music in 1982, used courtesy of The Berea Sound Archives;
A clogging audio clip from the short documentary film "The Green Grass Cloggers" produced in 1978 by David Balch, filmed at the 1978 North Carolina Folklife Festival, used courtesy of The Green Grass Cloggers with many thanks to Leanne Smith;
And special thanks to Earl White for demonstrating different types of musical contributions to old-time music and for performing "Devil in the Strawstack" for our podcast.
[Old-time guitar music from Old-Time Smoky Mountain Music and bird song]
Karen Key
Our theme music is from Old-Time Smoky Mountain Music, GSMA’s Grammy-nominated music collection available at SmokiesInformation.org. Bird recordings by Mark Dunaway. Thanks for listening!
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Great Smoky Mountains Association supports the perpetual preservation of Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the national park system by promoting greater public interest and appreciation through education, interpretation, and research.
[END]