Jemf Quarterly
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JEMF QUARTERLY JOHN EDWARDS MEMORIAL FOUNDATION VOL. XII SPRING 1976 No. 41 THE JEMF The John Edwards Memorial Foundation is an archive and research center located in the Folklore and Mythology Center of the University of California at Los Angeles. It is chartered as an educational non-profit corporation, supported by gifts and contributions. The purpose of the JEMF is to further the serious study and public recognition of those forms of American folk music disseminated by commercial media such as print, sound recordings, films, radio, and television. These forms include the music referred to as cowboy, western, country & western, old time, hillbilly, bluegrass, mountain, country ,cajun, sacred, gospel, race, blues, rhythm' and blues, soul, and folk rock. The Foundation works toward this goal by: gathering and cataloguing phonograph records, sheet music, song books, photographs, biographical and discographical information, and scholarly works, as well as related artifacts; compiling, publishing, and distributing bibliographical, biographical, discographical, and historical data; reprinting, with permission, pertinent articles originally appearing in books and journals; and reissuing historically significant out-of-print sound recordings. The Friends of the JEMF was organized as a voluntary non-profit association to enable persons to support the Foundation's work. Membership in the Friends is $8.50 (or more) per calendar year; this fee qualifies as a tax deduction. Gifts and contributions to the Foundation qualify as tax deductions. DIRECTORS ADVISORS Eugene W. Earle, President Archie Green, 1st Vice President Ry Cooder Fred Hoeptner, 2nd Vice President David Crisp Ken Griffis, Secretary Harlan Dani'el D. K. Wilgus, Treasurer David Evans John Hammond Wayland D. Hand EXECUTIVE SECRETARY Bess Lomax Hawes Will Roy Hearne Norm Cohen Joseph C. Hickerson Bob Hyland William Henry Koon Bill C. Malone Editor, JEMF Quarterly Brad McCuen Judith McCulloh Norm Cohen Guthrie T. Meade, Jr. Thurston Moore EXEC. V-P, FRIENDS OF JEMF Bob Pinson Ralph C. Rinzler Larry Zwisohn Wesley Rose Tony Russell Charles Seeger Michael Seeger Chris Strachwitz Bill Ward Joseph T. Wilson NEW LIGHT ON "THE COAL CREEK MARCH" By Charles K. Wolfe While most historical events are reflected rebellion, that this piece fragmented and went in traditional music through the ballad form, a into tradition in several different forms, each few have been celebrated primarily as instrumen- form using a different combination of the above tal pieces. Most of these pieces are descriptive three elements. To clarify these forms, it is in nature, such as the older fiddle versions of important to understand something of the men who "Bonaparte's Retreat." In a few rare cases, a acted as major transmitters of our present-day historical event has produced a hybrid piece, versions of the "Coal Creek March." part ballad and part instrumental: such is the The cast up to now has included four major case of the well-known "Coal Creek March." This characters: Marion Underwood, the Kentucky ban- piece has been collected and recorded widely joist who made the first commercial recording of since the 1930s, and has become pretty much of a the "Coal Creek March;" Pete Steele, who made an standard in traditional banjo repertoires through- influential 1938 Library of Congress recording of out eastern Kentucky and Tennessee. A good deal the piece; Dock Boggs, who helped popularize the of scholarship has already accumulated about it. "March" with folk revival audiences in the 1960s; It is doubtful, though, if anyone will ever be and Doc Hopkins, who recorded a lengthy version able to write a complete history of this num- in 1965. ber's complex transmission. But some recent re- search has made it possible to fit a few more of Marion Underwood was apparently the first to the pieces together, and these pieces are here record "Coal Creek March" when he did a version presented, not in the guise of any final solu- for Gennett in May of 1927. The number was re- tion to the "Coal Creek March," but as yet another leased on Gennett 6240 under Underwood's own name, progress report. and on various "stencil" labels under pseudonyms. Without sales figures for all the releases, it is "The Coal Creek March," of course, is one of hard to tell how influential this one early re- a number of songs centering on the troubles at cording of the piece might have been. It is the small mining town of Coal Creek, in eastern basically the "chording piece" element of the Tennessee, during the late 19th century. These tune complex, though some military effects are troubles included a bloody labor dispute as well included in the middle section of the recording. as a series of mine disasters. The labor dis- We know very little about Underwood, and much of pute was in essence a rebellion by newly union- that information is contradictory. In a 1969 in- ized miners against Tennessee's convict-lease terview, Kentucky fiddler Doc Roberts recalled system; for two years the miners fought a sort that Underwood was "an old-time five-string banjo of guerilla war against the Tennessee state player who couldn't play accompaniment" and who militia before the state finally ended the con- played in the archaic "unison style" where the vict-lease system. The Coal Creek Rebellion it- banjo and fiddle play unison lead. Doc recalled self (dating from July 1891) has been chronicled that "Coal Creek March" was one of Underwood's by George Korson in his Coal Dust on the Fiddle, specialties, that he "would play it all the time," and the major songs arising from the events have and that the "March" is "a complicated piece of been studied in Archie Green's Only a Miner. music, and he goes way down on the neck on it." "The Coal Creek March," as we know it today Doc thought that Underwood was from Paint Lick in its various forms, seems to have three rather in Garrard County, Kentucky. However, Dick Bur- separate elements: a) a popular banjo instru- nett, another old-time Kentucky musician who often mental "chording piece"; b) a banjo instrumental played with Underwood, recalls distinctly that he incorporating various sound effects supposedly was from Laurel County, Kentucky. Underwood did describing the Coal Creek troubles; and c) a record numerous times in the 1920s with groups banjo tune tied to a song about the troubles. like Taylor's Kentucky Boys and other "pick-up" We have numerous examples of the first two ele- groups. Underwood's original version has been ments of the piece, but heretofore have collected again available in recent years on LP reissue only one version of a song attached to the piece. (County 515), but there is little evidence to It seems obvious that someone devised a banjo suggest that it was accessible in the 1930s. piece, possibly with all three elements origi- The second chapter of the "Coal Creek March" nally included, at or about the time of the 1891 saga was formed by Pete Steele, a farmer and carpenter who was born in Woodbine, Kentucky, in two banjoists playing duets and singing a song the first year of the Coal Creek Rebellion, 1891. after the "March" -- is an important clue, as we In his younger days Steele spent 18 years working shall see, in the transmission pattern of the as a miner in Harlan County, Kentucky; here he song. Boggs himself knew nothing of the historical learned much of his traditional music, as well as_ connotations of the piece until relatives told him an understanding of the hardships of coal miners. about the labor troubles at Coal Creek; Boggs' re- In 1938 Steele was recorded by Alan Lomax for the lative also said that the militia had actually Library of Congress, and his version of the "March" played the bars of the "March" during the distur- was subsequently released to the public as LC bance, another facet about the background of the AAFS 10 (Album 2). This version of the March, piece that shows up repeatedly . Boggs' version because it remained in print for so long, cer- is different yet from Steele's or Underwood's in tainly attracted the attention of more folklorists that he omits Underwood's drumming and cannonfire than did the Underwood version, but how influen- effects, and instead begins the piece with bugle tial it was .outside of the folklorist community call imitations. Then he plays the "chording piece" is unclear. Steele omits the military effects in a fairly straightforward manner. Boggs toured in his piece, and on his 1958 re-recording of the widely in the 1960s and brought his version of the number for Ed Kahn, he asserted that the "March" "March" as well as his history of it to many college was a description of the funeral of miners killed campuses and urban concerts. in an explosion at Coal Creek, and mentions not a Doc Hopkins was originally from Harlan County, word about the rebellion. (The defusing of mate- Kentucky, but spent most of his career travelling rial once politically controversial -- as the around and playing country music in the midwest; rebellion was -- would be an understandable phe- he appeared on WLS and for a time was associated nomenon in oral transmission. As the tune moved with the Renfro Valley Barn Dance; he retired in further from the event, both in time and geo- 1949, but was playing again in a few years. Though graphy, the topical references would become less he made relatively few commercial recordings, Doc and less meaningful.) Steele himself learned the recorded a large number of radio transcriptions, piece from Andy Whittaker, an old banjoist from and in 1965 recorded an LP, Doc Hopkins (Birch Shelbyville, Kentucky.