Folklife Center News, Volume 7 Number 3

July-September 1984 The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, Washington, D. C. Volume VII, Number 3 Automated Archiving Conference America's Harp Federal Cylinder Project Catalogs New Board Members Penderlea Homesteads, a Farm Security Administration project near Willard, N. C. in 1937; photo by Ben Shahn. (Prints and Photographs Division) road to oblivion. As I have just il Virginia. Coming from a musical FOLKLIFE CENTER NEWS lustrated, one cannot now use the family within a musical community, word without quotation marks. Yet I he acquired his art' early in life and a quarterly publication of the think there is a case to be made for soon became known as an outstanding American Folklife Center keeping our antiquarian responsibili fiddler. Though he had a reputation ties clearly before us, untainted by throughout the region, amplified by at the condescension, and unencumbered by occasional appearances at fiddling Library of Congress quotation marks. contests and other festivals, he never The occasion for this outburst was made commercial recordings for the Alan Jabbour, Director harmless enough_ For a week I have "hillbilly" record series of the 1920s and been writing annotations to a prospec 1930s. Around the time of his ap Ray Dockstader, Deputy Director tive documentary LP album to be pearance in August 1947 at an Arthur Elena Bradunas published later this year by West dale folk festival (in a West Virginia Carl Fleischhauer Virginia University Press. It will resettlement community Eleanor Roo Mary Hufford feature the fiddling of Edden Ham sevelt had patronized), Edden was Folklife Specialists mons, the legendary fiddler of a past recorded by Professor Chappell. He Peter T. Bartis, Folklife Researcher generation of Hammonses in east was in his seventies at the time. The Eleanor Sreb, Executive Assistant central West Virginia. My colleague resultant corpus of his playing totals Brett Topping, Writer-Editor Carl Fleischhauer and I had spent 26 field-recorded discs and 51 different Magdalena Gilinsky, Contracts Specialist time in the early 1970s documenting fiddle tunes-a few accompanied on Doris Craig, Administrative Secretary Lisa Oshins, Staff Assistant the Hammonses of Pocahontas Coun guitar by his son James, but for the ty, West Virginia-Burl Hammons most part unaccompanied, pristine Tel: 202 287-6590 (the outstanding fiddler ofthis genera solo fiddling in the old West Virginia tion), Sherman Hammons, and Mag style. Archive of Folk Culture gie Hammons Parker. Our LP-set The There I sat, transfixed. I listened Joseph C . Hickerson, Head Hammons Family (Library ofCongress again and again to the tunes for which Gerald E. Parsons, Jr., Reference Librarian AFS L65-L66, 1973) included their I was supplying annotations - aston Patricia M. Markland, Indexer-Secretary family photos, comments, and ished anew, as I labored to transcribe Sebastian LoCurto, Staff Assistant Michael Licht, Staff Assistant testimonies about their uncle Edden's two tunes in detail, at the elegance of artistry. All agreed that he was the Edden Hammons's intricate playing Tel: 202 287-5510 consummate fiddler of the previous style. He was a fiddler ofthe first order Washington, D.C. 20540 generation of Hammonses. But Edden and, through his playing, expressed died in the early 1950s, and though it something very beautiful and impor was believed he had been extensively tant about the older Central Appala Managing Editor: Brett Topping recorded by some professor years ago, chian culture he represented. Now he recordings of him were not available is gone; fiddling in his style is but to us during our work. rarely encountered; and in a pro Important new informatIon has a tracted seance in my office, through DIRECTOR'S way of engulfing the hapless author the medium of Edden's old recordings, who has just finished work on some I silently communed with this voice COLUMN thing. Thus I should not have been from the past, riveted by the power of surprised at the news that Louis W. its presence. We folklorists have important anti Chappell, who had been a professor at Then it occurred to me that I was quarian responsibilities! West Virginia University in the 1930s an antiquarian. I was by turns amused There, I have used that word "anti and 1940s and had reputedly recorded and irritated at the thought, but once quarian" with approval, and nothing folk music throughout the state, it had stolen into my mind there was has happened to me. How did the turned up in the 1970s with his very no eluding it. I was not only studying word manage to slip into such disfavor large collection of field-recorded discs the past, but was being swept up by amongst scholars and activists alike in intact. After long negotiations the the power and romance of its icons. our generation of specialists in folk West Virginia University Library suc Two conclusions finally emerged from culture? It is rarely used nowadays ex ceeded in bringing the collection this stream of thought: first, that my cept to allude to the giants ofour field home, and after further labor the col antiquarian impulse was perfectly in the last century-with perhaps the lection was duplicated onto tape and appropriate for a folklorist; and second, suggestion that they were a bit dry, meticulously cataloged. Included in it that in certain areas of culture it was dusty, and obsessive - or to reproach are 26 field-recorded discs of Edden not only appropriate but an actual one ofour contemporaries with being Hammons's fiddling. It is spectacular professional responsibility. too much like them. The term "anti fiddling. The propriety of folklorists' pursu quities," by the way, meaning the Edden Hammons was born in the ing antiquarian interests should need objects of an antiquarian's attention, 1870s and lived in the Allegheny no justification. Only in the present has traveled even farther down the Mountains in east-central West generation has it been an issue, and 2 FOLKLIFE CENTER NEWS Being interested in the past, then, gone on to other concerns. Prehistoric is certainly appropriate for folklorists, Indian sites are not where it's at now." however much their imagination is I might well reply (and here I imagine fired by experiences with culture in the myself waxing indignant), "Well, · if present. I find myselfwishing to push you don't take care of such things, who the argument a step further, however, will!?!" In fact, whatever new interests by asserting flatly that we folklorists and new areas of expertise may ac have a clear responsibility for things crue to archeology as a profession in past. The argument takes this form: 20th-century America, the profes Ifwe don't do it, who will? Let me give sional responsibility for the artifacts in an illustration. my garden remains. They have Suppose I were digging in my gar assumed - and the rest of society now den, and suddenly encountered a charges them with-the high respon cache ofartifacts that seemed to reflect sibility of that cultural custodianship. American Indian culture of a bygone Folklorists similarly have as era. I could of course simply plunder sumed- by being interested and by the site for geegaws to display on my becoming known for bei):lg inter mantel. But I know very well that the ested - a public responsibility for cer responsible thing for a citizen to do in tain expressions ofculture, past as well Edden Hammons. such a circumstance is to contact an as present. Members of other profes perhaps our generation's rebellion archeologist for professional advice. sions may share my interest in West against the preoccupation of our Archeologists are the people, I would Virginia history, or in West Virginia predecessors with the pastness of correctly assume, who know best how grassroots culture today. But it does tradition - our urge to de-emphasize to extract, care for, evaluate, and seem that I have a special responsibil our profession's longstanding interest interpret the meanings imparted by ity, a cultural custodianship, for those in the time-depth of traditional culture the cache of artifacts in my garden. old recordings of Edden Hammons. and to emphasize the ethnographic But what if the archeologist I con Not only should I know best, of the present - is already subsiding into a tacted said coolly, "We used to be in various professions who might be in more balanced attention to the time terested in that kind of stuff. But the terested, how to preserve and interpret factor as well as the group-factor in best and the brightest in our field have them, but I should care most that the tradition. preserving and interpreting gets done. Certainly the public thinks it ap Further, though Edden Hammons's propriate for folklorists to be interested BOARD OF TRUSTEES fiddling might seem solely an anti in old-timey things, as any folklorist quarian concern to most ofthe world, knows who deals with the public at all. Ronald C . Foreman, Jr., Florida, I am confident that for West Virgin In fact, the very words "old-time" or Chairman ians today the old recordings ofhis fid "old-timey" (they seem, incidentally, to David E. Draper, Louisiana, Vice dling will ring a responsive cultural be mainly American locutions in their Chairman chord, just as they have done for me. history and usage) offer a popular Edward Bridge Danson, Arizona Edden Hammons, long since dead, paradigm for the work of folklorists. Jeanne Guillemin, Massachusetts will become more powerful as a Americans may speak of the old-time Bruce Jackson, New York cultural force today, once the re fiddlers of yesteryear, but they also William L. Kinney, Jr., South Carolina cordings are out. Thus it is that custo (and, I believe, more characteristi St.

Load more