THE MAGAZINE OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR INTERPRETATION

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2019 LegacyVOLUME 30, NUMBER 6

INTERPRETING MUSIC

A OKPOP’s Music Gallery explores musical connections. See the story on page 12. Contents © hsd

FEATURES 6 Interpreting an American Soundscape Legacy Rolando Herts November/December 2019 12 OKPOP: Musical Connections in a Crossroad of Volume 30, Number 6 Creativity Emily Friesen, Christine Echtner Editor Paul Caputo 15 The Song of a Nation 15 Samara Stirneman Associate Editors Parker McMullen-Bushman 18 The Art and Artifact of Music in Cultural Margo Carlock Interpretation William Bevil Eva Paleczny, Jake Paleczny Jose Chavez

21 The Beat Goes On Copy Editor Elizabeth Meyers Richard Thorum

24 Following the Fiddler Home Letters to the Editor Legacy welcomes your input. Send William Ray 21 letters to [email protected] or 230 26 Cherry Street, Fort Collins, CO 80521. Interpreting Music Through Confusion Legacy reserves the right to edit letters. james allen, Jr. Submit a Story Idea E-mail queries to NAI Deputy Director DEPARTMENTS Paul Caputo at [email protected]. 2 First Impressions: Algonquin Loggers Day, Ontario Find information about upcoming themes Parks at www.interpnet.com. 4 Editor’s Desk: The Language of Music, Paul Caputo Subscriptions: $30 U.S./$40 international. Legacy magazine is published bimonthly. 30 Justice for All: Making Music in a Messed Up World, Copyright ©2019 NAI. ISSN 10523774. Larry Beck 24 34 On Interpretation: The and American Engagement with History, W. Maclane Hull, John Garrison Marks ON THE COVER 36 Commentary: A New Perspective to Inclusive Teaching, Keith Johnson, “Prince of Legacy is published by the National Association for the Delta ,” performs Interpretation. Electronic distribution furnished by Yvonne Schramm EBSCO Publishing/EBSCOhost, a registered trademark at a Delta State University of EBSCO Publishing. 38 Perspective: Just Words, Bob Carter event in Cleveland, 40 From the President: We Stand on the Shoulders of . LEGACY 1 Giants, Jay Miller Interpreting an Performance at a Mississippi Bar in Rio American Soundscape de Janeiro, Brazil. MISSISSIPPI: “THE BIRTHPLACE OF AMERICA’S MUSIC”

Come to Mississippi University-Community-Engaged the region, which is The birthplace of the blues. Soundscape Interpretation known worldwide as the “Birthplace Come on Music heritage in Mississippi carries of the Blues.” To the birthplace of the blues. a legendary mystique that is well While this music heritage You see, we talkin’ about a blues land suited to interpretive storytelling. interpretation may be crafted with Home of that hoochie coochie man! In-the-know locals are proud to a hint of healthy creative license, share how Mississippi has earned the stories point to the importance —“Come to Mississippi” its claim to fame as “The Birthplace of pride of place and economic Keith Johnson, of America’s Music.” Invoking their opportunity. This is especially so in Prince of the Delta Blues, 2018 Southern storytelling authority, they the Mississippi Delta, proudly known will tell you that no other state has as the “Birthplace of the Blues” and produced such a high percentage problematically labelled as the of internationally known, world- poorest region in the poorest state in class musicians. They will tell you the United States. that Mississippi has produced more Since 2000, The Delta Center for Grammy Award-winning artists Culture and Learning at Delta State than any state in the country. They University has forged local, national, will go on to say that this is why the and international collaborations first Grammy Museum outside of to create and facilitate various Los Angeles was built at Delta State interpretation programs that tell r o l a n d o h e r t s University in Cleveland, the heart of Mississippi Delta stories. As part

6 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2019 of the university’s commitment to other socio-cultural contradictions They become even clearer when address longstanding educational, that capture the essence of our shared the Mississippi Delta is contrasted social, economic, and cultural American and human experience. with its geographic neighbor, the challenges in the region, The Delta Through programs like the Mississippi Hills, another storied Center’s programs create safe International Conference on the music heritage soundscape widely spaces for historically marginalized Blues and the Most Southern Place on known as the birthplace of Elvis. communities to take pride in sharing Earth workshops for K–12 educators, Given the diverse audiences that visit and interpreting their own stories. The Delta Center immerses residents The Delta Center, interpreting with This includes blues, a musical art and visitors in experiences that a universal language clarifies the form transplanted from Africa illuminate how Mississippi people, contradictions and, ultimately, clears through the transatlantic slave trade places, and culture crafted the pathways to shared understanding. to the cotton producing soils of blues and other musical genres. I This universal language is music. Mississippi. Enslaved Africans forced presented on The Delta Center’s to chop and pick cotton under cruel, place-based experiential learning Mississippi Delta and Hills dehumanizing conditions channeled projects at NAI’s 2019 International Soundscapes in Contrast their oppression into musical Conference in Brazil. The conference The Mississippi Delta and Mississippi expression, crying out to be heard, theme, “Building Interpretive Hills regions are two distinct to be liberated—work songs, field Alliances for Collective Impact,” soundscapes: interpretive, narrative- hollers, and spirituals that became offered an ideal platform for sharing rich destination regions under the blues. how our university-community- constant authorship processes that engaged interpretation work fosters connect music, place, and identity Don’t the Delta look lonesome conversations about race relations, with past and present socio-cultural When that evening sun go down? social justice, cultural representation, dynamics. Both regions represent Don’t this Delta look lonesome and other challenging topics through historical and cultural intersections When that evenin’ sun goes down? Mississippi’s music heritage. of the various music genres that Well, you been lookin’ for your baby In doing this work, we invariably Mississippians have crafted. They Don’t know where she could be found are confronted with the challenge of are the places where blues, country, —“Mississippi Blues” interpreting a host of socio-cultural gospel, rock ‘n’ roll, and soul have William Brown, 1942 contradictions that reflect broader been innovated and interpreted American life: wealth and poverty, by musicians, scholars, and local Blues songs tell the collective story of black and white, urban and rural, institutions, collectively telling African Americans’ ongoing struggle power and powerless, and sacred to live through four centuries of and secular. These contradictions oppression and accrued disadvantage. are alarmingly ever present in A Chicago blues band performs at African Americans have lived the Mississippi Delta soundscape. Mississippi Delta Blues Fest in Brazil. through slavery, sharecropping, the Jim Crow era, the Great Migration, mass incarceration, economic terrorism, and other institutionalized conditions driven by racism and white supremacy. Blues music tells this story. It embodies the hopelessness of surviving at the lower physiological and safety levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, as well as the hope of attaining higher levels of love, esteem, and self-actualization. Blues music is the root of all American music genres. These genres—including country, gospel, rock ‘n’ roll, and soul—are encoded with blues’ paradox of hope and hopelessness. As the “Birthplace of America’s Music,” Mississippi is a collection of regional soundscapes where one can hear, feel, and bear witness to hope and hopelessness and

LEGACY 7 the complex, multifaceted story of hills—but also due to complex socio- , the “King of the America. cultural relationships that influenced Delta Blues.” Though currently no Both the Mississippi Delta and musical styles. These contrasts longer in operation, the sharecropper Mississippi Hills are Congressionally can and do serve as a provocative shack that once housed Po’ Monkey’s designated National Heritage Areas, interpretation tool for music heritage Lounge, the world renowned last rural places recognized by the National storytellers. juke joint in the U.S., still stands at the Park Service where historic, cultural, Mississippi writers like William edge of a Delta cotton field. and natural resources combine to Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, and Such Delta music heritage sites form nationally important, lived-in Richard Wright have characterized coalesce with raw emotional sounds landscapes. National Heritage Areas the Delta historically as a morally from souls long gone and resonate are committed to building regional relaxed cotton kingdom ruled with past and present race relations capacity to provide authentic cultural by wealthy white aristocrats who and chronic poverty. The sites and heritage tourism experiences by benefited from the free labor of stories often intersect with the Great engaging local communities in African Americans. The Delta still Migration, which took the blues interpreting and telling their stories. features vestiges of plantation life to Chicago via musicians fleeing These stories are not always easy connected to music heritage. Dockery the South like , and listening or telling, however, as power Farms is a plantation located a few the Civil Rights movement, whose struggles based on race, class, gender, minutes from Ruleville, Mississippi, activists drew inspiration from and other factors invariably play in home of civil rights icon Fannie gospel and soul musicians like the the background. Lou Hamer. Visited by thousands Staples Singers founded by Roebuck “The Delta” and “the Hills,” as of tourists from around the world, “Pops” Staples who once lived on they are referred to locally, are Dockery is the place where Charley Dockery plantation. Delta-born contrasting soundscapes not only Patton, known as the “Father Grammy Award-winning country due to topography—the former: a of the Delta Blues,” entertained musician Rosanne Cash has said, “If flat, sea level landscape; the latter: sharecroppers regularly and where we don’t know the Delta, we don’t a landscape undulated with rolling he first met his unofficial apprentice know ourselves as Americans.”

8 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2019 July 2018 NEH Most Southern teacher workshop at Po Monkey’s Lounge juke joint. In contrast to the Delta, cultural welcome signs featuring this moniker attitudes in the Hills generally are in 2009. It is no small coincidence depicted as plain, practical, pious, that since that time, the Delta has and suspicious of Delta extravagance. emerged as an international blues The Delta and the Hills are literal tourism mecca, with Clarkdale, grounds where American race and Mississippi, as its unofficial seat. class tensions collide. Barry’s Rising Among numerous distinguishing Tide, about the historic Flood of characteristics of great interest to 1927 in the Delta, offers various blues tourists and music heritage examples contrasting the Hills’ poor, interpreters, Clarksdale is the white, and violently racist yeoman birthplace of Ike Turner, Sam Cooke, farmer culture with the Delta’s elite and Big Jack Johnson. It also has the white planter caste. Country and Delta Blues Museum, the world’s first rock ‘n’ roll genres generally are museum devoted to blues. associated with the Hills, despite “The Birthplace of America’s the fact that the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall Music” highway welcome signs of Fame cites African American still greet tourists and residents Mississippi Delta native Ike Turner as into Delta and Hills soundscapes the “Father of Rock ‘N’ Roll” via his teeming with music heritage trails. classic song “Rocket 88.” His white, Local cultural and political leaders ultimately wealthier counterpart have influenced the musicalization Elvis Presley—known as the “King of everyday life in the Delta and of Rock ‘N’ Roll”—was born in the the Hills regions using a variety Hills. The Elvis Birthplace in Tupelo, of physical and symbolic markers, Mississippi, is a well-preserved, ultimately reifying a sense of leading tourist attraction in that collective regional identity, belonging, soundscape. The Elvis Birthplace and a shared past. Together, the overshadows the fact that the Hills Delta and the Hills soundscapes Doorman at Mississippi Delta Blues also birthed African American feature approximately 70 percent Bar Rio in Brazil holds Delta State’s blues fife and drum progenitor R.L. of the statewide Mississippi Blues Fighting Okra. Burnside and female Country Music Trail and Mississippi Country Music Hall of Fame artist Tammy Wynette. Trail markers, two music heritage the same week that NAI held its interpretation projects supported international conference. The Rio de Marking the Delta and Hills by state government, tourism, Janeiro festival is a northern branch Soundscapes for Interpretation cultural, and economic development of the now 12-year-old Mississippi The Delta’s regional place identity stakeholders. Delta Blues Festival in Caxias do Sul has gained global meaning over time The in southeastern Brazil. According through blues diasporization, making comprises over 200 markers in to festival organizers, it attracts it possible for anyone, anywhere, at statewide, national, and international over 10,000 visitors from Brazil and any time to experience the Delta as locales, especially blues festivals. neighboring countries, as well as a living culture. In the 21st century, Blues festivals are staged annually Europe and the U.S. The Delta’s place Mississippi leaders have mapped a throughout the U.S., including the brand also is firmly anchored in statewide soundscape with highway 25-year-old-and-counting North Brazil via two Mississippi Delta blues signs and music trails, inviting Atlantic Blues Festival in Rockland, bars, one in Rio, the other in Caxias residents and visitors to travel Maine, over 1,500 miles from the do Sul. Mississippi—especially the Delta and Delta. A number of international The Brazil blues festival organizers the Hills— to discover people, places, blues festivals exist as well, including feel a deep kinship with the Delta. and stories that make it the home of the Cahors Blues Festival, established Like the blues, samba music is the America’s music heritage. in 1982 in France, and the Notodden root music of Brazil, created by The internationally recognized Blues Festival, founded in 1988 in enslaved Africans transported to significance of the Delta soundscape Norway. Mississippi Blues Trail the state of Bahia, which some call lends further credibility to markers have been dedicated to the “Mississippi Delta of Brazil.” As Mississippi being promoted as “The all three of these festivals in the Brazil is amidst a serious economic Birthplace of America’s Music.” communities where they occur. recession, the festivals aim to build Former Governor Haley Barbour’s The Mississippi Delta Blues community and raise awareness administration initiated the Festival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, was of racism, poverty, and wealth statewide installation of highway inaugurated in May 2019 during inequality through music.

LEGACY 9 Mississippians and others must much aligned with 21st-century, bridge African American musical ask, can music heritage tourism audience-centered interpretation traditions rooted in Southern slave development address racism, poverty, approaches. Culturally sensitive and sharecropping plantation and other long-standing socio- interpretation requires a four- cultures. Through combined support cultural issues in the state? It is quite step, inside-out process: (1) from the National Endowment for possible through audience-centered, understand your own identity, the Arts, the National Park Service, culturally sensitive interpretation. perspective, and biases related and the Chisholm Foundation, to heritage stories; (2) know and the conference created a platform Current Trends and Future understand socio-cultural contexts for the Morganfield family from Directions of heritage stories and how those Chicago and the Delta to tell stories What is audience-centered, culturally contexts have shaped present-day about how blues legend Muddy sensitive interpretation? According conditions; (3) incorporate this Waters, their most famous relative, to presenters at the National Park critical understanding and current inspired blues and gospel artistry Service Southeast Region’s 2019 scholarship in interpretive programs in their lives and communities. “Charting the Course” interpretation as a standard practice; and (4) Delta State alumnus and blues artist workshop, audience-centered continually evaluate program Keith Johnson, Muddy Waters’ interpretation consists of four effectiveness and impact by listening great nephew, organized and led observable elements: (1) tells a great and responding to audience feedback. the panel discussion featuring story that engages audiences in the The Delta Center already has Muddy Waters’ son Joseph “Mojo” storytelling; (2) invites sharing and incorporated most, if not all, of these Morganfield, granddaughter questions that foster dialogue; (3) interpretation principles in existing Amelia Cooper, and niece Bridgett learns from and with others toward partnership programs. For example, Morganfield Jones. The panelists building co-created experiences; the 2018 International Conference shared authentic, first-person blues and (4) grapples with sticky societal on the Blues interpreted the theme heritage stories that illuminated problems that encourage reflection “Spirit of the Blues: Celebrating Roots for audiences how Muddy and critical thinking. of Delta Music Through Gospel and Waters and the Great Migration Developing culturally sensitive Spirituals” by creating spaces for contributed to Mississippi’s image interpretation programming is very performances and discussions that as an internationally significant

10 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2019 soundscape. Documentary videos for the 2018 International Conference on the Blues are available at www. internationaldeltabluesproject.com. In the future, The Delta Center plans to continue forging innovative partnerships and collaborations that enrich and expand audience engagement with Mississippi’s music heritage stories. The International Blues Scholars Program is an online, graduate-level blues studies certificate offered by Delta State—the only one of its kind in the United States. Administered by The Delta Center, the program may develop a place-based immersion track that Social Interpretation will invite students to travel to the GRAPHIC DESIGN & SOCIAL MEDIA Delta to experience blues music FOR INTERPRETERS and culture for a week. In addition,

there is a burgeoning partnership December 9–10, 2019 | Denver INTERPNET.COM/DESIGN

INTERPNET.COM/DESIGN

with Brazil’s Mississippi Delta December 9–10, 2019 | Denver

Blues Festival organizers aimed at FOR INTERPRETERS connecting Delta blues with Bahian GRAPHIC DESIGN & SOCIAL MEDIA samba. This unique intercontinental connection may lead to Social Interpretation interpretation-oriented study abroad opportunities for Delta State students majoring in humanities, social science, and business disciplines. As Cleveland, Mississippi, prepares to host the Alliance of National Heritage Areas conference and the international Music Tourism Convention in 2020, it is an opportune time to develop and expand music heritage interpretation in the “Birthplace of America’s Music.” As we say in the Delta: “Y’all come!” a b o u t t h e au t h o r Rolando Herts, Ph.D., is the director of The Delta Center for Culture and Learning, and the executive director for the Mississippi Delta National Heritage Area, Delta State University, Cleveland, Mississippi.

LEGACY 11