- Summary Information
- Repository
- UNC Asheville Special Collections and University Archives
- Title
- Mel Hall Old Time Music Oral History Collection
- ID
- OH-MHOTM
- Date [inclusive]
- 2020
- Extent
- .5 Linear feet
- Language
- English
- Citation
[Identification of interview], Mel Hall Old Time Music Oral History Collection, D.H. Ramsey Library, Special Collections, University of North Carolina Asheville
Scope and Contents
Contains 9 interviews of old time musicians in Asheville recorded digitally in January and February of 2020. Interviews were conducted by Mel Hall for their Anthropology 305 internship course and their senior ethnography field work. The old time music community is built on traditions hundreds of years old, and passed down through families. Since the advent of recorded music, traditional genres have gone through a lot of cultural changes, but the music has ultimately stayed the same. Mel’s old time band teacher, Wayne Erbsen, reached out to many of his friends to see who wanted to be involved with this project. Most of these people have shaped their lives around old time music, many of them educators or professional musicians. Interviews cover how different instruments are played, what makes the old time genre distinct, personal stories of playing old time music, the Folk Revival of the sixties, and how people learn to play. Musicians interviewed include Wayne Erbsen, David Holt, Phil Jamison, Laura Boosinger, Nicole Carpenter, Don Pedi, Artus Moser Jr & Ginny Moser, Hilary Dirlam, and Lewis Wills & Katie Wills
Administrative Information
Repository
UNC Asheville Special Collections and University Archives
Ramsey Library, CPO # 1500
One University Heights
Asheville, North Carolina, 28804-8504
828.251.6645
speccoll@unca.edu
Access note
The collection is open for research
Custodial History
Donated by Mel Hall
Accruals note
No additional accruals are expected
Processing Information
Processed by Mel Hall
Index of Oral Histories
1) Wayne Erbsen
Name of Informant: Wayne Erbsen
Interview Date and Interviewer: January 25, 2020, Mel Hall
Format: digital audio file
Scope and Contents: In this interview, Wayne gives a rundown of his life and many of the old time musicians he ran into along the way. He speaks about the revival in the sixties, moving from California to North Carolina, and becoming a college level music teacher and author.
Biography: Wayne is from Los Angeles, CA, went to college at UC Berkeley, and ended up road tripping across the country to visit fiddler’s conventions in the late sixties and early seventies. He ended up moving in with a friendly couple he met at a convention, and soon got a job teaching history and music at a Charlotte area community college. He bounced around North Carolina for a few years, beginning to self publish music books, and ended up teaching at Warren Wilson in Asheville for the majority of his adult life. He has a talent for niche marketing, and recorded many song collections for museums and during trends. Now, he is teaching music part time at UNC Asheville. He has also been hosting an old time music radio show on WCQS on Sunday nights.
Additional Materials: Transcript
Related Resources: www.nativeground.com , Clawhammer Banjo for the Complete Ignoramus, Log Cabin Cooking, Country Roots on Blue Ridge Public Radio
2) David Holt
Name of Informant: David Holt
Interview Date and Interviewer: January 30, 2020, Mel Hall
Format: digital audio file
Scope and Contents: In this interview, David Holt talks about his life as a professional old time musician and how he used that to further educate the public about traditional Appalachian life and history through the Warren Wilson Appalachian Music program and his Folkways tv show. He also speaks about his close relationship with Doc Watson.
Biography: David is a professional old time musician and storyteller who was born in Texas but grew up in California. He moved to North Carolina around 1970, so he could get closer to the root of old time music. He was the host of a PBS show called Folkways, which allowed him to interview and explore a lot of folk musicians and craftspeople all across Appalachia. At one point, he toured with Doc Watson and was a pallbearer at his funeral. He has won 4 Grammys, taught at Warren Wilson, toured internationally, and yet has a wonderful, down to earth attitude. David is still touring schools and events to teach traditional Appalachian history.
Additional Materials: Transcript. Digital photograph.
Related Resources: www.davidholt.com , Legacy CD collection by Doc Watson and David Holt
3) Phil Jamison
Name of Informant: Phil Jamison
Interview Date and Interviewer: January 31, 2020, Mel Hall
Format: digital audio file
Scope and Contents: In this interview, Phil Jamison talks about how he moved to North Carolina, the relationship between old time music and traditional dance, the history of old time, and some of the inner workings of the old time community.
Biography: Phil is from upstate New York, where he first got interested in traditional dance. He eventually moved to North Carolina to join the Green Grass Cloggers, and became a math and music teacher at Warren Wilson College. He wrote the book Hoedowns, Reels, and Frolics: Roots and Branches of Southern Appalachian Dance. He prefers dancing to playing music, but regularly attends a jam in downtown Asheville.
Additional Materials: Transcript. Digital photograph.
Related Resources: www.philjamison.com , Hoedowns, Reels, and Frolics: Roots and Branches of Southern Appalachian Dance
4) Laura Boosinger
Name of Informant: Laura Boosinger
Interview Date and Interviewer: February 1, 2020, Mel Hall
Format: digital audio file
Scope and Contents: In this interview, Laura Boosinger talks about her experience as a student in the Warren Wilson Appalachian Music program, the bands she played in, her experience as a professional musician, and the work she has done to preserve Appalachian culture online with the Blue Ridge Trails website.
Biography: Laura was born in California but grew up in several different southern states. She plays banjo and has been instrumental in creating the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina guidebook in order to preserve sites and events associated with old time and other kinds of mountain music. She also spent a large chunk of time teaching about old time music at schools and summer camps across the country. She got into old time as a student at Warren Wilson, where she was taught by David Holt. She has recorded and edited old time podcasts, played in a mountain swing band and other string bands, performed by herself at various festivals and events, run a newsletter detailing old time and bluegrass events, and now works as a consultant for old time music.
Additional Materials: Transcript. 2 CDs. Blue Ridge Trails brochure.
Related Resources: www.lauraboosinger.com , www.blueridgeheritage.com , Down the Road on blueridgemusicnc.com , Dolly Parton’s America on New York Public Radio
5) Nicole Carpenter
Name of Informant: Nicole Carpenter
Interview Date and Interviewer: February 4, 2020, Mel Hall
Format: digital audio file
Scope and Contents: In this interview, Nicole Carpenter talks about learning to play fiddle through the Junior Appalachian Music (JAM) program and her experience as a music major with a focus in old time at UNCA.
Biography: Nicole herself is from western North Carolina, but her family is from Idaho. She got into playing fiddle from the JAM program at her middle school, and joined a band of JAM students in high school. The band – called Possum on a Whale – still plays at festivals and street events, where they frequently represent the JAM program. Nicole is a senior in college, majoring in Music and New Media.
Additional Materials: Transcript. 2 Digital photographs.
Related Resources: https://www.facebook.com/possumonawhale/
6) Don Pedi
Name of Informant: Don Pedi
Interview Date and Interviewer: February 8, 2020, Mel Hall
Format: digital audio file
Scope and Contents: In this interview, Don Pedi talks about his life in Massachusetts and Colorado before moving to North Carolina, the sixties Folk Revival, mountain dulcimers, and his own philosophies about the old time community.
Biography: Don is from a poorer neighborhood in Massachusetts, where he would listen to folk musicians at the local coffee shops. When he was in college, working at the beach, he was introduced to the mountain dulcimer. He later worked in Colorado, and ended up tagging along to North Carolina with a couple of other musicians, and he has lived here ever since. He has taught dulcimer classes, played at festivals, and hosts a radio show at WCQS.
Additional Materials: Transcript. Digital photograph.
Related Resources: www.donpedi.com , Close to Home on Blue Ridge Public Radio
7) Artus Moser, Jr., with Ginny Moser
Name of Informant: Artus Moser, Jr., with Ginny Moser
Interview Date and Interviewer: February 9, 2020, Mel Hall
Format: digital audio file
Scope and Contents: In this interview, Artus Moser, Jr. speaks about growing up around old time music, because his father was a “songcatcher” for the Smithsonian Folkways archive. He talks about playing with his family, how he learned to play banjo and guitar, and what old time jams are like.
Biography: Artus Moser, Jr. is from the Asheville area, where he still lives on his father’s land with his sisters. Mr. Moser learned to play guitar at 15 years old, and banjo later in life, but traditional musicians were in and out of the house all this time when he was growing up. He became a physician at Mission Hospital, where he met his wife Ginny, who was a nurse. Mr. Moser does not play many public performances, but prefers to play with his family or at a jam.
Additional Materials: Transcript. Digital photograph. 2 flyers, one for his family’s murder ballad performance, and one for another old time performance that was supposed to happen at the end of March.
Related Resources: North Carolina Ballads sung by Artus Moser and edited by Kenneth S. Goldstein, Songcatcher dir. Maggie Greenwald
8) Hilary Dirlam
Name of Informant: Hilary Dirlam
Interview Date and Interviewer: February 13, 2020, Mel Hall
Format: digital audio file
Scope and Contents: In this interview, Hilary Dirlam speaks about visiting fiddler’s conventions, composing banjo tunes, her personal research in Nepali folk tunes, writing music books, and how she made her living as a musician.
Biography: Hilary is from Connecticut and plays banjo, bass, and guitar. She has played in a few traveling bands, including the Luke Smathers Band with Laura Boosinger. She moved to North Carolina in 1980, where she found odds and ends music jobs to pay the bills while she enjoyed playing traditional folk music. In the 90s she began traveling to monasteries in Nepal, where she learned about their folk music. She has composed a few banjo tunes, notably “Holloway”. She still teaches privately.
Additional Materials: Transcript. CD?
Related Resources: www.hilarydirlam.com , www.oldtimeherald.org , Dance All Night: The Highwoods Stringband Story on Folkstreams
9 Lewis Wills with Katie Wills
Name of Informant: Lewis Wills with Katie Wills
Interview Date and Interviewer: February 18, 2020, Mel Hall
Format: Digital audio file
Scope and Contents: In this interview, Lewis Wills speaks about what the old time community is like in places outside Asheville, local old time music resources and jams, and the Folk Revival of the sixties.
Biography: Lewis grew up in Atlanta, GA, where the old time music scene was almost non-existent. He learned to play fiddle by listening to records from the library, and eventually started a band and played dance hall gigs. He and his wife eventually moved to Asheville because it had a good school for their special needs son. Lewis was amazed by the difference in old time culture between here and atlanta – jams flourish and bands die here because there are so many jams and so few folk venues. He currently teaches at UNCA.
Additional Materials: Transcript. Digital photograph.
Related Resources: www.oldtimeherald.org ,