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Inside
This Issue: Inside This Issue Staging the Folk: New York City’s Friends of Old Time Music by Ray Allen Celebrating Randy Weston by Jeff Taylor and Hank Williams Music and Identity in Mel Brooks’s The Producers by Katherine Baber In
Search of Aaron Copland: Review by Wayne Schneider |
Remembering
Charles Wolfe (1943-2006) by
Kip Lornell The
George Washington University
Charles Wolfe Photo courtesy of Middle Tennessee State University In the fall 1988, ISAM founder H. Wiley Hitchcock invited Charles Wolfe to pen his first “Country and Gospel Notes” column for the ISAM Newsletter. Over the next sixteen years he would acquaint Newsletter readers with the rapidly expanding body of scholarship and essential recordings that defined these two neglected areas of Americ-an music study. In his inaugural column Charles reviewed Happy in the Service of the Lord: Afro-American Gospel Quartets in Memphis, by ethnomusicologist Kip Lornell, who would soon become a close collaborator. We had corresponded and spoken on the phone many times, but when I finally met Charles Wolfe in person early in 1980, I knew that we would be friends for a long time. In addition to the obvious musical interests, we both enjoyed trying local barbecue joints, talking about sports, and discussing the mysteries of how higher education actually works (or doesn’t). Charles was happy where he was, literally in the middle of Tennessee with Nashville less than twenty-five miles away and so many research opportunities within several hours’ drive. Growing up in central Missouri, Charles had always been interested in music, but since he was not a musician, he opted to study English at nearby Southwest Missouri State University. After graduating in 1965, the University of Kansas offered him a generous graduate fellowship, enticing him and his new wife Mary Deane to move a few hundred miles west. Charles told me he had hoped to pursue a dissertation on Jimmie Rodgers and the blues, but because the topic was not deemed appropriate for an English Ph.D. in the late 1960s he ended up writing on Dickens. In 1970 he accepted a position in the English Department at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro. After gaining tenure at MTSU, Charles was able to once again pursue his musical interests, starting with his work on the Grand Ole Opry. His initial book was the first scholarly study of the Grand Ole Opry. This project began as a slim, insightful book that Tony Russell published under the Old Time Music imprint in 1976. For years Charles worked on a massive revised and expanded version. Finally, A Good Natured Riot: The Birth of the Grand Ole Opry was published by Vanderbilt University Press in 1999 to universal and well-deserved praise. As he demonstrated in his wide-ranging survey of string bands and early country music, Tennessee Strings (University of Tennessee Press, 1977), Charles’s interest in country music was not limited to Nashville and the Opry. Nor was it short lived. Over the next three decades he would write eloquently on many facets of country music in such influential works as Kentucky Country: Folk and Country Music of Kentucky (University of Kentucky Press, 1996), The Devil’s Box: Masters of Country Fiddling (Vanderbilt University Press, 1998), Classic Country: Legends of Country Music (Routledge Press, 2000), The Bristol Sessions: Writings About the Big Bang of Country Music (McFarland and Company, 2005), co-edited with Ted Olsen, and Country Music Goes to War (University of Kentucky Press, 2005), co-edited with James Akenson. A comprehensive book on bluegrass legend Bill Monroe, co-authored with Neal Rosenberg, will be published by the University of Illinois Press in 2006. Country fiddling from Uncle Jimmie Thompson to Chubby Wise also fascinated Charles. He authored dozens of articles on southern fiddling and string bands for Old Time Music and The Devil’s Box as well as several bluegrass publications. The majority of these articles contained new information gleaned from scores of interviews conducted over several decades of field work and digging. In 2004 the International Bluegrass Music Association awarded Charles and co-author Eddie Stubbs its prize for the best liner notes for their work on a comprehensive Mac Wisemen set. Many of the dozens of liner notes that he wrote focused on either early country music or bluegrass. Although known primarily for his writings on country and
bluegrass music, Charles’s musical tastes were wide-ranging, including
a deep interest in African American blues
and gospel. His DeFord Bailey: A Black Star in Early Country
Music (University Of Tennessee Press, 1993), co-authored with
David Morton, focused attention on the much-neglected career of country music’s first important black
performer and recording artist. In early December of 1988 I recall
phoning Charles from Smithsonian Folkways, where I was surrounded by photographs,
sound recordings, and other archival
information about Huddie Leadbetter. Charles casually noted that it
was remarkable that no one had written a biography of Leadbelly. Within two
months we had a contract and about
three years later we had co-authored The Life and Legend of Leadbelly (Harper Collins, 1992). Working with Charles was
easy and enjoyable. Chatting with him about his widespread interests is
probably what I will miss most now that he has moved on. If I mentioned a new
barbecue joint over in Cannon County he was ready to hop in the car and try
it out. He would want to bring his
grandchildren along, and that was just fine with me, because I know that he
loved to watch over them. I suspect he’s doing that right now. ISAM home Who we
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