The WBT Briarhoppers

The WBT Briarhoppers PDF Author: Tom Warlick
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 078648294X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
In 1934, WBT radio announcer Charles Crutchfield formed a spur-of-the-moment musical group to satisfy a potential sponsor looking for a "hillbilly" radio program to showcase its products. Known as the WBT Briarhoppers, this group went on to become one of the longest lasting bluegrass/country ensembles in America, staying on the air until 1951 and then continuing to perform. Compiled from firsthand interviews, this work tells the story of the WBT Briarhoppers, analyzing the band's history and its connection to the growth of American radio and radio advertising. Using the Briarhoppers as a common thread, it examines changes in culture and the group's contribution to country and bluegrass music. The work also discusses legendary performers including the Tennessee Ramblers, The Johnson Family, and Bill and Charlie Monroe. A discography is included.

The WBT Briarhoppers

The WBT Briarhoppers PDF Author: Tom Warlick
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 078648294X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 216

Get Book Here

Book Description
In 1934, WBT radio announcer Charles Crutchfield formed a spur-of-the-moment musical group to satisfy a potential sponsor looking for a "hillbilly" radio program to showcase its products. Known as the WBT Briarhoppers, this group went on to become one of the longest lasting bluegrass/country ensembles in America, staying on the air until 1951 and then continuing to perform. Compiled from firsthand interviews, this work tells the story of the WBT Briarhoppers, analyzing the band's history and its connection to the growth of American radio and radio advertising. Using the Briarhoppers as a common thread, it examines changes in culture and the group's contribution to country and bluegrass music. The work also discusses legendary performers including the Tennessee Ramblers, The Johnson Family, and Bill and Charlie Monroe. A discography is included.

The Briarhoppers: the Circle Rolls On

The Briarhoppers: the Circle Rolls On PDF Author: Daniel Coston
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780692312131
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 68

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Book Description
Now in their 80th year of existence, the Briarhoppers (or as they are currently known, the The WBT Briarhoppers) are now recognized as the longest running string band in the United States. What began at WBT Radio in Charlotte, NC in 1934 continues with a host of new songs and stories. Photographer and writer Daniel Coston opens up his archives to share his images and memories over the last 12 years, and talk about what the Briarhoppers, and their band members have meant to him.

Jim Scancarelli

Jim Scancarelli PDF Author: Lewis M. Stern
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476686009
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
North Carolina fiddler and banjo player Jim Scancarelli's extensive career as a string band musician began in the early 1960s. A founding member of the Kilocycle Kowboys, one of Charlotte's longest-lived bluegrass bands, he played banjo with the Mole Hill Highlanders, and in the 1980s formed Sanitary Cafe with fiddler Tommy Malboeuf. Through the 1970s, his annual recordings at the Union Grove Fiddlers Convention captured superlative music and performer interviews. Scancarelli also had a successful career as a freelance magazine artist and collaborated on the syndicated comic strips "Mutt and Jeff" and "Gasoline Alley," eventually taking over authorship of the latter in 1986. This biography traces his creative trajectory in music, art, radio and television, and the cartooning industry.

String Bands in the North Carolina Piedmont

String Bands in the North Carolina Piedmont PDF Author: Bob Carlin
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786418265
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
String band music is most commonly associated with the mountains of North Carolina and other rural areas of the Blue Ridge and Appalachian mountains, but it was just as abundant in Piedmont region of North Carolina, albeit with different influences and stylistic conventions. This work focuses exclusively on the history and culture of the area, the music's development and the changes within traditional communities of the Piedmont. It begins with a discussion of the settlement of the Piedmont in the mid-1700s and early references to secular folk music, including the attitudes the various ethnic and religious groups had on music and dance, the introduction of the fiddle and the banjo, and outside influences such as minstrel shows, Hawaiian music and classical banjo. It then goes on to cover African-Americans and string band music; the societal functions of square dances held at private homes and community centers; the ways in which musicians learned to play the music and bought their instruments; fiddler's conventions and their history as community fundraisers; the recording industry and Piedmont musicians who cut recordings, including Ernest Thompson and the North Carolina Cooper Boys; Bascom Lamar Lunsford and the Carolina Folk Festival; the influence of live radio stations, including WPTF in Raleigh, WGWR in Asheboro, WSJS in Winston-Salem, WBIG in Greensboro and WBT in Charlotte; the first generation of locally-bred country entertainers, including Charlie Monroe's Kentucky Partners, Gurney Thomas and Glenn Thompson; and bluegrass and musical change following World War II.

Bluegrass Unlimited

Bluegrass Unlimited PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Bluegrass music
Languages : en
Pages : 532

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Book Description


Tommy Malboeuf

Tommy Malboeuf PDF Author: Lewis M. Stern
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476646627
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
Adopted as a child from the Masonic Home for Children at Oxford, Tommy Malboeuf grew up in Troutman, North Carolina before enlisting in the Navy in the early 1950s. After his military service, Tommy found occasional work surveying and operating heavy equipment, and he also found a personal passion in bluegrass fiddling. He performed and recorded with A.L. Wood and the Smokey Ridge Boys, Roy McMillan's High Country Boys, the Border Mountain Boys, L.W. Lambert and the Blue River Boys, C.E. Ward and his band, Garland Shuping, and Wild Country, among others. In the late 1990s, Tommy began teaching fiddle, maintaining a steady stream of students until at least the early 2000s. He continued to perform as a fiddler, filling in for a variety of local bands and recording cuts on records for bands such as Big Country Bluegrass. This text documents Tommy's life, from his humble beginnings to his lengthy fiddle career. Contextualizing Tommy's work within the Statesville-Troutman bluegrass "scene," chapters also explore the local bluegrass culture of the time. Tommy's extensive repertoire is also listed, including his spectacular fiddle contest wins, band recordings, local jam field recordings, and songs recorded for students, all of which highlight his talent and expertise as a fiddler.

Earl Scruggs and Foggy Mountain Breakdown

Earl Scruggs and Foggy Mountain Breakdown PDF Author: Thomas Goldsmith
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252051823
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
Recorded in 1949, "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" changed the face of American music. Earl Scruggs's instrumental essentially transformed the folk culture that came before it while helping to energize bluegrass's entry into the mainstream in the 1960s. The song has become a gateway to bluegrass for musicians and fans alike as well as a happily inescapable track in film and television. Thomas Goldsmith explores the origins and influence of "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" against the backdrop of Scruggs's legendary career. Interviews with Scruggs, his wife Louise, disciple Bela Fleck, and sidemen like Curly Seckler, Mac Wiseman, and Jerry Douglas shed light on topics like Scruggs's musical evolution and his working relationship with Bill Monroe. As Goldsmith shows, the captivating sound of "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" helped bring back the banjo from obscurity and distinguished the low-key Scruggs as a principal figure in American acoustic music.Passionate and long overdue, Earl Scruggs and Foggy Mountain Breakdown takes readers on an ear-opening journey into two minutes and forty-three seconds of heaven.

Biographical Encyclopedia of American Radio

Biographical Encyclopedia of American Radio PDF Author: Christopher H. Sterling
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136993754
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 482

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Book Description
The Biographical Encyclopedia of American Radio presents the very best biographies of the internationally acclaimed three-volume Encyclopedia of Radio in a single volume. It includes more than 200 biographical entries on the most important and influential American radio personalities, writers, producers, directors, newscasters, and network executives. With 23 new biographies and updated entries throughout, this volume covers key figures from radio’s past and present including Glenn Beck, Jessie Blayton, Fred Friendly, Arthur Godfrey, Bob Hope, Don Imus, Rush Limbaugh, Ryan Seacrest, Laura Schlesinger, Red Skelton, Nina Totenberg, Walter Winchell, and many more. Scholarly but accessible, this encyclopedia provides an unrivaled guide to the voices behind radio for students and general readers alike.

Linthead Stomp

Linthead Stomp PDF Author: Patrick Huber
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807832251
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 442

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Book Description
An exploration of the origins and development of American country music in the Piedmont's mill villages celebrates the colorful cast of musicians and considers the impact that urban living, industrial music, and mass culture had on their lives and music.

What Earl Scruggs Heard

What Earl Scruggs Heard PDF Author: Bob Carlin
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 147668667X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 213

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Book Description
When the story of banjo superstar Earl Scruggs is told, the rich musical environment that produced him is often ignored. During his lifetime Scruggs spun a creation myth around his playing, convincing many that he was the sole originator of a three-finger, up-picking, banjo style. For the first time, this book tells the full story of the music and musicians of the western Carolinas that influenced Earl Scruggs. Based on more than 15 years of in-depth research, this book includes the story of country music recording pioneers Parker and Woolbright, Fisher Hendley and Martin Melody Boys; rare images of area music makers; and the history and development of fiddlers' conventions and radio barn dances. Together, these stories are woven into the biographies of Earl's mentors to reveal the musical atmosphere in which they developed the "three-finger picking" style that so enchanted a young Earl Scruggs.