{"id":200,"date":"2010-08-30T19:07:17","date_gmt":"2010-08-30T19:07:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pmdc.wcu.edu\/?p=200"},"modified":"2023-06-20T13:20:55","modified_gmt":"2023-06-20T13:20:55","slug":"etta-baker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.wcu.edu\/index.php\/2010\/08\/30\/etta-baker\/","title":{"rendered":"Etta Baker"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Creative Commons Image Obtained Through Wikimedia<\/a><\/p>\n

Etta Baker was an important Appalachian blues guitarist. Born in North Carolina\u2019s Piedmont in 1913, she spent her adult life in the mountain town of Morganton. Her mixed African-American, Irish, and Native American heritage gave her important insights into many different musical styles. Her recording of the traditional tune \u201cOne-Dime Blues\u201d was an important influence on the folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s. It won her increasing attention as a repository of a mountain blues tradition that was disappearing. Most of her music was unreleased until 1991, when her first full album appeared. In 2004 she released an album with the renowned blues musician Taj Mahal. She was recognized as a national cultural treasure when she was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Along about 1960, song-collector Paul Clayton owned a small cabin outside of Charlottesville, VA.\u00a0 When friends from the \u201cbig city\u201d visited, he often took them down into the North Carolina foothills to meet and hear Etta Baker.\u00a0 In her 40s yet still relatively unknown, Baker was one of the finest Piedmont Blues guitarists in the region.\u00a0 On one such occasion, Clayton\u2019s cabin guest was down-south to celebrate his 21st<\/span>\u00a0birthday.\u00a0 Etta Baker\u2019s unique style of acoustic finger-picking so influenced the young musician, that it inspired him to \u201ccreate\u201d one of his best known songs.\u00a0 After visiting Baker and returning to New York, Bob Dylan penned \u201cDon\u2019t Think Twice, It\u2019s All Right\u201d.<\/p>\n

Etta Lucille Reid was born in 1913 and grew up in Morganton, NC.\u00a0 Racial lines in the region were not as rigid as those in the tobacco & cotton growing regions of the south and when asked, Etta recalled a close-knit community comprised of African, Native, and European heritages.\u00a0 The Reid family claimed a bit of all three.\u00a0 Etta\u2019s father, Boone Reid, was a long-time player of Piedmont Blues and began teaching Etta the guitar early in life \u2013 even before she could properly hold the instrument.\u00a0 Soon Etta was proficient on the 6- and 12-string guitars and also the 5-string banjo.<\/p>\n

As a child and a young woman, Etta often played at churches, parties, and dances with other members of her family.\u00a0 She essentially gave up public performing in 1936 when she married Lee Baker.\u00a0 Now Etta \u201cBaker,\u201d she began a busy existence of marriage, raising a family, and earning needed money working in local textile mills.\u00a0 Of note, while warm and gracious, Etta was also quite striking.\u00a0 This feature prompted her husband, himself a piano player, to encourage a more \u201cgrounded\u201d life for his new wife, rather than one of the \u201cups, downs, and temptations\u201d that went along with a performing schedule on-the-road.\u00a0 Etta settled into a world where her future seemed predictable and without event, playing music publicly only within her close-knit circle of family & friends.<\/p>\n

Then, fate brushed Etta Baker with a light coat of fame.\u00a0 Etta\u2019s father, Boone Reid, had never abandoned his support & love of traditional, regional music and dreams of public performances.\u00a0 One summer day in 1956, Reid had taken his family to visit Cone Mansion in Blowing Rock.\u00a0 Folklorist Paul Clayton, in the area collecting \u201cundiscovered\u201d field recordings, walked just in front of the group, his guitar resting on his shoulder.\u00a0 Etta\u2019s father suggested Clayton may enjoy his daughter\u2019s talents and asked if she could play a tune on his guitar.\u00a0 Etta\u2019s version of One Dime Blues so delighted Clayton, that he immediately scheduled a stopover the next day at the Baker\u2019s house \u2013 with his tape recorder ready to go.<\/p>\n

Clayton\u2019s recordings became the influential folk collection, Instrumental Music from the Southern Appalachians and Etta had two contributions included: One Dime Blues and Railroad Bill.\u00a0 Both songs became traditional standards during the 60s folk revival movement. \u00a0This was the first time the world outside Etta\u2019s immediate circle heard her unique finger-style guitar.\u00a0 However, little changed for Etta \u2026at first.\u00a0 She returned to her home and job in the textile mill.\u00a0 In 1967, her husband died and Etta remained steady for many years; dedicated to family and job.\u00a0 Eventually, Etta decided to follow her lifelong love: music.\u00a0 She retired from the factory to concentrate full time on playing and performing.\u00a0 Then things began happening \u2026<\/p>\n

Etta began playing small concerts and festivals.\u00a0 She quickly became recognized as one of the foremost practitioners of acoustic Piedmont guitar finger-picking.\u00a0 Her musical style is characterized (and easily identified) by a \u201csteady baseline wrapped with lilting melodies\u201d.\u00a0 Etta grew up in a region culturally represented by rural white \u201cpicking,\u201d European fiddle tunes, and African-American blues \u2013 and her playing uniquely blended all three.<\/p>\n

In 1989, Etta received the North Carolina Folk Heritage Award and two years later a National Endowment for the Arts\u2019 National Heritage Fellowship.\u00a0 She released her first album (at the age of 78), appropriately named \u201cOne Dime Blues.\u201d \u00a0In the mid-1990s, Etta teamed with the Music Maker Relief Foundation – thus becoming solidly represented by a professional distributor and most notably, paid for her work.\u00a0 Several additional albums were released.\u00a0 Included in these recordings are banjo songs performed by her father and duets of Etta with her sister, Cora Phillips.<\/p>\n

Etta continued to perform well into her 90s, up until her death in 2006.\u00a0 What level of fame and notoriety could Etta have reached had she began performing and recording earlier?\u00a0 What did we miss when Etta decided to stay home, to remain committed to her husband\u2019s wishes, to raise nine children, to tend her garden, and to work in the Buster Brown sewing factory rather than follow her talent and dreams?\u00a0 Considering the question, one biographer offers, \u201c\u2026 Baker did not abide by regret.\u00a0 She made her decisions clear and loved all sides of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Etta Baker\u2019s legacy continues to circulate and influence even today.\u00a0 Her unique sound, her two-finger style, lives in the performances of Taj Mahal, Bob Dylan, and hundreds of other musicians.\u00a0 Mahal is reverent.\u00a0 He comments of Baker\u2019s songs, \u201c(It) seems like you can see right through them back to the past.\u201d\u00a0 Etta Baker\u2019s renown has reached far.\u00a0 However, listening to her music, it is clear her roots are grounded in our local culture & regional heritage.<\/p>\n

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Historical Anecdote:<\/h3>\n

In the song \u201cCarolina Breakdown\u201d on the album, \u201cInstrumental Music of the Southern Appalachians,\u201d listen for the finch that flew in through an open window when Paul Clayton was recording Etta in 1956.\u00a0 It landed atop a door and blended its song without hesitation.<\/p>\n

ETTA BAKER – Carolina Breakdown at YouTube <\/a><\/p>\n

The text was written with help from the following informational sources:<\/h3>\n