{"id":6188,"date":"2014-02-10T21:15:22","date_gmt":"2014-02-10T21:15:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/digitalheritage.org\/?p=6188"},"modified":"2023-06-20T13:20:52","modified_gmt":"2023-06-20T13:20:52","slug":"cecil-sharp-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.wcu.edu\/index.php\/2014\/02\/10\/cecil-sharp-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Cecil Sharp"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Creative Commons Image Obtained Through Flickr<\/a><\/p>\n

In 1915 Cecil Sharp, an important collector of traditional English ballads, was informed that many Appalachian singers were singing old English songs. Between 1916 and 1918 he toured western North Carolina and other Appalachian states, recording over 500 ballads with English roots. His most valuable source was Jane Hicks Gentry from Hot Springs, North Carolina. Gentry was a member of North Carolina\u2019s renowned storytelling and singing family, the Harmons. She shared over 70 of her songs with Sharp. In 1917 Sharp published his collection of songs in a book entitled English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians. The book is the most important source of traditional Appalachian songs. In 2000, the movie Songcatcher portrayed Sharp\u2019s experience collecting ballads in Appalachia.<\/em><\/p>\n

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\"Cecil<\/a><\/p>\n

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Audio Moment<\/h3>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_audio audio=”https:\/\/dh.wcu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/CecilSharp60Mx.mp3″ title=”Cecil Sharp” artist_name=”WCU” album_name=”Digital Heritage Moments” image_url=”https:\/\/dh.wcu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/Cecil_Sharp.jpg” _builder_version=”3.11.1″ background_color=”#07630c” border_style=”solid”]<\/p>\n

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[\/et_pb_audio][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.0.48″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_accordion _builder_version=”3.9″][et_pb_accordion_item title=”Cecil Sharp” open=”on” _builder_version=”3.9″ title_text_shadow_horizontal_length=”0em” title_text_shadow_vertical_length=”0em” title_text_shadow_blur_strength=”0em” body_text_shadow_horizontal_length=”0em” body_text_shadow_vertical_length=”0em” body_text_shadow_blur_strength=”0em”]Essay by Timothy N. Osment, History M.A., WCU 2008<\/p>\n

Traditional Songs, like Traditional Foods, represent more than initially meet the eye. They represent family ties, a sense of place, community, and shared joys & despairs. Simply, they represent history. Not surprisingly, this is exactly what English Folklorist Cecil Sharp discovered (and confirmed) as he toured Southern Appalachia in the early 20th Century.<\/p>\n

Cecil Sharp was born in London in 1859. As a young man he studied at Cambridge and went on to teach in both England and Australia. Around 1900 he turned his attention to folk music, traveling the English countryside, documenting and recording the disappearing traditional ballads that only existed in the minds, hearts, and voices of aging generations.<\/p>\n

Fortunately (and somewhat reluctantly), Sharp eventually directed his passion for song collecting towards the United States. His initial expectations were low. How could a young, upstart of a nation offer any significant contributions to the study of traditional European ballads? Sharp felt few individuals under the age of 70 possessed the authentic, first person memories and sentiments necessary to truly represent the heritage of fading, passed-down culture. Certainly a bustling, growing United States, full of emerging nationalism and capitalism, with little notice downplayed rather than celebrated the homespun ways of its parents and grandparents. To his delight, and to our benefit, what Sharp found surprised and awed everyone.<\/p>\n

On three separate trips to America, between 1916 and 1918, Cecil Sharp spent 46 weeks in remote Southern Appalachian communities. He collected almost 2,000 songs & arrangements. Some were of obvious English origin; others \u2013 like the square dance \u2013 were distinctly American. Undoubtedly Sharp\u2019s most valuable stateside association was with Olive Dame Campbell, wife of educator, social activist, and preservationist, John C. Campbell.<\/p>\n

Long before Sharp and Campbell met, Olive Dame had spent years accompanying her husband on his journeys surveying the school systems in rural Appalachia. During these trips, Campbell was first exposed to mountain songs and ballads. She wrote of one such experience, at the Hindman Settlement School in Kentucky in 1907 \u2013 and its profound influence on her life,<\/p>\n

\u201cShall I ever forget it. The blazing fire, the young girl on her low stool before it, the soft strange strumming of the banjo \u2013 different from anything I had heard before \u2013 and then the song. I had been used to singing Barbara Allen as a child, but how far from that gentle tune was this \u2013 so strange, so remote, so thrilling. I was lost almost from the first note, and the pleasant room faded from sight; the singer only a voice. I saw again the long road over which we had come, the dark hills, the rocky streams bordered by tall hemlocks and hollies, the lonely cabins distinguishable at night only by the firelight flaring from their chimneys. Then these, too, faded, and I seemed to be borne along into a still more dim and distant past, of which I myself was a part.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In 1916, Cecil Sharp with his secretary and assistant, Maud Karpeles, arrived in America \u2013 where he initially conducted a series of lectures on English folk music and its influence on community. Throughout, Sharp was not silent of his forgone conclusion that there was no such thing as American folk music. By the time he reached Chicago, he feared his trip would yield few fruits within his field of research. Soon after, arriving in Asheville NC, Sharp called upon Olive Dame Campbell, who he had met briefly in England a year earlier. To Sharp, Campbell insisted that the inhabitants of the Southern Appalachians were still singing the traditional songs and ballads which their English and Scottish ancestors had brought out with them at the time of their emigration. And she set out to demonstrate just that.<\/p>\n

Under Campbell\u2019s direction, and often company, Sharp ventured into the remote communities of the region. His discoveries were extraordinary. He recorded dozens of diary entries \u2026 In Madison County, NC, Sharp crossed the French Broad on a punt to access the county seat of Marshall and nearby town of Hot Springs. The ferryman told Sharp about his wife\u2019s singing (whom Sharp met) and that \u201cwhilst in Hot Springs he could take down a good song from the postman\u201d \u201c\u2026 who [subsequently] told him to look up a blind girl named Linnie Landers and get some good songs from her.\u201d<\/p>\n

In England, Sharp was accustomed to collecting songs from elderly people \u2013 in America he was often surprised by the young age of his singers. He writes, \u201cFloyd Chandler sang Mathy Groves very beautifully and he is but 15. Another singer, David Norton, was seventeen years old. Addie Crane was twenty-one, and Linnie Landers only twenty years old. Even the redoubtable Mrs. Gentry was only in her fifties!\u201d<\/p>\n

To his collection, this initial trip to America provided Sharp over 400 songs and dances, and served to stimulate both his interest and desire to return as soon as possible. Campbell suggested an autumn visit as a good time to collect ballads as the mountain residents would be involved in \u201cfrolics, log rollings, corn huskings, \u2018lasses bilings, watermelon cuts, and so on.\u201d She added, however, that these events \u201cmay be accompanied by excessive drinking and even less desirable features.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Sharp returned in 1917, one particularly frustrating venture was along the railway that ran out of Asheville to & through the westernmost counties of North Carolina. He writes of the trip, \u201cBalsam is on the highest point on the Asheville \u2013 Murphy line, and is 3550 feet up. The weather however is as hot as it can be and we have found our long tramps over the mountains rather fatiguing \u2013 all the more so because so far we have hit on no singers to speak of. The fact is we are too close to Waynesville \u2013 a large industrial centre, and the inhabitants have been partially spoiled, that is from my point of view. The log cabins are primitive enough but their owners are clean, neat and tidy, looking rather like maid-servants in respectable suburban families. It is sad that cleanliness and good music, or good taste in music rarely go together. Dirt and good music are the usual bed-fellows.\u201d<\/p>\n

The taint of \u201cprogress\u201d reflects just a hint of the many harsh realities of Sharp\u2019s American treks. Though his collections grew, so did his professional and personal challenges. Financial ruin was always lurking, forcing him on occasion to give up collecting and return to the lecture circuit to secure funding & support. Sharp\u2019s family struggled as well \u2013 often wondering when and the condition of his return. On one particularly long absence, Sharp\u2019s wife suffered a stroke while he was away, requiring his abrupt departure and subsequent delay in returning. In addition, Sharp was not a hearty man and his health, like his travels, followed a seemingly endless series of peaks and valleys. Writing of an especially grueling excursion in Kentucky, \u201c\u2026greatly disappointed in Harlan. It is a dirty, noisy, vulgar mining town. Hotel impossible. Very depressed.\u201d Notably though, it was to be one of the most productive periods in Sharp\u2019s collecting \u2013 adding almost 200 songs to his collection. However, poor health once again emerged, \u201c\u2019Feel very ill on waking. Temperature still up. Feel very depressed \u2013 Feeling very ill and hopeless.\u201d Here his assistant writes, \u201cCecil not at all well \u2026 got a mattress (and) slept on floor in his room.\u201d Adding to his discomfort, Sharp began to suffer from violent toothaches, prompting doctors to extract all of his teeth.<\/p>\n

Despite the grueling nature of his three-year project, Cecil Sharp\u2019s efforts had an immediate effect on American folklore, entertainment, and academics. His tales & findings influenced an entire of generation of social historians, encouraging them to become more active in researching their own folk cultures. Within a decade, modern country music was borne of traditional ballad recordings produced in the heart of Southern Appalachia. Within \u201cHistory\u201d courses, universities included a nod to \u201cHeritage\u201d. However, more relevant, was the neighborhood impact. Music festivals, performances, and competitions began appearing nationally and throughout the region. Asheville\u2019s Mountain Dance and Folk Festival, first held in the 1920s, is a an example of a community taking what Sharp \u201cdiscovered\u201d and weaving it into the fabric of their daily lives \u2013 despite the onslaught of progress and the modern age.<\/p>\n

So, the next time you hear a mountain waltz, it is likely the haunting tune in the background is one of the many Cecil Sharp encountered in the backwoods of a young United States. The music at the next square dance you attend certainly grew of European roots replanted by a displaced people. Few characteristics of a culture tell a story in the way does a song. This fact, without question, is what Cecil Sharp provided to himself, America, and indeed, the world. Music is certainly one of the ties that bind together our mountain heritage.<\/p>\n

Note:<\/strong>\u00a0For an interesting and revealing glimpse into the interactions between the traditional mountain musicians of the early 20th century and the \u201coutside\u201d musicologists who sought them, view the 2000 movie, \u201cSongcatcher\u201d.
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