Always Been a Rambler: G.B. Grayson and Henry Whitter, Country Music Pioneers of Southern Appalachia

by Josh Beckworth

Overview

G.B. Grayson and Henry Whitter were two of the most influential artists in the early days of country music. Songs they popularized--"Tom Dooley," "Little Maggie," "Handsome Molly," and "Nine Pound Hammer"--are still staples of traditional music. Although the duo sold tens of thousands of records during the 1920s, the details of their lives remain largely unknown.

Featuring never before published photographs and interviews with friends and relatives, this book chronicles for the first time the romantic intrigues and tragic deaths that marked their lives and explores the Southern Appalachian culture that shaped their music.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476667294
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers
Publication date:	04/03/2018
Series:	Contributions to Southern Appalachian Studies , #45
Pages:	234
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.70(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Josh Beckworth is a high school English teacher. He has received the W. Amos Abrams prize from the North Carolina Folklore Society and published in the North Carolina Folklore Journal. He lives in Crumpler, North Carolina.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Preface
Biography and History
A Dark Road Is a Hard Road to Travel: Brief Biographies of Grayson and Whitter
Straddling the Appalachian Divide: Fries and Laurel Bloomery
Henry Whitter and the Creation of Country Music
The Long Shadow of G.B. Grayson
I Wish I Was Single Again: Marriage and Divorce in the Grayson and Whitter Families
Grayson, Whitter and the Hill Billies: Manufacturers of Music
James W.M. Grayson, Tom Dula and the Appalachian Civil War
The Courthouse Massacre
On the Trail of Nancy Blevins
The Music
Overview
The Dance Tunes
The Murder Ballads
Folksongs of the British Isles
The Victorian Songs
The Temperance Songs
The Railroad Songs
The Tin Pan Alley Songs
The Comedy Songs
American Folk Songs
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

My academic tenure has been guided by two beliefs: scholarship grounded in a personal connection to the subject yields the most passion and perspective; and music that springs directly from the soil closest at hand has the greatest power to affect us. Josh Beckworth’s Always Been a Rambler hews to both of these principles, revealing insight informed by a personal subjective relationship tempered through objective research.... Always Been a Rambler is very much a music history that devotes equal measure to the music and the history, fully examining the ways one informs the other.”—Ron Pen, The Journal of Southern History

From the Publisher