Who are the hidden heroines of East Tennessee? How to celebrate them
As the U.S. marks 250 years, the USA TODAY Network invites readers to nominate women whose leadership, creativity and courage helped shape the nation.
Old-time music is rooted in Appalachia, and an upcoming event series celebrates women’s contributions to the tradition.
The old-time genre developed mainly in the southern mountains and is commonly played on instruments such as the fiddle, banjo and guitar, according to folklorist Emily Hilliard, who is involved with the series.
“We think of (old-time) as coming out of this twinning of traditions,” she said − a melding of Scots-Irish music, African music and native music.
It’s an artform that’s been passed down through the years since its 18th and 19th century origins, often taught by ear by one generation to the next, according to olyarts.com. But the history of old-time is one that often neglects the stories of women, including the trailblazing, influential work of Alice Gerrard.
Alice Gerrard’s barrier-breaking music
For many years, music was a more private art form. “When bluegrass music splits off from old-time and becomes more of this performance genre, it was really dominated by men. But traditionally, music was something that men and women played together at home,” Hilliard said.
But that shifted. “There were sexist connotations around women performing on stage,” Hilliard said.
“And I have worked with a lot of women who were talented musicians in Appalachia who chose not to pursue public careers for some of those reasons − because of sexism, because of how it might be seen by others, and also because of what they felt were duties to their families. There were a lot of barriers for women to be a part of public-facing old-time and bluegrass music, even though they were always part of this.”
Alice Gerrard defied those barriers. Along with her musical partner Hazel Dickens, Gerrard persisted through the challenges and exclusivity of the genre. “The soaring harmonies and driving string-band sound of Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard shattered the glass ceiling of male-dominated bluegrass in the 1960s,” according to Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, the Smithsonian Institution’s nonprofit record label.
The label put out a compilation album called Pioneering Women of Bluegrass, a description Hilliard says is apt.
For Gerrard, bluegrass was ‘what I want to do’
Gerrard told Knox News that advancing opportunities for women wasn’t on her mind at the time though. The music was what was driving her work with Dickens, and everything else was a result that came out of it. Now, she said, “It’s nice, being recognized, but neither of us were people who wanted to be lauded. … We were just two women who got together (and) decided they were going to sing together.”
Gerrard described what it was like when bluegrass was taking off in the Baltimore/D.C. area, where she and Dickens began playing together in the mid- to late ’50s, according to Smithsonian Folkways. Many Appalachian and southern folks had migrated to the region, and the style of music they brought with them captured young people like Gerrard.
“When I heard this other stuff, it just, it really moved me very deeply and so I just said, ‘That’s what I want to do,'” she said.
Gerrard recalled traveling to different parks that served as venues, places where musicians were performing and where she would bring “a big old fried chicken potato salad kind of lunch” to share. She also described “music parties,” group gatherings at someone’s house at which attendees would take turns playing together.
It was at one of these parties that Gerrard and Dickens were first encouraged to sing together, Gerrard believes.
The Knox County Public Library’s Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound has organized the celebration of women in old-time music series of free events March 5-8, including a conversation between Hilliard and Gerrard noon-1 p.m. March 7 at the East Tennessee History Center about Gerrard’s new autobiography “Custom Made Woman: A Life in Traditional Music.”
The events are coordinated with the Birthplace of Country Music Museum’s exhibit “I’ve Endured: Women in Old-Time Music,” on display at the Museum of East Tennessee History.
Hayden Dunbar is the storyteller reporter. Email: [email protected]. Instagram: @knoxstoryteller.
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