These companion collections celebrate the life, work, and music commentary of National Heritage Fellow Joe Wilson (1938–2015). While he is best known to the folklore community as the long time Executive Director of the National Council for the Traditional Arts, or NCTA, and producer of the National Folk Festival first chartered in 1933, his interest in folklore and the politics of advocating for the traditional arts went far beyond festivals and tours. He developed an appreciation for old-time and country music as well as other traditional arts and crafts growing up in the mountains of eastern Tennessee and maintained a lifelong interest in bluegrass, old time, and country music, writing for various music journals all the while pursuing other jobs—journalist, record man, fundraiser, and PR man—all of which equipped him with the skill-set he brought to the NCTA in 1976. He remained with the organization for thirty-nine years, as director until 2004 and as executive board member until 2015.
These two books were put together by the same editor and complement each other. They draw from the same pool of Wilson’s expansive published and unpublished writings including journal articles, record and program notes, obits, Op-eds, and a lifetime worth of music criticism and argumentation—some critics may say, especially argumentation. While they share the same preface written by the editor, Fred Bartenstein, Barry Bergey provides the forward to Lucky Joe’s Namesake, and Ted Olson, editor of the University of Tennessee Press’s Charles K. Wolfe Music Series, does the same for Roots Music in America.
As the title indicates, the first book, Lucky Joe’s Namesake, focuses more on Wilson’s life, adventures, achievements, acquaintances, and opinions, taking its title from a Wilson family anecdote about his great-grandfather who earned the name “Lucky Joe” while fighting for the Union cause during the Civil War. As the story goes, he avoided being hung as a horse thief by feigning death. Left alone in his coffin overnight he remarkably recovered sufficiently to go missing the next morning along with, of course, another horse. The book, which reads in a similarly anecdotal style, contains thirty-two two-to-thirteen-page mini-chapters, organized into six broad subject headings: 1) An Extraordinary Life; 2) Trade, Tennessee; 3) Civil Rights; 4) Folklore and Folk Festivals; 5) The Crooked Road; and 6) Miscellany. The chapter titled “An Extraordinary Life” provides a thirty-seven-page autobiography, while the ensuing chapters flesh out the details of his life and philosophy, creating an arc which comes full circle back to the mountains and the New River; his work with the Blue Ridge Music Center and Museum; and The Crooked Road. The various entries span a wide range of subjects: local history, politics, the Klan, and Arts America tours to Asia; and there is a final section, titled “Joe’s Gems: A Compilation of Elegant and Memorable Short Communications,” that shows his wit and somewhat combative style.
Roots Music in America follows a similar format, this time with the focus more on traditional music and its practitioners. It is comprised of fifty-one short entries, organized under eight general subject headings: 1) Historical Sources of American Vernacular Music; 2) Instruments; 3) Old-Time Music; 4) Bluegrass; 5) Modern Country Music; 6) The Blues; 7) Cowboy Music and Poetry; and 8) Other Vernacular Styles. On balance, the bias here leans toward old-time, bluegrass, and other forms of country music, and toward the artists and instruments associated with these styles. Once again, the fifty-one entries are drawn from multiple sources, and while there may be some overlap between the two books, taken together they provide rewarding insights. These are the result of Wilson’s voracious reading, a habit partly stoked by a boyhood stint working in a library bookmobile, and of his personal contacts with musicians, instrument makers, and the various super-fans of bluegrass, old-time, and blues, mafias that have dominated the research into these fields of vernacular music and recording history.
As to overall style, Joe wrote much the same as he spoke, articulate yet plain spoken, generally with good humor, occasionally with a caustic edge. Although he read and reviewed academic books for country and bluegrass journals, his own prose is free of academic jargon and is pitched to the average reader, more a storyteller’s art than a theoretician’s analysis. In fact, he used storytelling as a preferred method of argument or exposition, aptly citing personal anecdotes, legends, or lies to make his point. But he was also a careful listener who counted a host of storytellers among his close friends. These include Wayne Henderson, Bill Monroe, Ralph Stanley, John Jackson, Michael Doucet, Marty Robbins, John Cephas, Allison Kraus, Jerry Douglas, Archie Green, and Bess Hawes, to name a few.
Politically astute, if not always politically correct, Wilson was inclined to be opinionated when it came to things he knew and cared about, and he was disinclined to back down when challenged. In the late 1970s some folk revivalists, or stylists, felt he treated them unfairly by not putting them on the National Folk Festival stage. But he was guided by his sense of traditional aesthetics and the democratic impulse to give lesser-known community-based artists the nod, even if they didn’t have an agent. While he recognized quality, he was no purist, accepting tradition as fluid and ever changing, and some of his favorite artists—Cephas and Wiggins, or the Holmes Brothers for example—were progressive, eclectic artists who reshaped tradition to keep it meaningful.
Even as he made light of his own musical abilities, at least in regard to public performance, Wilson had the ear of a musician’s musician, finding his niche in advocacy, presentation, production, and documentation. Public folklorist Nick Spitzer playfully referred to him as “America’s foremost hillbilly intellectual,” and it was an apt characterization. A politician who represented traditional artists he loved and respected, he fought for what he believed in, at times rubbing people the wrong way. As a self-made music scholar, he picked up so-called formal education only when and where he could afford it. Instead, he depended on his firsthand experiences and connections with musicians, politicians, and promoters, as well as with people who knew how to get things done. Despite health issues, he seemed to be a tireless worker and perhaps too often expected others to share his prodigious work ethic. At times his Jack-of-all-trades, learn-it-yourself-do-it-yourself approach got in the way of his managerial effectiveness, but when he got the job done he was an inspiration. I count myself as one of the lucky ones who knew and worked with him for almost forty years, which may explain why this review is less than impartial, but if you didn’t know him these two books offer an inroad. Whether you are interested in the history of our discipline, especially public sector folklore, or if you want to know more about traditional arts-presentation festivals or tours, or if you’re simply in the mood for some good stories, I recommend either or both of these complementary collections. Each helps illuminate the motives and impact of one of folklore’s most influential practitioners.
See also: http://www.indiana.edu/~jfr/review.php?override=1&id;=2188
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[Review length: 1173 words • Review posted on December 8, 2018]