Elvis Upstages, Excites in Raleigh

Elvis taking a break from his 1955 tour

On May 19, 1955, Hank Snow’s All Star Jamboree tour, featuring a new young talent named Elvis Presley, ended at Memorial Auditorium in Raleigh. It marked the beginning of the end of the touring relationship between the headliner, Faron Young, and featured player Presley. Young later recounted that each night of the tour Elvis got bigger and wilder crowds. Before intermission, each show included a new talent portion in which Presley took the stage, with the headliners performing after intermission.

As the tour progressed, fans began to shout for more Elvis during the other performances, and he was called back for encore after encore. In the early days of the tour Colonel Tom Parker, as booking agent, actually paid teenagers $5 apiece to scream for Presley. He used the publicity photographs to send to the newspapers in the next cities on the tour. Other performers on the tour recalled how much they discounted Presley and his odd onstage behavior. Most country singers thought that he was a fad who would quickly fade, but Presley soon found himself the headliner, and few established stars would agree to perform with him on a tour.

Other related resources:

• Music on NCpedia
• Resources on North Carolina Arts and Craft from the State Library
• The North Carolina Arts Council

For more about North Carolina’s history, arts and culture, visit Cultural Resources online. To receive these updates automatically each day subscribe by email using the box on the right and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

The North Carolina Symphony Makes Its Debut

Page two of the concert’s program. Image from the North Carolina Collection at UNC-Chapel Hill

On May 14, 1932, the North Carolina Symphony played its first concert at Hill Hall on the campus of UNC. The concert included music by Wagner, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and others, and featured 48 musicians from around the state under the direction of conductor Lamar Stringfield. The symphony had its origins earlier that year as a work relief project of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and became the first symphony orchestra to receive state aid with the passage of what became known as the “Horn Tootin’ Bill” in 1943.

Today, the North Carolina Symphony is a first-class, professional orchestra with 65 members led by Music Director Grant Llewellyn, based out of Meymandi Concert Hall in downtown Raleigh. In addition to classical series in Raleigh, Chapel Hill, Fayetteville, New Bern, Southern Pines and Wilmington, it also features a Pops Series, Young People’s Concerts and the annual Summerfest outdoor concert series at Cary’s Booth Amphitheatre.

Always the “people’s orchestra,” the symphony has an especially strong legacy of music education, with more than 3 million school children reached since it began its children’s concerts series in 1945. Each year the symphony puts on more than 50 educational programs in nearly as many communities across the state.

Other related resources:

• The North Carolina Symphony
• Symphony Stories, the digitized programs of the N.C. Symphony’s education concerts

For more about North Carolina’s history, arts and culture, visit Cultural Resources online. To receive these updates automatically each day, make sure you subscribe by email using the box on the right, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

Paul Green—Creator of the “The Lost Colony”

Paul Green at The Lost Colony’s theater in Manteo in 1950. Image from the N.C. Museum of History

On May 4, 1981, Paul Green died. Among North Carolina’s most revered writers, Green, born in Harnett County, began study at the University of North Carolina in 1916.  After service in World War I he returned to Chapel Hill and taught there until 1944 when he resigned to devote fulltime to writing.

A program for The Lost Colony from 1938, now in the collection of the N.C. Museum of History

Plays were Green’s favorite art form but he also wrote short stories, novels and poetry. In 1927 he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for the play In Abraham’s Bosom. His signature achievement was development of the outdoor drama (or “symphonic drama,” as he termed it).  Green’s best-known production, The Lost Colony, opened on Roanoke Island in 1937 and runs every summer.  Over time Green wrote 16 such plays, with productions staged in Florida, Virginia, Kentucky and Texas.

Green’s many honors include a designation by the General Assembly in 1979 as the state’s Dramatist Laureate. Outside the arts, Green demonstrated sympathy and compassion for African Americans and the underprivileged from an early age.  He was a lifelong champion of human rights and a dedicated opponent of war, lynching, capital punishment, chain gangs and prejudice. His last home was “Windy Oaks,” south of Chapel Hill.

Other related resources:

• Watering the Sahara: Recollections of Paul Green from 1894 to 1937 from N.C. Historical Publications
• The North Carolina Arts Council
• Performing Arts from the N.C. Arts Council
• What’s Will All the Drama?, an overview of outdoor dramas in North Carolina

For more about North Carolina’s history, arts and culture, visit Cultural Resources online. To receive these updates automatically each day subscribe by email using the box on the right and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

Country Musician Extraordinaire Charlie Poole

On March 22, 1892, Charlie Poole, banjoist extraordinaire and founder of the old–time music pioneers known as the North Carolina Ramblers, was born in Randolph County.  At an early age he moved to Spray (now Eden in Rockingham County) and, over the course of his short life, achieved near-legendary status.  Although he died in 1931, before reaching age 30, his star continues to rise to this day.

Partnering with two neighbors, Poole made some of the first known country music records.  His high-pitched vocal style was a hit.  The Ramblers’ fan base extended from the Piedmont cotton mills all across the nation.  Music historian Bill Malone concluded that “No string band in early country music equaled the Ramblers’ controlled, clean, well-patterned sound.”

Poole had smashed his right hand in a childhood baseball accident, leaving his fingers curled and leading him to favor a three-finger banjo picking style.  Stories about his drinking, rambling, and carousing are widespread.  His style of living prefigured that of Hank Williams a generation later.  In recent years rereleases of his works, featuring songs such as “Can I Sleep in Your Barn Tonight, Mister” and “Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down” have reached new audiences.

Other related resources:

• Blue Ridge Music Trails
• N.C. Arts Council

For more about North Carolina’s history, arts and culture, visit Cultural Resources online. To receive these updates automatically each day, make sure you subscribe by email using the box on the right, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

Guitar Virtuoso “Doc” Watson—A Late Bloomer

An image of Doc Watson from the State Archives

On March 3, 1923, Arthel Lane Watson, known to the world as “Doc” Watson, was born in Watauga County. The sixth of nine children, Watson developed an eye infection that left him blind as an infant, and he was sent to attend the Governor Morehead School in Raleigh.

His parents sang and encouraged their son’s interest in music.  Virtually self taught, he mastered harmonica, banjo and guitar at an early age. It was his guitar playing that garnered the greatest attention, however, due to his unique style.  In 1953 he was playing with a band that often did not have a fiddle player.  Watson taught himself to play the fiddle parts on his guitar, often at breakneck speeds.

Although he had been playing locally for years, Watson was not discovered nationally until the 1960s during the folk music revival.  In 1961 he and several other musicians played in Greenwich Village. That led to other concerts, and Watson was invited to perform at the Newport Folk Festival in 1963 and 1964.

Watson never claimed to be a purist; he played music that he liked and he had eclectic taste. During his long career he won eight Grammys and, in 1997, the National Medal of Arts.

Other related resources:

• N.C. Arts Council
• Blue Ridge Music Trail
• Folklife Programs at the Arts Council

For more about North Carolina’s history, arts and culture, visit Cultural Resources online. To receive these updates automatically each day, subscribe by email using the box on the right and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

Good Deed in Durham Launches Literary Career

Price and Welty at the University of Mississippi in 1979. Image courtesy of Duke Magazine

On February 23, 1955, Reynolds Price met Eudora Welty on a cold, dark, railroad platform in downtown Durham. The Mississippi-bred novelist and short-story writer was coming to Duke University to give a lecture and lead a writing seminar. Price, a Duke senior English major from Warren County, was eager to meet Welty. “The world she described seemed so close to my own,” Price later wrote.

Having learned Welty’s train would arrive well after midnight and knowing taxis would be unavailable that late, Price decided to chauffeur the future Pulitzer Prize-winner to her hotel in his mother’s Chrysler convertible. At the next day’s seminar, Welty read Price’s short story, “Michael Egerton.” Afterward, she offered to send it to her agent. “Despite a 24-year-gap in our ages, a friendship was cemented on the spot,” Price wrote. That friendship lasted until Welty’s death in 2001.

By that time Price had become an award-winning writer and long-time English professor at Duke. Treatment for a cancerous spinal tumor in 1984 left him paralyzed from the waist down. Still, he continued to write and teach. His 37 volumes include poetry, short stories, novels, essays, plays and memoirs. Price died in 2011 at age 77.

For more on North Carolina writers, check out the North Carolina Literary Trails from the N.C. Arts Council.

For more about North Carolina’s history, arts and culture, visit Cultural Resources online. To receive these updates automatically each day, subscribe by email using the box on the right and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

“High Priestess of Soul” Nina Simone Born

On February 21, 1933, Nina Simone, often called the “high priestess of soul,” was born in the small town of Tryon in Polk County.

Determined to become one of the first highly-successful African-American concert pianists, Simone spent a summer at the famed Julliard School after graduating high school in Asheville in 1950. Denied admission to music school in Philadelphia, Simone took menial jobs there.

While on a trip to Atlantic City, N.J. in the summer of 1954, Simone began to experiment with popular music. Word of her talent spread, and she became in high demand at nightclubs all along the Mid-Atlantic coast. After releasing her first album, Little Girl Blue, in 1958, her work began to reflect her increasing involvement in the civil rights movement and her close associations with leading African-American intellectuals like Lorraine Hansberry and Langston Hughes.

After releasing 13 albums during the 1960s, Simone hit a rough patch in the 1970s, struggling with a divorce and mental illness. She toured extensively in Europe during the 1980s and her career began to wind down in the early 1990s. She died in France in 2003.

Other related resources:

• North Carolina’s African American Music Trail
• The North Carolina Arts Council
• North Carolina Art Trails

For more about North Carolina’s history, arts and culture, visit Cultural Resources online. To receive these updates automatically each day, subscribe by email using the box on the right and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

Lamar Stringfield, the N.C. Symphony’s First Conductor, Died

The program for a 1953 N.C. Symphony children’s concert, now in the collection of the N.C. Museum of History

On January 21, 1959, Lamar Stringfield, the first conductor of the N.C. Symphony, died in Asheville. Raised in Raleigh, Stringfield was the sixth of seven children. His father—O. L. Stringfield–helped establish Meredith College.

After attending college at Mars Hill and Wake Forest, Stringfield left school in 1916 to join the army. Returning home from tours of duty in Mexico and France, he began serious training in music, both in North Carolina and in New York.

In 1928 Stringfield completed his symphonic suite “From the Southern Mountains.” Known thereafter as an authority on southern ballads and folklore, Stringfield organized the Institute of Folk Music at the University of North Carolina in 1930 and collaborated with Paul Green on “The Lost Colony Songbook.” In 1932, Stringfield helped organize the North Carolina Symphony, which was then headquartered in Chapel Hill. He served as the symphony’s conductor from 1932 to 1938.

After his tenure as conductor, Stringfield moved often, residing in Charlotte, Mars Hill, Burnsville, Barnardsville and Asheville. He remained active as a composer and served as guest conductor for major symphony orchestras across the country.

Other related resources:

• Podcasts from the Symphony
• The N.C. Symphony on NCpedia
• The N.C. Symphony on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube

For more about North Carolina’s history, arts and culture, visit Cultural Resources online. To receive these updates automatically each day subscribe by email using the box on the right and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

Award-Winning Musician Ronnie Milsap Born

On January 16, 1944, award-winning country musician Ronnie Milsap was born in Robbinsville. Born with congential glaucoma, Milasp lost his eyesight early in life and spent 12 years learning to play the violin and piano at the school for the blind in the Raleigh.

Though he loved music, he received a scholarship and pursued a career as a lawyer. After a chance encounter in 1965, Ray Charles heard Milsap play the piano and encouraged him to follow his heart. Milsap formed his own band

After the 1969 hit “Never Had It So Good,” Milsap moved to Memphis to advance his career. He would go on to become one of country music’s biggest stars, winning eight CMAs, four ACM Awards and six Grammy Awards during the course of his career. He has also had a total of forty number one hits and has sold more than thirty-five million albums.

Other related resources:

• The Blue Ridge Music Trail
• Folklife programs at the N.C. Arts Council
• Music on NCpedia
• Resources on North Carolina Arts and Craft from the State Library

For more about North Carolina’s history, arts and culture, visit Cultural Resources online. To receive these updates automatically each day subscribe by email using the box on the right and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

Wedgwood Extracts Clay from the Mountains

A button by Wedgwood in the collection of the N.C. Museum of History

On December 18, 1767, an agent of England’s Wedgwood potteries finished extracting several tons of fine white clay from the mountains of North Carolina. By the 1740s, people in England and in the American colonies knew of the valuable white clay deposits in the Cherokee region of the North Carolina mountains. A British patent was filed around 1744 “for the production of porcelain from an earthy mixture, produced by the Cherokee Nation in America.”

With increasing interest in creating porcelain in England and the colonies, Josiah Wedgwood launched efforts to secure what was called Cherokee Clay. He hired an agent, Thomas Griffiths, to travel to America to conduct the business. Griffiths went to the settlement of Ayoree in the Cherokee Middle Towns (Iotla in present Macon County) to negotiate an arrangement for the purchase of five to six tons of Cherokee Clay. The clay was carried down the mountains by pack horses. Griffiths delivered the Cherokee Clay to Josiah Wedgwood in April 1768.

Because of the expenses incurred, Wedgwood never pursued additional shipments of the clay. His supply lasted 15 years. In 1783, he wrote that Cherokee Clay was the basis of his newly manufactured biscuit porcelain.

Other related resources:

• Articles related to craft from NCpedia
• “Cherokee Clay, from Duche to Wedgwood: The Journal of Thomas Griffiths, 1767-1768” in the North Carolina Historical Review, October 1986 from N.C. Historical Publications
• Discover North Carolina Craft from the N.C. Arts Council
• Highway marker on pottery clay in Macon County
• Resources on North Carolina Arts and Craft from the State Library

For more about North Carolina’s history, arts and culture, visit Cultural Resources online. To receive these updates automatically each day subscribe by email using the box on the right and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.