Folklife Center to Host Salute to Traditional Country & Bluegrass Music
The Frank and Jane Gabor West Virginia Folklife Center will host a special event on Friday, Nov. 6, saluting traditional country and bluegrass music and a renowned scholar.
The event begins at 6:30 p.m. at the Folklife Center with a concert from The Last Resort Band. Dr. Ivan M. Tribe, scholar of Appalachian culture, especially traditional country and bluegrass music, will be presented with the B.B. Maurer West Virginia Folklife Scholar Award and will present with Jacob L. Bapst a discussion titled “Fairmont and Clarksburg Radio in the Appalachian Country Music Historical Perspective.” A book signing and reception, accompanied by the music of the Kennedy Barn String Band, will follow the presentation. Admission is free and open to the public.
Tribe, Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Rio Grande, spent 31 years researching the culture of Appalachia. He was raised in Albany, Ohio, and attended Ohio University and the University of Toledo, where he received his Ph.D. in 1976. He spent 31 years teaching history at Rio Grande while researching the culture of Appalachia, particularly traditional country and bluegrass music. Among his books are “Mountain Jamboree: Country Music in West Virginia,” “Sprinkled with Coal Dust” and “The Stonemans: An Appalachian Family and the Music that Shaped their Lives.” Tribe’s latest publication, written with Jacob L. Bapst, is “West Virginia’s Traditional Country Music” (Images of America, Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, 2015).
Along with “Bashful Budge and Fiddlin’ Fudge: A Traditional Mountain State Country Music Duet” (Volume 13, 2013) and “Cherokee Sue and Little John Graham: Country Sweethearts of the Monongahela Valley” (Volume 14, 2015) that Tribe published in Traditions, he has written more than 200 articles for such journals as The Journal of Appalachian Studies, Mid-America Folklore, Goldenseal: West Virginia Traditional Life and Tennessee Folklore Society Bulletin.
Tribe has authored more than 40 book and record reviews appearing in such publications as The Journal of American Folklore and The Journal of Country Music, and he has written liner notes for more than 80 record albums. Tribe and his wife, Deanna, produce two educational radio programs, “Hornpipe and Fugue” and “28+5,” for Ohio University Public Radio. The couple currently resides in McArthur, Ohio.
The B.B. Maurer West Virginia Folklife Scholar Award annually honors a person who has made an outstanding contribution to the preservation and perpetuation of our Appalachian cultural heritage. The award is named for Dr. B.B. Maurer (1920-2003), considered the “Father of Cultural Studies in West Virginia.”
“Ivan Tribe is very respected in his field, and it is an honor to have him join us at the Folklife Center. Dr. Tribe is now working on an Ivan Tribe reader/ anthology on the backwaters of bluegrass music, which will be published by the University Press of Tennessee as part of the Charles K. Wolfe Music Series,” said Patricia Musick, Interim Director of the Folklife Center.
The Frank and Jane Gabor West Virginia Folklife Center, located on the shared main campus of Fairmont State University and Pierpont Community & Technical College, is dedicated to the identification, preservation and perpetuation of our region’s rich cultural heritage, through academic studies, educational programs, festivals and performances and publications. For more information about the Frank and Jane Gabor West Virginia Folklife Center, visit www.fairmontstate.edu/folklife.
Folklife CenterIvan M. TribeTraditionsPatricia Musick
