NEWS

By LANITA WITHERS
UNC News Services

CHAPEL HILL -- The sounds of string band breakdowns aren’t usually heard echoing through the academic confines of Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, but they may be the proper soundtrack for a conference there Friday and Saturday (April 4-5).

"Hillbilly Sources and Symbols: Country Music, Cultural Brokerage and ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?’" will celebrate a resurgence of interest in traditional and country music and its portrayal in pop culture, said Steve Weiss, head of the Southern Folklife Collection in Wilson.

"People are excited about the success of the movie ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?’ and it has renewed a lot of interest in this type of music," he said. "Folk music, ballads, Tin Pan Alley songs, blues and songs that came from minstrels all came together to form country music. We will look to see where it came from and where it’s going."

The conference, in 569 Hamilton Hall Friday and the Pleasants Family Assembly Room of Wilson on Saturday, is open to all but advance registration is required. Forms and a conference schedule are available at http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/sfc1/hillbilly.html. Events will be free except for a closing barbecue Saturday, which costs $15.

Live music will be part of the conference, with an old-time music jam and symposium social beginning at 9 p.m. Friday at Strong’s Coffee Roastery, 161 E. Franklin St. "The jam is open to anyone who wants to come and bring their instruments," Weiss said. The Hushpuppies, a local string band, will perform at the barbecue Saturday.

The conference also will celebrate the success of "County Music Sources: A Biblio-Discography of Commercially Recorded Traditional Music," the first book published by UNC’s Academic Affairs Library. The book, issued last summer, traces country music to its original sources, Weiss said.

Speakers Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. will include:

• Dr. William R. Ferris, UNC history professor and senior associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South, former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities and co-editor of the "Encyclopedia of Southern Culture" (UNC Press, 1989), which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize;
• Benjamin Filene, author of "Romancing the Folk: Public Memory & American Roots Music" (UNC Press, 2000) (keynote speech at 2 p.m.);
• Dr. Robert Cantwell, UNC American studies professor and author of "Ethnomimesis: Folklife and the Representation of Culture" and "Bluegrass Breakdown: The Making of the Old Southern Sound";
• Archie Green, author of "Only a Miner: Studies in Recorded Coal-Mining Songs";
• Alan Jabbour, former director of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress;
• David Sanjek, director of the Broadcast Music Incorporated Archives; and
• Dick Spottswood, an archivist and radio host who co-wrote the book on which the conference is based.

Friday, Ferris and Sanjek will lead discussions by graduate students in music, history and folklore from 3-6:45 p.m. in 569 Hamilton. Topics will include the music of Ralph Stanley, bluegrass mandolin and the relationship of hillbilly and punk rock music in alternative country.

For more information, contact Weiss at (919) 962-1345 or smweiss@email.unc.edu.

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(Withers is a senior in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication from Reidsville.)

Conference contact: Steve Weiss, (919) 962-1345, smweiss@email.unc.edu
News Services contact: L.J. Toler, (919) 962-8589, laura_toler@unc.edu