A Smoky Mountains Legacy Lives on in Tacoma
We stumbled across this story in the news this morning and could not resist sharing it.
Last night, the Knoxville News Sentinel website (of Knoxville, TN) posted a story about the compact disc release of field recordings made during the 1930’s in the Smoky Mountain region. These recordings feature storytelling, colloquial speech and traditional music before the advent of bluegrass music.
Most of the voices recorded at that time have long since passed away. As far as anyone knows, the only surviving contributor to the recordings is Tacoma resident Zeb Hannah. A boy of 15 in 1939, he was recorded singing with his family in Haywood County, North Carolina. Years later, he moved to Tacoma after serving in the Army.
It’s an interesting story. Check it out in its entirety here
Filed under: General
3 comments
D dolly varden October 7, 2010
Very cool. We may not have Wintergrass anymore, but at least Bellevue didn’t take Zeb.
S Sarah October 9, 2010
TNT or Volcano, please, someone do a bigger story on Zeb! This is amazing. I’d love to hear some audio clips and see his picture. We have a local celebrity, finally.
M Mavis October 10, 2010
Wow! I look forward to hearing the recordings.