Appalshop Notes

Betsy originated in 2002 during a creative collaboration between Appalshop's Ron Short and Nashville jazz pianist Beegie Adair. Betsy is the story of a Bronx born Puerto Rican jazz singer who stirs up the little-known history of her Scotch-Irish ancestry, bringing to life ghosts that have a life of their own: an orphaned teenager tricked into leaving Ireland to become an indentured servant in 18th century North America, her seducer, and their descendants; a grown woman finding her bearings in the rhythms of a Puerto Rican neighborhood in the 21st century, a time traveling woman whose soul rests in her Caribbean and Scotch-Irish origins. This musical is alive with the fire of jazz, bluegrass, and Latin compositions delivered by three powerful vocalists and a five-member Latin-Appalachian band. Three years in the making, Betsy's music was composed by Roadside's Ron Short, Nashville jazz pianist Beegie Adair, and Pregones's Desmar Guevara.

Music is the key to Betsy's matrilineal narrative. Drawing upon jazz and bluegrass, the play's songs suggest intricate and unforeseen entanglements in the title character's search for her past. It is in the encounter of these two vast American musical traditions that Betsy first recognizes rhythmic, cultural, and historical affinities between America's North and South, between its rural and urban heartlands, between its African and European roots.

Spanning the time from the nation's founding to the present, and with talented Afro-Puerto Rican composer Desmar Guevara on board to elaborate the Caribbean dimension, the story of Betsy comes full circle: The play begins with an orphaned teenager tricked into leaving Ireland to become an indentured servant in 18th century America, and ends with a grown woman finding her bearings in the Caribbean enclave of the South Bronx.

Pregones and Roadside each bring to the project a distinct theatrical aesthetic based on the expressions of Puerto Rican and Appalachian culture respectively. The context for this exchange, itself an original contribution to the American theater, has been gradually established over the course of fifteen years, and its credits include the creation and national tour of Promise of a Love Song. Betsy builds on that prior artistic and critical success, and on the knowledge of how to undertake an intercultural, multi-state touring enterprise.

Proceeds from this gala presentation of Betsy benefit Appalshop, which marks the beginning of its 40th year as a multi-disciplinary arts and education center in the heart of Appalachia producing original films, video, theater, music and spoken-word recordings, radio, photography, multimedia, and books.

From Wood to Singing Guitar, Appalshop is nearing completion of its newest film, showcasing Wayne C. Henderson, the master musician and master luthier from the small town of Rugby, Virginia. A skilled craftsman and respected musician by his teens, Wayne was taught and encouraged by those around him including the folk hero E.C. Ball and fiddle-maker Albert Hash. Wayne continues to do the same for the younger generations by sharing the craft with others like Gerald Anderson, who is passing it onto Spencer Strickland, and encourages any young musician to play with him and his friends such as Doc Watson, Steve Kilby, Herb Key, Jeff Little, Sammy Shelor, Roni Stoneman, Robin Kessinger, The Kruger Brothers, and the list goes on.

Director Shawn Lind will debut the film during the 2009 Seedtime on the Cumberland festival at Appalshop in June. For more information about From Wood to Singing Guitar, including a video and the signup form for production updates, please visit the project website at appalshop.org/henderson.

Streaming video and production photography are now available.

On September 9, 2008, June Appal Recordings released Uncle Charlie Osborne: The June Appal Recordings, a chronicle of the songs and stories of master fiddler Uncle Charlie Osborne. A collaboration between Appalshop's Traditional Music and Archive projects, this release makes available all of the material from Uncle Charlie's out-of-print June Appal releases as well as a number of previously unreleased cuts.

Uncle Charlie performs Ida Red

Charles Nelson Osborne was born at the end of the 19th century in Russell County, Virginia. Like many families in the area, the Osbornes made their living off the land. Musical instruments were hard to come by, but when Charlie was in his teens the left-hander disobeyed his father's orders, took the family's precious fiddle from its peg on the wall, turned it mirror-wise and began what was to become almost ninety years of fiddling.

Uncle Charlie played with his brother and later his sons in the community and on the radio in southwest Virginia. In his later years he appeared frequently at music festivals and was a regular guest at the Carter Family Fold on the other side of Clinch Mountain. June Appal Recordings brought out Relics and Treasure in 1985 and One Hundred Years Farther On in 1990. Charlie passed away in 1992 at the age of 101.

The International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) honored Appalshop director Art Menius with its Distinguished Achievement Award at a ceremony in Nashville, Tennessee on Thursday, October 2. IBMA's Distinguished Achievement Award is an honor which recognizes ground-breaking work and fostering the music's image and accessibility. In addition to Menius, this year's recipients are artist Bill Harrell, The Banjo Newsletter, The Ernest Tubb Record Shop, and Joe Carr & Alan Munde, known for their contributions to the genre as artists and educators.

Menius became the director of Appalshop on July 2, 2007, following a decade of handling marketing and sponsorship for MerleFest at Wilkes Community College in Wilkesboro, North Carolina - one of the largest festivals in the world that features bluegrass music prominently. Menius entered the entertainment field as a writer and production assistant for The Nashville Network bluegrass and old-time music series, Fire on the Mountain, hosted by David Holt from 1983-86. In 1983 he began writing reviews and feature articles about roots music for publications ranging from Bluegrass Unlimited to The News & Observer in Raleigh, with a long tenure at the The Independent Weekly, based in Durham. In addition to writing more than 500 articles to date, Menius also promoted a live performance bluegrass radio series on 117 commercial stations, emceed at dozens of music festivals, conducted the first survey of bluegrass festival attendees and served as consultant on the acclaimed film, High Lonesome: The Story of Bluegrass Music.

In 1985 Menius was one of the two dozen founders of the IBMA, and he took the job as the organization's first executive director later that year. In 1990 the North American Folk Music & Dance Alliance, the Folk Alliance, elected Menius the president of its first board of directors, and he served as their first manager from 1991-96. Menius served on the IBMA board from 1998-2004, as well as on the board for the Old-Time Music Group from 1991-1998. He's currently on the board for both the Kentucky Center for Traditional Music and the Folk Alliance. In June he was inducted into the Blue Ridge Music Hall of Fame.

WMMT's Fall fund drive ended Wednesday, October 8, bringing to a close 14 days of on-air fundraising. WMMT listeners made more than 800 pledges, totaling over $33,000 which will help provide for the ongoing costs of operating WMMT and its network of FM translators in the region. WMMT would like to thank everyone who values community radio enough to make a contribution to real people radio.