The Scotch-Irish Influence on Country Music in the Carolinas: Border Ballads, Fiddle Tunes and Sacred Songs

By Michael C. Scoggins

Country music in the Carolinas and the southern Appalachian Mountains owes a tremendous debt to freedom-loving Scotch-Irish pioneers who settled the southern backcountry during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These hardy Protestant settlers brought with them from Lowland Scotland, Northern England and the Ulster Province of Ireland music that created the essential framework for "old-time string band music." From the cabins of the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains to the textile mills and urban centers of the Carolina foothills, this colorful, passionate, heartfelt music transformed the culture of America and the world and laid the foundation for western swing, bluegrass, rockabilly and modern country music. Author Michael Scoggins takes a trip to the roots of country music in the Carolinas.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The History Press
• Release date: May 14, 2013
• ISBN: 9781614239444

Michael C. Scoggins

Michael Scoggins is a historian with the Culture and Heritage Museums in York, SC, and research director at the Southern Revolutionary War Institute. He has written many books including, York, The Day it Rained Militia, Historic York County, A Brief History of Historic Brattonsville, and others. Sarah Peasall McGuffey is an experienced musician, performer, and songwriter. She is a lead vocalist and guitarist for the Grammy-award winning group, The Peasall Sisters. Sarah has received awards from the Country Music Association, the International Bluegrass Music Association, and the American Country Music Association.

Book preview

Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC 29403

www.historypress.net

Copyright © 2013 by Michael C. Scoggins

All rights reserved

Front cover, clockwise from upper left: The Blue Ridge Mountaineers; Charlie Poole; Bill Monroe; The Carter Family.

First published 2013

e-book edition 2013

Manufactured in the United States

ISBN 978.1.61423.944.4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Scoggins, Michael C.

The Scotch Irish influence on country music in the Carolinas : border ballads, fiddle tunes and sacred songs / Michael C. Scoggins.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

print edition ISBN 978-1-60949-953-2

1. Country music--Southern States--History and criticism. 2. Country music--Southern States--Scottish influences. 3. Folk music--Scotland--History and criticism. I. Title.

ML3524.S36 2012

781.642’16291630756--dc23

2013015697

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

CONTENTS

Illustrations

Foreword, by Sarah Peasall McGuffey

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1. The Musical Heritage of the Scotch-Irish

2. Folk Music Versus Traditional Music

3. Ballads and Folk Songs

4. Dance Music and Instrumentation

5. Sacred Music

6. The Birth of Modern Country Music

7. Country Music Forms a New Circle

8. Epilogue

Notes

Bibliography

About the Author

ILLUSTRATIONS

1.  Geography of Scotland: Highlands and Lowlands

2.  Ulster Province of Ireland

3.  Lowland Scotland

4.  Northern England

5.  Border Reivers near Gilnockie Tower by George Cattermole

6.  Patent and Close Rolls of Chancery in Ireland

7.  Queen Elizabeth I and the Scotch-Irish, April 14, 1573

8.  Virginia Gazette, September 30-October 7, 1737

9.  Pennsylvania Gazette, June 10, 1756

10. Sir Walter Scott

11. Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border by Sir Walter Scott

12. Francis James Child

13. Cecil James Sharp

14. Early American mail-order fiddle

15. The Old Plantation by John Rose

16. Fiddle advertisements in 1897 Sears & Roebuck catalogue

17. Banjo advertisements in 1897 Sears & Roebuck catalogue

18. Guitar advertisements in 1897 Sears & Roebuck catalogue

19. The Southern Harmony, and Musical Companion by William Walker

20. Four-shape musical notation system

21. Seven-shape musical notation system

22. Shape-note arrangement of New Britain/Amazing Grace

23. Shape-note arrangement of Antioch/Joy to the World

24. Rural farmers in York County, South Carolina

25. Cannon Mill Church of God, York, South Carolina

26. Alexander Campbell Eck Robertson

27. Fiddlin’ John Carson

28. Rosa Lee Moonshine Kate Carson

29. Fiddlin’ John and Moonshine Kate

30. Grandmother’s Old Arm Chair by Charlie Parker and Mack Woolbright

31. Charles Cleveland Charlie Poole

32. The Blue Ridge Mountaineers

33. James Charles Jimmie Rodgers

34. The Carter Family

35. The Carter Sisters

36. Will the Circle Be Unbroken by Ada Habershon

37. The Morris Brothers session log

38. Carl Boling and The Four Aces session log

39. Claude Casey

40. The Dixon Brothers

41. Arthur Guitar Boogie Smith

42. William Smith Bill Monroe

43. Will the Circle Be Unbroken by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

44. The Peasall Sisters

FOREWORD

When I hear the sounds of a lone fiddle sawing away at a heart-gripping melody, I feel as though something is calling my soul to the Old World. Even though my feet have never taken me, my mind’s eye has journeyed there on the wings of what I grew up calling mountain music. Since I’ve never actually felt the damp ground that looks so green in pictures of Scotland, it’s been strange to me that I know it so well. That is, until I read the first chapter of this book.

The stirring sound of the melodies that comprise the baseline of country music—especially traditional country and roots music—came directly from the people of the Scottish lowlands. They were a people who lived lives not so dissimilar to ours. Times were hard. Work was hard. Keeping a family together was hard. And harder still, was keeping the faith. The people of the motherland used music to remember days and homes long gone, to heal broken hearts, to mourn, to rejoice. No wonder this music resonates with us still. It has transcended language and time. Even though the lyrics may have fallen by the wayside or have been translated to a different meaning, the emotional melodic structures of these songs have traversed many centuries. They have become the foundation of much of the music we all enjoy today.

As a member of a family Americana band, as well as a member of a Scotch-Irish family (on my husband’s side and my redheaded mother’s side), I feel quite especially connected to this musical origin. Thus my great excitement when Michael asked me to write this preface. I can remember early childhood moments when my maternal grandfather, Jim Brasher—a self-taught Mississippi Delta fiddle player—would bring out his beloved instrument and trusty bow and play tunes such as Killiecrankie. As he struck the last note, he would explain to us the importance of the ancient fiddle tunes that found their way to America in the eighteenth century. This book will expound on that topic in a profound way.

I consider it a great honor to be able to write this note to you on behalf of my dear friend Michael C. Scoggins. He is not only a man of great knowledge but also of incredible passion and love for his heritage. He truly understands the importance of knowing who you are and has an incredible desire to share that gift with others.

With just a turn of a page, you will begin a journey that will either solidify your respect for your Scotch-Irish heritage or make you wish with all your might that you too could lay claim to the beginning of a transcontinental musical revolution. Enjoy!

SARAH PEASALL MCGUFFEY

singer/songwriter and a lead vocalist in the Grammy award–winning group, the Peasall Sisters

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Growing up in a musical family and a small, rural Methodist church in the Scotch-Irish heart of the Carolina Piedmont, I was surrounded by country, bluegrass and gospel music from a very early age. Country music filled the airwaves of the AM radio stations in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and country records—78s, 45s and 33s—were always playing on the family phonograph. Television programs like The Arthur Smith Show, The Porter Wagoner Show, The Jimmy Dean Show, The Johnny Cash Show and Hee-Haw were required watching. As a musician, engineer and historian, I find the origins and the technological evolution of American roots music to be a subject of endless fascination. This book began life as a short research paper presented at the Sixth Biannual Scotch-Irish Identity Symposium in York, South Carolina, in June 2011. That conference, sponsored by the Center for Scotch-Irish Studies and the Culture & Heritage Museums (CHM) of York County, provided the initial impetus for my research. In addition to the resources in my own personal library, the collections of the Historical Center of York County at the CHM’s McCelvey Center were of invaluable assistance, as were archivist Nancy Sambets, collections manager Latasha Richards and staff members Keara Reborn, Sarah Breaux and Wanda Fowler. I would also like to extend my gratitude to the staff of the following institutions for their assistance in my research: the Dacus Library at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina; the York County Library; the South Carolina Department of Archives and History in Columbia, South Carolina; the South Caroliniana Library at the University of South Carolina; the North Carolina Division of Archives and History in Raleigh, North Carolina; and the Wilson Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Lastly, I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to Sarah Peasall McGuffey, one-third of the Grammy-winning Peasall Sisters and one of my favorite musicians, for writing the foreword. If you want to hear modern musicians who are faithful to the roots of traditional country music, I can think of no better example than the Peasall Sisters. I promise you won’t be disappointed!

INTRODUCTION

In 1971, a young, hip, West Coast country rock group called the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band hit upon the unprecedented idea of recording a traditional, all-acoustic album with as many of the original stars of early twentieth-century, old-time country music as it could recruit for the project. The result was the award-winning triple-album Will The Circle Be Unbroken, one of the all-time great recordings of American traditional country music ever produced. During the sessions that went into this album, country singer Roy Acuff, one of the founding fathers of the Grand Ole Opry, was listening to a playback of bluegrass legend Earl Scruggs (of Flatt and Scruggs fame) playing You Are My Flower on acoustic guitar. Turning to album producer William McKuen, who was also the manager and producer of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Acuff asked, What kind of music do you term it?

McKuen answered, somewhat hesitantly, It’s mountain music.

That was just the kind of answer Acuff was waiting for. "It ain’t a thing in the world but country! he shot back. It’s as plain as the nose on your face. Hell, it’s country!"¹

Like Bill McKuen, modern musicians and musical scholars often have difficulty agreeing on an exact definition of country music. My personal copy of Webster’s Dictionary, published the year before the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band recorded Will The Circle Be Unbroken, defines country music as rural folk music, especially a commercialized variety deriving from the folk music of the Southern highlands and backwoods.² Not everyone can express it that succinctly. Country music scholar Tony Russell, in the introduction to his exhaustive Country Music Records: A Discography, 1921–1942, had trouble stating the matter so simply:

Clearly a term so routinely applied to so many diverse performers and styles is likely to be questioned by the academically rigorous, and I should go no further without explaining that when I use the expressions country and country music in this book, I am under no illusion that they are precise or comprehensive terms. To the best of my knowledge, no precise or comprehensive definition of country music has ever been agreed upon.³

However, Russell then went on to state that the primary purpose of his book was to document recordings that were designed to be sold primarily to a market identified by the sellers as largely white, initially southern, and substantially composed of rural or small-town dwellers.⁴ Thus Russell attempted to define country music by identifying its target audience rather than its performers, although he later stated that his book was predominantly a record of white southern music and noted that for most of the period covered by this book the record companies rarely visited or solicited material from the areas where non-southern music was to be found.⁵ In other words, from the time that country music first appeared in a commercial format until the time that broadcast and recording technology brought it to the attention of national and worldwide audiences, it was almost universally regarded as the folk music of rural American southerners, most of whose ancestors had come from Great Britain and Ireland. This is not to say that country music was not influenced by other ethnic groups, because it certainly was, but from its inception, country music was generally regarded as the music of the immigrants from northern Britain and northern Ireland who settled the Atlantic seaboard and whose lives were primarily rural and agricultural in nature.⁶ In other words, country music was, at least originally, the music of people who lived in the country—primarily in the Southern United States.

The purpose of this book is to define even more precisely the origins of American country music and to identify specific folk traditions that went into creating it. Both musicians and musicologists have long acknowledged that the traditional country music of the Southeastern United States, especially the