- Saturday, March 28, 2015
- 4:00 PM–5:15 PM
- CFAC 255
Our Academic Track features the presentation of two or three academic papers during each session.
Paper 1: Reviving a Rural Community by Reviving Rural Folkways
SD Kelly
Rural America continues to lose its distinctive identity and traditions through increased industrialization and generic consumer culture. An indie-folk band based in an agricultural region in central Ohio has countered this by creating a deliberately non-commercial micro-music festival, providing an opportunity for locals to reclaim some of their own musical heritage. Examining this annual event offers a way to understand folk life in a place where making music or its own sake is no longer valued, creating culture in a place where it has nearly been lost.
Paper 2: When Jesus Comes To Smithville: The Tension of Christ, Culture, and Christendom as Seen Through Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music
Nick Rynerson
This paper explores the tension between the Christian message, Christian institutions, and culture in the pre-World War II American South as recorded and remembered on Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music compilation. The goal is to identify the transcultural tension between church, gospel, and culture in a bygone era and apply it to the present day––using a collection that musicians like Bob Dylan, David Johansen, Beck, Jeff Tweedy and Richard Thompson cite as one of their greatest influences.
Paper 3: Holy Rollers, Rock and Rollers, and the Birth of Rock Music
James Cosby
Few have appreciated rock music’s crucial debt to the so-called “holy rollers” of the Pentecostal church. This paper examines two fascinating aspects of these uniquely American phenomenon. First, note that those rock pioneers that best exemplified its unhinged and even dangerous approach are Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Little Richard—three superstars that, not coincidentally, all had their musical lives formed in the Pentecostal churches of the South, not to mention the overlooked contributions of Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Second, this paper will demonstrate the rather fascinating parallels of the modern Pentecostal movement and the story of rock.
