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Many Cultures, Many Voices
Old-time stringband
musician Kirk Sutphin comes from a long line of
fiddlers and banjo pickers from the Northwest
Piedmont. Like many rural families in the region, Mr. Sutphin's grew tobacco. Sutphin
recalls hearing from his mother and grandfather that at tobacco auction
time, downtown Winston-Salem was "a real hoppin"
place.1 This was when farmers brought their crop to market.
The streets outside "Big Winston" and other tobacco auction
houses were bursting with music, tobacco, and trade. The scene was a lively one—bluesmen filling the air with
soul-stirring sounds from their guitars, stringband
musicians hammering out favorite banjo and fiddle tunes.
Looking backward helps reveal the roots of this scene. Migration patterns
brought a variety of European and African American settlers into the Northwest Piedmont—beginning with a diverse
group of European Americans entering the area via the Great Wagon Road during the
Colonial Period and followed by a large influx of African Americans
during the post-Civil War industrial boom. European Americans brought
with them their fiddles, hymns, chamber orchestras, and brass; African
Americans their banjos, rhythms, and spirituals. From these early musical
traditions emerged hilbilly and early country
music, as well as blues, gospel, jazz, and rhythm and blues. Radio and
phonograph recordings eventually catapulted these music traditions into
the broader American scene.
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Music and Community—The Common
Bond
The variety of peoples and music
traditions that migrated over time into urban and rural environments in the
Northwest Piedmont molded and shaped the unique qualities of our area,
creating a rich and textured musical culture central to community life that
has continued to this day. Click on
the timeline above to discover a varied cast of musical characters from our
region—including early Moravian songster Brother Gottlob
Konigsdorfer, stringband
and blues musician Preston Fulp, early hillbilly
recording artist Ernest Thompson, gospel and R&B “top-of-the-charts” sensation
John Tanner, Sr., and world-renowned fiddler Tommy Jarrell.
These and other musicians from our region share a common bond over
time—a deep connection to music and its integral role in community
life. Whether settling the
wilderness, playing the blues on the streets at tobacco auction time,
plucking out a tune on the front porch of a farm, or performing gospel
quintet harmony in church, musicians and their music have been wedded to
daily life in the Northwest Piedmont for
centuries
Text for the "History"
section has been primarily exerted and adapted from Carolina Music Ways'
"Varieties of Musical Experience: Origins of the Music Traditions of
Davidson, Davie, Forsyth & Stokes Counties, North Carolina", which
is based on research provided by
Steve Terrill.
Click on a time period using the time line above to explore a
specific historical period.
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