{"id":16938,"date":"2019-08-29T05:30:45","date_gmt":"2019-08-29T09:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=16938"},"modified":"2019-07-25T10:20:23","modified_gmt":"2019-07-25T14:20:23","slug":"hello-stranger-riddlefest-celebrates-life-and-work-of-overlooked-musician-and-song-collector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2019\/08\/29\/hello-stranger-riddlefest-celebrates-life-and-work-of-overlooked-musician-and-song-collector\/","title":{"rendered":"Hello Stranger: RiddleFest Celebrates Life and Work of Overlooked Musician and Song Collector"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lesley Riddle is an important yet mostly overlooked figure in the history of American music. A musician and folklorist, he collaborated with \u2013and greatly influenced the Carter Family. As an African American who as key in the development of country music, he deserves honor and recognition. Now in its 12th<\/sup> year, the annual RiddleFest celebrates the life, work and music of this 20th<\/sup> century musical pioneer. Headlined by Dom Flemons, RiddleFest 2019 took place in Burnsville on June 22.<\/p>\n

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L-R: Brownie McGhee, Lesley Riddle<\/p><\/div>\n

As Ellen Denker, vice chair of Traditional Voices Group (the organization behind RiddleFest) explains, Riddle \u2013 who was born in Burnsville in 1905 and died in Asheville in 1979 \u2013 Lesley Riddle \u201cplayed a significant role in the early development of today’s country music through his relationship with A.P., Sara and Maybelle Carter.\u201d She says that Maybelle’s distinctive guitar picking style was learned from Riddle, and that the repertoire of the Carter Family \u201cowes much to Riddle’s song gathering in the southern Appalachian Mountains.\u201d<\/p>\n

Song gathering has played an important part in chronicling and preserving musical folklore. In the 19th<\/sup> century, Francis James Child researched and collected a wealth of English and Scottish ballads; in the 20th<\/sup> century, ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax made use of technology and collected folk music via field recordings. In his own way, Riddle was a kindred spirit to both Child and Lomax.<\/p>\n

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Dom Flemons<\/p><\/div>\n

North Carolina Music Hall of Fame inductee Dom Flemons is a modern-day exponent of that tradition of cultural preservation. Known as \u201cThe American Songster,\u201d the co-founder and former member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops has his own idea as to why Riddle isn’t more well-known. \u201cWhile Lomax and Child are part of the transition from pen and paper to record folkloric documentation, Riddle\u2019s role is a bit more abstract,\u201d he says. Flemons notes that the music business is set up in a way that marginalizes anyone whose name isn’t on a song’s official copyright, so song gatherers can get short shrift.<\/p>\n

Flemons also points out that even the folkloric importance of the Carter Family wasn’t recognized until the folk music revival of the 1960s. \u201cThe Carter Family were recording commercial records being sold not as folkloric music, but as popular music,\u201d he says. So by association, Riddle’s contribution went mostly unnoticed as well.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, Flemons doesn’t think that Riddle being an African American in the rural United States of the early to middle 20th<\/sup> century worked against him gaining notability. He says that a black man playing country music in the 1920s wasn’t \u201cas unique as we would necessary think today.\u201d He notes that the time that Riddle and A.P. Carter spent traveling by car didn’t feature too many societal obstacles. \u201c Lesley [had] a few funny stories about being put up in housing conditions that were less than ideal,\u201d Flemons says. \u201cBut that was obviously something the men committed to as they set off on their journey.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flemons also points to \u201ca Southern tradition of familiarity that at times has been known to transcend racial barriers.\u201d He says that commonality of religious or economic backgrounds could sometimes overcome racial differences, and also points out another possibly mitigating factor. \u201cLesley had a physical handicap [a leg amputated at the knee] that might have allowed him to move more freely,\u201d Flemons says. \u201cThere was a culture of handicapped African Americans having some leeway to busk and make their living in alternate ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

The work of Lesley Riddle was first brought to Flemons’ attention nearly 20 years ago. Fellow folk musician and folklorist Mike Seeger suggested that he listen to Step by Step<\/i>, an album Seeger compiled from a decade-long series of Riddle recordings. Flemons was struck by the similarity between Riddle’s playing style and that of Maybelle Carter. \u201cAfter listening to the album,\u201d Flemons says, \u201cI made my way over to the Southern Folklife Collection where Mike\u2019s field recordings are housed, and listened to the unedited tapes.\u201d He was hooked.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat makes Lesley\u2019s music so interesting is that it perfectly straddles the lines between North Carolina Piedmont blues and country music,\u201d Flemons says. \u201cWhile I had expected to hear an exact replica of the ‘Carter Scratch,’ I was surprised to find that Lesley\u2019s playing was deeply rooted in the North Carolina blues guitar tradition.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Flemons is the first African American artist to headline RiddleFest, though several other musicians of color have been featured in the past. Denker mentions Jim Arrendell, members of the Griffith Chapel Singers and Appalachian State University’s Gospel Choir under the direction of Dr. Tony McNeill as prominent RiddleFest performers in recent years.<\/p>\n

Describing it as \u201ca combination of country music, blues, folk and early ragtime,\u201d Flemons characterized his set at the 2019 RiddleFest as \u201can overview of American roots music that reflects the music Lesley Riddle represents. Denker says that Traditional Voices Group invited Flemons to recognize his commitment to old time music. Flemons \u201cgathers old time musical expressions and gives them a fresh voice,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Dom Flemons believes that Lesley Riddle’s physical presence on those trips with A.P. Carter make him an important figure in country music. \u201cWhile A.P. collected the songs and re-worked them to make them unique compositions, Lesley’s role as a ‘human jukebox’ \u2013 recording the melodies in his mind and passing them on to the Carters again \u2013 makes him as important of a country music pioneer as the Carters themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lesley Riddle is an important yet mostly overlooked figure in the history of American music. A musician and folklorist, he collaborated with \u2013and greatly influenced the Carter Family. As an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16939,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,20],"tags":[3889,3888,3887],"class_list":["post-16938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-americana","category-country","tag-dom-flemons","tag-lesley-riddle","tag-riddlefest","cat-6-id","cat-20-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16938"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16943,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16938\/revisions\/16943"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}