old time smokies music to be released

     Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Great Smoky Mountains Association, the Park’s nonprofit educational organization, are planning to issue a CD containing 34 1930s-era recordings of music performed by Smoky Mountain musicians in October.  
     In the meantime, Great Smoky Mountains Association is attempting to locate those musicians still alive, most of whom were young men or women in 1939.
     These historical recordings were made by linguist and folklorist Joseph S. Hall, who in the 1930s was encouraged by the administrators of the new national park to collect speech, folklore, and music from people who had been or were soon to be relocated to land outside park boundaries.  
     Made in 1939, Hall’s recordings of community musicians are a treasury of the music played and enjoyed in nearby areas in North Carolina and Tennessee in the early days of country music and before the coming of bluegrass.  
     The wide variety of selections on the CD will include songs, ballads, and instrumentals, performed by over 20 different musicians.  
     The Association and the CD’s producers would welcome and appreciate information regarding the whereabouts of those performers or their direct descendants.    
     Below is a list of the names of the performers and their residences at the time of the recordings:
     John Hannah, Little Cataloochee community, Haywood County, North Carolina;
     Bessie Rabb, Allens Creek, Haywood County, North Carolina;  
     Mrs. Myrtle Conner, Gatlinburg, Tennessee;  
     Jack Johnson, Tuckaleechee Cove, Blount County, Tennessee;
     Cataloochee Trio (Wayne Wright, Slick Wilson, David Proffitt), Cataloochee, Haywood County, North Carolina;
     Bill Moore and Vic Peterson, Waynesville, North Carolina;  
     John Davis and Shorty Smith, Cataloochee CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) Camp, Cataloochee community, North Carolina;
     Bill Moore's Quartet, Waynesville, Haywood County, North Carolina;  
     Carl Messer, Cove Creek, Haywood County, North Carolina;
     The Leatherman Brothers, Bryson City, North Carolina;
     Bill Moore, Paul Buchanan, Hardy Crisp, Haywood County, North Carolina;
     Clarence Sutton, Del Rio, Cocke County, Tennessee;
     Herman Smith and David Proffitt, Cataloochee CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) Camp, Cataloochee, North Carolina;
     Jim Sutton, Cataloochee, Haywood County, North Carolina;
     Helen Gunter, Mt. Sterling, Haywood County, North Carolina;
     Willis and Dexter Bumgarner,  Allens Creek, Haywood County, North Carolina;
     Zeb and Winfred Hannah, Cove Creek, Tennessee;
     Chub Karns, Francis Lum, Cataloochee CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) Camp, Cataloochee, North Carolina;
     Boyd Strickland, Joe, Madison County, North Carolina;
     Robert Ray, Jefferson County, Tennessee;
     Betty Messer, White Oak, Cove Creek, North Carolina
     Anyone who has any of the above-requested information is asked to contact Steve Kemp, Interpretive Products & Services Director of Great Smoky Mountains Association, at 115 Park Headquarters Road, Gatlinburg, TN 37738, or via phone at (865) 436-7318 (extension 227), fax (865) 436-6884, or email (Steve@GSMAssoc.org).