“The whole plan is to try to reproduce Knoxville, 1930.”
In a sentence, Matt Morelock, former WDVX deejay, veteran member of venerated Knoxville groups The Bearded and Maid-Rite String Band, and Booking Agent/Production Manager for Knoxville Stomp, perfectly summarized the key aim of the festival, throwing down on Market Square and at The East Tennessee History Center, Laurel Theatre and Bijou Theatre on May 5-8.
Knoxville Stomp, produced by Knox County Public Library’s Tennessee Archive of Moving Images and Sound (TAMIS), East Tennessee History Center, Visit Knoxville and WDVX, is a tribute to “lost music,” “celebrating the Knoxville Sessions of 1929 and 1930,” according to the festival’s website.
During that time period, the St. James Hotel on Market Square hosted recording sessions of Uncle Dave Macon, Mac and Bob, Ballard Cross, The Tennessee Ramblers, Maynard Baird, and dozens of others from around the South, recorded and released by Brunswick/Vocalian Records, putting Knoxville on the recording map at a time when most records were being made in New York City and the Grand Ole Opry was still a fledgling radio show on WSM in Nashville.
This weekend’s festival lineup, including Dom Flemons of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, the Knox County Jug Stompers, The Bearded, Bill and the Belles, and Roochie Toochie and the Ragtime Shepherd Kings, among others, is one filled with musicians who are steeped in knowledge and experience playing the music of the era.
“We’re trying to pay homage to our local people,” says Drew Fisher of the Knox County Jug Stompers. Fisher says their band name (and the festival’s name) is partially taken from a St. James Sessions song, “The Knox County Stomp” by Tennessee Chocolate Drops, and an old-time band they like, Gus Cannon’s Jug Stompers. Fisher says when he found out his band would be playing the show, he personally went to the TAMIS archives for a tour and to research the sessions further. “I personally took it on on my own,” he says of his early days getting into old-time music in high school, “going to festivals and meeting people and picking in the parking lot.” Then recently, when he made his trip to the archives: “I got with those guys and they gave me a good collection of music.”
An important thing for the Jug Stompers has been embracing the spirit of old-time. “There’s a difference between jug band music and bluegrass,” Fisher says. He explains that while bluegrass banjos are finger-picked, quickly with dizzying runs, a claw-hammer style of banjo playing used in jug band music and old-time is more plucked and popped, making it a more percussive element of the music. Instead of the high lonesome sound, the vocals are often done by a group, in unison and in a rowdy manner, because jug music was done for relaxation and fun. “We have fun and I think people respond to that,” says Stirling Walsh, banjolele player for the band.
For extra measure, Morelock says, the festival also sent several artists a box set of the Bear Family Records’ re-releases of the St. James Sessions, so that they could re-familiarize themselves with the songs. Festival-goers can expect performances of many songs specifically recorded in those actual sessions. “A lot of those songs are going to be played,” Morelock says.
Thursday night’s “Speakeasy Party” at historic home Westwood on Kingston Pike will feature the Jug Stompers, Kukuly and Gypsy Fuego and and a country blues set by the Jug Stompers’ Buck Hoffman (billed as Buck Hoffman and Friends) with Hoffman on guitar, Adam Cavender on mandolin and Walsh on bass, previewing the music of the weekend.
Several other homages to the past abound in the festival production, according to Morelock. For example, on Friday night’s Bijou Theatre performance of Knox County Jug Stompers and Dom Flemons, the only ticketed event of the festival, attendees will walk in hearing the tunes of actual St. James’ sessions records played on an antique Victrola. Once the show starts, a vintage wax cylinder recording machine will be literally putting part of the performance on wax for a special live recording of the show, as it would have been made in 1930.
On Saturday Morelock’s band The Bearded will play with the Knoxville Banjo Orchestra, unleashing a “mass flood of banjoists,” he says, laughing.
On Sunday, a “Mother’s Day Variety Show” on Market Square will feature square-dancing, a fiddle competition and pies from local bakers.
Throughout the weekend, speakers like Jack Neely will share more about the history of the sessions and of Knoxville musical history in general. Neely will reprise his Knoxville Musical History Walking Tours that were a popular draw last month at Rhythm and Blooms. There will be a Knoxville Stomp Film Series all weekend in the East Tennessee History Museum as well as a rarities record show featuring selections from Raven Records, General Gentry and more.
Old-time enthusiasts, history buffs and just plain music fans will be coming from around the country and some from as far away as Germany. As with Big Ears and other festivals, the civic support for arts has made Knoxville a hub in the region for unique arts events. “A municipality in this town that is incredibly supportive of locals arts events [with] the coolest mayor I’ve ever heard of,” as Morelock says, make the festival feel welcome in Knoxville.
For more info on the festival, visit knoxstomp.com.
