The Mountain View Conference of the Arkansas Historical Association, 2006

Abstract

THE ARKANSAS HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION held its sixty-fifth annual conference at the Ozark Folk Center State Park in Mountain View, April 6-8, 2006. Despite the earlier-than-usual meeting, the many AHA members who made the curvy but pleasant drive to Stone County found the weather delightful and the dogwoods just beginning to bloom. Mountain View touts itself as the folk music capital of the world-there's no international clearing house for self-proclaimed capital status-so it seemed fitting for the Ozark Folk Center to host the AHA's first music history-themed program, Sounds of Arkansas: Music and Musicians from the Bear State to the Natural State. Brooks Blevins served as program and local arrangements chair, with generous help on the latter from Susan Young of the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History and Jimmie Edwards of the Ozark Folk Center. The conference was funded in part through a grant from the Arkansas Humanities Council. The conference got started on Thursday evening with a reception at the Ozark Folk Center's Dry Creek Lodge recreation room. The reception was hosted by the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau and Ozarka College. Stone County being dry, the Little Rock folks found themselves turning Arkansas legend on its head as they transported spirituous drinks into the Ozarks. The reception featured the traditional musical stylings of the Leatherwoods, a popular Mountain View-based band. The highlight of the evening for many AHA members was Pam Kirby's virtuoso performance on the spoons, though her second number was cut short by an unfortunate flatware failure. The generally more stolid portion of the meeting kicked off the next morning with Brooks Blevins welcoming attendees to the Ozark Folk Center and introducing the local dignitaries-Mountain View mayor Joe Wyatt and the Folk Center's Jimmie Edwards-who, in turn, welcomed the AHA on its first visit to Mountain View. But stolidity didn't exactly dominate the academic proceedings at the sixty-fifth conference, as the wide range of Arkansans' music-from country to blues to rap-reverberated through the auditorium in support of presenters' essays and lectures. Jo Blatti of Batesville's Old Independence Regional Museum moderated the first Friday morning session, Folklore in Arkansas Music. The soon-to-be husband and wife folklorist team of Michael Luster, Arkansas Folk Arts Coordinator, and Rachel Reynolds of the West Plains (Missouri) Council on the Arts launched the conference's formal proceedings with 'Little Lee': An Arkansas Event Ballad, a study of the creation of a folk song and the Izard County event that inspired it. Van A. Tyson of Arkansas Tech University followed with Gould Fletcher, Folk Song Collector, which featured a rarely heard Library of Congress recording of Emma Dusenbury. Blake Wintory of the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center wrapped up the diverse set of folklore presentations by tracing the evolution and survival of Peetie/Petey Wheatstraw: An African American Folk Character with Arkansas Roots. Wintory's utilization of rap music as an audio aid was probably a first for an AHA conference. After a brief break hosted by the Stone County Historical Society, Nancy Britton of Batesville moderated the second session, Religion and Arkansas Music. In 'Victory in Jesus': Eugene M. Bartlett, Sr., and the Hartford Music Company, the Arkansas History Commission's Russell Baker examined the life and career of the Arkansan who penned one of gospel's most enduring songs. Andrew Granade of the University of Missouri-Kansas City explored a style of shape-note music quite different from that published by the Hartford Music Company in Singing up to Heaven: Shape-Note Revivals in Arkansas, which focused on a small group of Primitive Baptists in the southwestern part of the state. In the session's final presentation, Johnny Cash's 'The Man Comes Around' and Rural Protestant Religious Language, John Hayes of the University of Georgia considered the religious beliefs and imagery of Arkansas's most acclaimed musical son. …