The Tennessee Jamboree: Local Radio, the Barn Dance, and Cultural Life in Appalachian East Tennessee
Bradley Hanson, Brown University
Essay Sections:
Introduction | Rural Radio | The Barn Dance Genre | The Barn Dance in East Tennessee | LaFollette | WLAF | Tennessee Jamboree | Original Broadcast, Part 1: Music | Original Broadcast, Part 2: Advertising and Banter |
"Our time has come and gone" | Notes | Recommended Resources
"Our time has come and gone" | Notes | Recommended Resources
An Original Broadcast, Part 2: Advertising and Banter:
Along with music, other elements within the Tennessee Jamboree broadcast promoted and projected LaFollette and Campbell County. Advertisements of local businesses were heard repeatedly over the Jamboree hour, connecting the barn dance fantasy with economic and social geography. Host Elmer Longmire delivered promotional spots with charm and finesse. Sponsorship, as was common on AM radio, came from local businesses. For the Jamboree these included the area grocery market, music store, tire outlet, and electrical service. Never overly commercial, the promotional moments, as in the example below, were woven into the character of the Jamboree:
Don't forget now, with this cold weather that's going to bring on the snow tires, friends. ... We hope you folks remember now the folks out at Burcham Tires here in LaFollette. They've got those snow tires, friends, recaps right now, $10.95. So get out and see 'em. Of course there's from 37 to 52 cents federal excise tax. A recappable tire too. And if you're going to need snow tires, get by and see the folks at Burcham. Remember you get a new tire guarantee with them too when you buy 'em at Burcham, right here Highway 25W south of LaFollette.
Listen to a clip from the Tennessee Jamboree: Advertisement for Burcham Tires. Elmer Longmire, late 1960s (00:46 min).
The collection of L.C. Edwards and the Tennessee State Library and Archives RealMedia | Windows Media | QuickTime |
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Tennessee Jamboree, Blue
Valley Boys, 1968.
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These informal advertisements paid for the Jamboree's weekly operation and anchored the program in place. Another advertising example,
while drawing the nearby town of Jacksboro onto the Jamboree map,
had an even greater community-focused intent. Many residents from Campbell
County trekked to Knoxville and other larger cities in the area to
complete the bulk of their shopping at supermarkets and chain stores.39 Notice
how Longmire tailors his small-town pitch:
Now remember our good friends down at Jacksboro. Don Nance's Big Gulf Station, of course, and Richardson's Grocery . . . , located over at Jacksboro Station. And you know friends, we've often said that, it's not always the big things that count a lot of time, because Richardson grocery is one of your nicer little markets. You'll find just about everything there that you'll find in any of the other supermarkets. And you'll also find it at competitive prices too. So tell 'em we sent you by from the Tennessee Jamboree. . . .
Listen to a clip from the Tennessee Jamboree: Advertisement for Richardson Grocery. Elmer Longmire, late 1960s (00:53 min).
The collection of L.C. Edwards and the Tennessee State Library and Archives RealMedia | Windows Media | QuickTime |
Longmire, as manager of the radio station and previously as an employee in the local shirt factory, could deliver the promotions with persuasive confidence, intimate knowledge, and seemingly authentic intentions:
The music and promotional announcements were packaged within a jocular atmosphere and banter-filled collaboration, with the musicians and Longmire creating an on-air community aimed at the imagined listening one. Longmire orchestrated this general atmosphere from the primary microphone, directing a swift flow of ribbing and self-deprecating commentary back and forth between band members. He tagged certain musicians with playful nicknames that cast them in much the same spirit as the stock characters of the traditional barn dance. With bass player and singer Red Harrison, Longmire created the affable "Big Red," and for banjo player L.C. Edwards, the mischievous "Ol' Sidro."
On this particular broadcast, Edwards — Ol' Sidro — nearly brings the show to a standstill with his antics. At some point, of course not seen by listeners, Edwards donned a sombrero to interfere with the playing of his bandmates. After the song was completed, Longmire explained the situation:
Humor also minimized the effect of any less-than-perfect performance. Unlike the creators of the big city barn dance shows who worked to rusticate their slick and seamless programs, those of the Tennessee Jamboree were not afraid or, perhaps due to their low-budget circumstances, able to cover up mistakes. The Blue Valley Boys and Girls took these missteps in stride and let the audience in on the fun and unpredictability of live performance. The following exchange, starting before the final chord has even fully decayed, comes after Longmire had struggled with certain passages in "Then I'll Stop Loving You":
Listening to the tape, I hear these unreserved moments as a successful attempt at fostering an aural intimacy with the listening audience. "[I]t falls to the DJ's voice to provide an index of radio as a live and local medium," observes Jody Berland, "to provide immediate evidence of the efficacy of its listener's desires. It is through that voice that the community hears itself constructed, through that voice that radio assumes authorship of the community, woven into itself through its jokes [and] advertisements, all represented, recurrently and powerfully, as the map of local life."40 Though Berland writes of the radio disc jockey, I believe her comments are more applicable to the performers in the barn dance setting and their good-natured back and forth.
The humor of the Tennessee Jamboree emerged from and was directed toward the idealized local character. The chatter was recognizable as derivative of the larger barn dance genre, but was reinvigorated here in the particular voices and personas of musicians and entertainers born and raised in Campbell County. The Blue Valley Boys and Girls, if not literally acquainted with the listening audience (and in many cases, they were), certainly were familiar types to them. These radio performers worked to create an atmosphere as familiar as that found in any home or porch for an evening of music-making. Unlike the stars in Nashville, or even Knoxville, for those performers on the Tennessee Jamboree, this familiarity was not a stretch. Just as the music brought the barn dance down to local scale, and, just as the advertisements — promoting nearby businesses — grafted the place and space of the town into the program, so too did the natural and friendly banter affirm a romanticized social spirit of an imagined LaFollette listening community.
Friends, remember now our good buddy Howard White Electrical Service. . . . Anytime you need any electrical work done at all you call him up and they'll be happy to come out and give you a free estimate on any house you want wired, any repairin' or remodelin' or anything like that, without any obligation. They'll be happy to give you a free estimate on exactly what it'll cost you to get the job done. Friends, you don't have to worry about it passin' inspection when the boys at Howard White Electrical Service do it, because they've always passed inspection right off the bat . . .
Listen to a clip from the Tennessee Jamboree: Advertisement for Howard White Electrical Service. Elmer Longmire, late 1960s (00:49 min).
The collection of L.C. Edwards and the Tennessee State Library and Archives RealMedia | Windows Media | QuickTime |
The music and promotional announcements were packaged within a jocular atmosphere and banter-filled collaboration, with the musicians and Longmire creating an on-air community aimed at the imagined listening one. Longmire orchestrated this general atmosphere from the primary microphone, directing a swift flow of ribbing and self-deprecating commentary back and forth between band members. He tagged certain musicians with playful nicknames that cast them in much the same spirit as the stock characters of the traditional barn dance. With bass player and singer Red Harrison, Longmire created the affable "Big Red," and for banjo player L.C. Edwards, the mischievous "Ol' Sidro."
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| Tennessee Jamboree, Blue
Valley Boys, LaFollette, Tennessee, mid-1960s.
|
On this particular broadcast, Edwards — Ol' Sidro — nearly brings the show to a standstill with his antics. At some point, of course not seen by listeners, Edwards donned a sombrero to interfere with the playing of his bandmates. After the song was completed, Longmire explained the situation:
Longmire: Seems like I'm having a lot of trouble with my group here tonight . . . I tell you what we have a lot of fun . . . Well, friends, for you folks that don't have television, or radio vision, whatever it is, L.C.'s got one of the awfulest looking hats here that I have ever seen. And I don't know where he got it. He musta got it out there on the creek someplace. He just got through playin "Lost Creek." . . . Those of you who just tuned in, we're not drunk, sure. That hat that L.C. Edwards had on started the whole thing off. That throwed everybody off. I never seen no such a hat in my life. Where'd you get that Sid-Ro? . . .
Edwards: I'm putting it back, they's somethin' a crawlin in it.
Longmire: We hope we got through it enough that you folks out there a-listenin' could understand it anyway.
Listen to a clip from the Tennessee Jamboree: Stage banter. Elmer Longmire and the Blue Valley Boys, late 1960s (1:46 min).
The collection of L.C. Edwards and the Tennessee State Library and Archives RealMedia | Windows Media | QuickTime |
Humor also minimized the effect of any less-than-perfect performance. Unlike the creators of the big city barn dance shows who worked to rusticate their slick and seamless programs, those of the Tennessee Jamboree were not afraid or, perhaps due to their low-budget circumstances, able to cover up mistakes. The Blue Valley Boys and Girls took these missteps in stride and let the audience in on the fun and unpredictability of live performance. The following exchange, starting before the final chord has even fully decayed, comes after Longmire had struggled with certain passages in "Then I'll Stop Loving You":
Elmer: Well, we didn't miss that in over forty-seven times I don't believe. But I hope we got through it enough to where it's . . .
Red: That's all right Elmer, I took care of you buddy.
Elmer: Why . . . Red I knew you'd do it. We can always count on Red bailing us out when we miss something like that.
Listen to a clip from the Tennessee Jamboree: Stage banter. Elmer Longmire and the Blue Valley Boys, late 1960s (00:24 min).
The collection of L.C. Edwards and the Tennessee State Library and Archives RealMedia | Windows Media | QuickTime |
Listening to the tape, I hear these unreserved moments as a successful attempt at fostering an aural intimacy with the listening audience. "[I]t falls to the DJ's voice to provide an index of radio as a live and local medium," observes Jody Berland, "to provide immediate evidence of the efficacy of its listener's desires. It is through that voice that the community hears itself constructed, through that voice that radio assumes authorship of the community, woven into itself through its jokes [and] advertisements, all represented, recurrently and powerfully, as the map of local life."40 Though Berland writes of the radio disc jockey, I believe her comments are more applicable to the performers in the barn dance setting and their good-natured back and forth.
The humor of the Tennessee Jamboree emerged from and was directed toward the idealized local character. The chatter was recognizable as derivative of the larger barn dance genre, but was reinvigorated here in the particular voices and personas of musicians and entertainers born and raised in Campbell County. The Blue Valley Boys and Girls, if not literally acquainted with the listening audience (and in many cases, they were), certainly were familiar types to them. These radio performers worked to create an atmosphere as familiar as that found in any home or porch for an evening of music-making. Unlike the stars in Nashville, or even Knoxville, for those performers on the Tennessee Jamboree, this familiarity was not a stretch. Just as the music brought the barn dance down to local scale, and, just as the advertisements — promoting nearby businesses — grafted the place and space of the town into the program, so too did the natural and friendly banter affirm a romanticized social spirit of an imagined LaFollette listening community.
Listen to the Tennessee Jamboree: Complete broadcast, late 1960s (58:33 min).
The collection of L.C. Edwards and the Tennessee State Library and Archives RealMedia | Windows Media | QuickTime |
Essay Sections:
Introduction | Rural Radio | The Barn Dance Genre | The Barn Dance in East Tennessee | LaFollette | WLAF | Tennessee Jamboree | Original Broadcast, Part 1: Music | Original Broadcast, Part 2: Advertising and Banter |
"Our time has come and gone" | Notes | Recommended Resources
"Our time has come and gone" | Notes | Recommended Resources
