 Hello, and welcome to our evening with Maggie Longmeyer. I'm Chris Derman, one of our music librarians and the coordinator of the Divine Music Library. This is the fifth event in the UT Library's Boundless Artisan Archives series. Before I introduce this evening's featured guest, I'd like to explain our vision for the Boundless series. We created Boundless to raise public awareness of the cultural and research value of our special collections. Our Betsy B. Creekmore Special Collections and University Archives holds unique materials that exist nowhere else in the world. These are items such as letters, diaries, photographs, scrapbooks, and personal memorabilia. These items have been donated to our archives so that they can be preserved and shared with future generations. The future generations of researchers are primary source materials that inform historic research and make the past come alive. Our program Boundless Artisan the Archives demonstrates that the unique materials in our special collections are not only for scholarship, but they can also inspire new works. For this program, we invite artists to explore the collections and then create new works inspired by them. Tonight we welcome Maggie Longmeyer. Maggie has been a long-standing voice in the local music scene. During her college years, she played folk rock, blues, and country with several bands on the Cumberland Avenue strip. Some of y'all's sounds have been there. In the 70s, she joined the Lonesome Coyotes, who many Nox Williams will remember from the Coyotes' frequent performances at the 1982 World's Fair. It was a good fit for Maggie and she became a permanent member of the group, which eventually went on hiatus as other life priorities intervened. Maggie's passion for songwriting, though, emerged when she took a break from performing. Her first CD of original songs, Teachers and Travelers, was followed by Grandparent, excuse me, Granddaughters and American Opera, a collaboration with her brother John Longmeyer. It tells the story of her mother's life in Campbell County, Tennessee in the early 1900s. Maggie returned to live performance in the early 2000s with the reformed Lonesome Coyotes, the acoustic group Free Soil Farm, and numerous duos and partnerships. In 2017, she released her third album, Baby It's Time, co-produced with Daniel Kimbrough and featuring some of Noxville's finest musicians. Maggie spent her early childhood in La Follette, Tennessee. She has strong family roots up there in Campbell County, and her songwriting often reflects those roots. The coal mining legacy of our region is one of her recurring themes. Her album, Granddaughters and American Opera, in addition to portraying earlier generations of her own family, tells the stories of coal mining disasters and labor disputes in the Cumberland Mountains. Most recently, Maggie has used her music and activism to draw attention to the environmental devastation and human toil of coal mining. She has been outspoken in seeking compensation for workers injured in the cleanup of the massive coal ash spill of the TVA power plant near Kingston, Tennessee in 2008. When we invited her to visit our archives to find inspiration for her songwriting, Maggie expressed an interest in further exploring the history of Upper East Tennessee region from which she came. I am excited to finally get a chance to hear the debut performance of her original songs and to hear about the items from our special collections that inspired her. Please welcome Maggie Longmire. Thank you, thank you. Thank you, Chris. All right, and thanks to all you guys for being here. I'm really blown away by this, and I've seen so many faces that I haven't seen in forever. It's been, yeah, and from so many different parts of my life. Wow. And there's an old lonesome coyote over there, and we have, God, there's so many friends out here. This is wonderful. I hope to get to speak to every one of you after we're done if you're still around. It's been amazing to be allowed back into the university. When I was invited to this, I thought, well, I trust Chris Derman, and they want me to be a part of a program, and I'd be going to the library, and, yeah, I think I'll do that. And I had no idea, really, other than my trust in Chris of what I was getting myself into. And it was a great decision because it's been a wonderful experience. And the first day I came over to meet the team, the committee, and I want to acknowledge, I don't know who put this committee together. I don't have every name, and you'll see me shuffling through this notebook a lot tonight, so I hope it doesn't bother you. The boundless committee consists of some folks that I just think are outstanding, each one of them with their own specialty and their own ability to be of service to help me with anything I wanted or needed. They were just ready to say, how can we do that? How can we make that happen? And I got to work with Chris and with Jennifer Beals, the assistant dean and head of the Betsy B. Creekmore Special Collections, and Shelley O'Barr, who is bringing us these beautiful slides back here and who has taken photos and videos, and we've just had a great time laughing and enjoying the process of getting this whole thing rolled out. And Anna Marie Russell, she kept us all in line. She held the calendar and she kept us make sure our meetings were scheduled, so I want to say a big thank you to all those folks. And a person who is, I think, kind of likes to be behind the scenes, but she's an old friend and incredible at what she does, and everyone sings her praises, Ms. Martha Rudolph. There are some other team members on that committee whose names I don't have in front of me, but I do want to acknowledge them because everybody brings their particular talent to this and I'm just so thrilled that I had a group like this to work with because I really didn't know where we were going, and they just made it easy. So I hope tonight as we spend some time, as Chris said, revisiting Campbell County and I did write an album with my brother and we told a lot of stories about family and the troubled times and the hard times and issues around coal mining, but there's still so many more stories to tell and more to learn from the past and as how we approach the future. And these first three songs that we do, pardon me, I have to have a little water here. Why is it when you get nervous, your mouth just feels like you just sucked on a big cotton ball? Why is that? Anyway, I know you guys are friends and I'm going to relax and not be too nervous about my mind playing any tricks on me because if you don't want to be here, you know where the door is, right? And it would be okay. What's funny is when I used to sing in the old days, I never spoke to the audience. Scared to death of you guys, right? Then I got to the point where I talked all the time and I would take too long to introduce things. So during this little last few years with COVID and not performing and all that, I reviewed some old videos and I thought, Maggie, you do talk too much. So I had decided by next time out, I was going to curtail my jabber, right? I was going to just say, you know, just sing the dang songs and just go on and just maybe tell them the title or something. You know, yeah, it is Chris. But then there's certain songs that if you don't set them up, maybe people don't get quite as much from them. But then I get this gig and Chris says, oh, talk about the songs. So I guess I'm supposed to talk about the songs. So that's part of one of my pieces of the contract that I must talk. So I'm just doing my job. Okay. Anyway, I want to let you guys know I'm delighted that I'm joined with two old friends for this evening's concert, Greg Horne and Kathleen McGregor-Williams. And I'm just so thrilled when they said yes that they would come do this. And we haven't had a lot of time to work up this show because they're so busy and things going on in their world and playing and weddings, getting planned and numerous things going on. So we will be as crisp as we can with our deliveries, but they're both pros and I love them and appreciate them. And one of the songs that we're going to begin with, and like I said, we're going to be spending time up in Campbell County. And so I want you to get the feel for that. And hopefully this beautiful photograph will kind of take you there. This song was on the granddaughter's album. And a lot of people miss this, but it's called an Americana opera. And it was selected, my brother titled that, because when we perform it, if any of you have ever seen that particular piece, we tell the story in time of where we are so you know who the characters are. And this song is called Grandma Merlu and Me. So when people hear it, they think it's in my voice, but it's actually my mother's story. So just a little heads up. We're not talking about me. This is my mother telling this story. And she was raised by her grandmother. She and her sister. And just a bit of history. This whole project for me has been about little points of history and how things tie together in our lives. And you know, after so many years, you've got a lot of those points of history. And so the things will pop up and they'll show up and you appreciate things in different ways. And when I first met with the folks on the committee, I told them I wanted to do some more work about stories about strong women. And apparently my mother's Grandma Richards was one strong woman. And so I come from a quite a major circle family of bossy women. No, I mean, I didn't mean bossy. I meant strong, strong. They knew what they wanted and they were going to figure out a way to get there. But one of the things that's occurred to me is that in the era that we're visiting, which is late 1800s, early 1900s, you know, think about it. Women didn't have the tools or the power that we have now, even though people are trying to grab it away from us. And we're not going to let them, are we? No. Okay, but one memory, mother loved to tell stories about her Grandma Richards because she just felt like everything that was ever good in her life came from her being raised by her grandmother. But she did tell a story and I never put it in a song, but she says she remembers standing in the kitchen and her grandmother saying, girls, women have been granted the right to vote. Today is a very important day and I want you to remember. So my mother was about ten years old. But she remembered that years and years later and would tell me about that. They lived near Carrival near the coal mine where my Grandpa Richards worked and every morning she would get them off to work. So Kathleen, if you and Greg would like to get your instruments up and going, we're going to tell the story of Grandma, Mary, and me. Remember, me is my mother, okay? And I'm not suggesting that y'all wouldn't figure that out because there is a reference to World War I, but I've had more than one person come up to me. Anyway. Okay, this is a bittersweet song. Mama divorced Daddy right after World War I. They said the families were to blame. I don't know, I was too young. We sure didn't miss our Daddy, they said. He played songs for us on his guitar as it is head. Mama moved to Louisville where there was more to see. Grandma kept me and Mary Lou with her in Tennessee and we knew she loved us more than anybody could. But we longed to hear our Daddy singing in those cedar woods. She was watching out for us and Grandma sent that first woman in the county. Yeah, my Grandma learned to drive. There wasn't much she couldn't do. There wasn't much she wouldn't try. Well seems like Grandma jumped right in no matter what there was to do. Loving Grandpa, driving, brazing me. Her Model T until she'd get it going. Some bricks on that old wood stove where she made biscuits every morning. The bricks went in the floorboards where our little feet would ride. Headed down that rutted road to school being loved inside. Said Grandma, later Mama got a new man. I got sent away. Scarlet fever hit that boarding school. We were quarantined to stay. Headed at triple loans. She said I'm taking that sick baby. Pack her up, we're going home. You see Mama said Grandma. Thank you so much. It was one that Mother loved to tell about her grandmother getting up and making those biscuits. And she said Grandpa wore what they called a jean jump jacket. And she would take four biscuits in a piece of newspaper. Put those four biscuits with hopefully some ham or sausage or something yummy in there. And she'd put four in there and she'd fold it. And Mother said she'd take a straight pin and stick it together to hold it like a little packet. So it would fit down in his pocket. And she remembered her taking good care of Grandpa. Which I thought was really sweet. And she actually did go back and live with her mother and stepfather. But that didn't work out too good. And so I didn't know and I've not been able really to find out much about it. LMU had a school and that's where she was sent for boarding school as a young teenager. And when Grandma Richards found out that she was sick, she said she's not staying there. So I'm going to go get her and she nursed her back to health. So there was another time when Grandma came to the rescue. So I was told that her sister played outside the window and taunted her. While she was trying to recuperate. As sisters they enjoyed teasing each other a lot. But okay. Now this is from the same album. I just wanted to give you guys a little bit of a feel of some other things I've written that to me all this ties together. This whole thing, this whole region, this whole time period. And this one was one that particularly my brother had a great fascination with and appreciation for his childhood. He romanticized his childhood beyond imagination. And we grew up in La Follette, Tennessee. And so for some of you, you might think boy he had a really good imagination. But it was the time. He referred to it. It was in the 50s and he said it was the last innocent generation. And it really was in a way. There were a lot of things that hadn't come to be yet. With excessive drug use and Vietnam and just a lot of things. It was before all that sort of broke loose, my generation. So his generation had a simpler life, an easier life. And he just felt like he was the luckiest kid in the world. And so when he brought forth his lyric writing ability, we became a team. He had written this song for a class reunion. He was going to be going to a high school class reunion. And there was no music. And I was visiting him in Louisville. And he said, well, when are you going to write the music? When are you going to write the music? And I said, well, I don't know. I'll get around to it. He says, but I need it. I need it. And I said, well, if you go in there and fix me some breakfast, I'll sit down here and write some music. You just need to leave me alone. But anyway, it's turned out to be one of my favorite songs that we ever wrote together. And he fixed me a dang good breakfast. And this one's called Ellen and Lullaby. If you've ever been in La Follette, if you drive down Central Avenue, which was built 100 feet wide, I think it was huge. They built a huge street in the Chris. I keep looking at Chris because he knows some of these things I'm referring to here. But I'm not saying that none of you folks have been to La Follette, but you may have just stopped off at Cove Lake and gone to Louis Bleu Festival and then come back to Knoxville. But if you're going up the road, get off the interstate and going up the road, that's where La Follette is. And anyway, it's called Ellen and Lullaby. I used to go to sleep at night, do a locomotive swine. It was the music of the railroad track. Put steps on cinders, a whole bowl with its pack. Pen is on the track, picked up stubs of burnout flair. By day, each night a composition. Did you ever walk the tracks? Awakened in the night, rocked by the cold cars. All the way to Jell-O'-Cole, all the way in the sounds of that old train. Bash cannonball, lie there in the darkness with my movies on the wall. And it soothed my soul. But sleep, the symphony began. Awakened by the whistle, then I fall asleep again. Did you ever walk the tracks? Awakened in the night, Lullaby, the cold cars. All the way in, all the way in. Greg Horne on the mandal. I told my cohorts here they might want to sit for this next introduction. Because this piece, well, it's true. It's long, it's long. So we did get them chairs. You'd think I'm kidding, but I'm not. About four years ago, I hit the big 7-0. And I decided, okay, what's the next chapter going to look like, Maggie? And the answer back was, I wanted it to count for something important. And I wanted to continue to do that with my music as best I could. And as the universe will do, it put me together with some environmental folks. And I had an awakening. Not that I hadn't been aware, but I had an awakening about climate change and the environment in a way I'd never really been awake to it. And what we needed to do to take care of our planet if we still want to live on it. And to take care of the next generations to leave them something that was worth inheriting. So I was very drawn to the Sierra Club. And we planned to do a climate concert, which we did. It was a lot of work and a lot of fun. And it was hotter and blazes, but we did it down at the Tennessee Amphitheater. And got to work with just a whole group of great folks. We had a huge coalition of environmental folks. And I see some heads nodding. There were some people who were there. And thank you for being there. We're going to have another one, too. And because there's a difference between an awareness that's sort of here and an in-your-face awareness. And I got that. I got that peace, that real wake-up. And I was surrounded by people who have studied and worked their whole lives for us to maintain a healthy planet and to preserve our beautiful, beautiful planet and to take care of it. And we have abused it and made it tough on Mother Earth. And she's letting us know she's not happy. And we all have to jump on board. And so I was just fueled with this new energy to take my music and my activism forward. So that's what I've been doing for the last four years is learning. So much learning to do. Reading. So many questions answered by so many patient scientists and people like us sitting here in the audience that have studied and tried to protect our planet and fight against activities that are harmful to us all. And I have such a great appreciation for them because they spent their whole life while I was out running around doing what I was doing trying to tell us that we were heading in the wrong direction and using fossil fuels was absolutely killing our planet. So I'm just going to put this out here for you. We need all your help. And I'm sure a lot of you in this room do this work and know this already. But go check out the Sierra Club. You can go to either the national website, the local one is called the Harvey Broom Group. We have a program called the Beyond Coal Campaign. And it has been working. This campaign has, effort has been to help close down coal mines because it's one of our, yeah, you can clap for that. Let's get them closed down, right? Yeah. So you can, you can catch up, you can pitch in, you can support us. We're constantly battling. We have legal folks that are, that are going to bat to, to get this dirty fuel and, you know, we've got to, we've just got to stop. And that includes gas. We cannot just be convinced that if we stop using coal, it'll all be well. Gas is pretty close to just as bad. So we need to get good, clean energy in place. And all the, I don't, I don't know. I can't see that far because I got on my short glasses here, my short up glasses. But for all the students that are in this university and their lives and what they can hope for and wish for, you know, every, every bit of effort we put forward helps to ensure that their lives will be better. You know, in all likelihood, I've got a lot less ahead of me than I've got behind me. I'm just guessing here. Just guessing. But we have grandchildren around our house now. And every time I look at them, I think, can we do enough? Okay. Every time we look at your grandchildren, we say, can we do enough? So coming from that point of this awakening to, I've got to breathe here a second. Sorry. It really touches me to think about what we're doing and who we're, what we're leaving behind. So I want to be part of a solution that helps give them the best shot. Okay. Can y'all agree with me on that? All right. Okay. Good. So I had this dilemma. I've just told you the history of my family. And I don't think my Grandpa Richards was a bad man. I don't think Grandma Richards was a bad woman. I think they were wonderful, warm, kind people. But they were caught up in a business that was destructive. And all of us, I mean, our whole economy, our whole world was built on the use of fossil fuels. So we've created something that what we used to get here, we now realize is a problem. So I wanted to write a song that addressed the fact that we need to stop mining coal, period. We need to stop burning coal, period. And we need to clean up the damn coal ash that's left behind, period. Those three things, okay? So we're all working on that. And that's a big job because we use it all over the United States. We're using it all over the world. So keep it in mind. I ask you to please go do some research, learn what can be done, learn who you can write, learn who you can talk to, and come help us when we get out in the street to beg TVA to go to clean energy, okay? And I would really appreciate that. Okay. So in order to honor the past, in order to honor those folks who work so hard in such dangerous conditions as the coal miners, I don't want to make them wrong. They did what they did at the time. A lot of times it was the only work available. They didn't know the consequences of, you know, that would be this many years later. It was a hard job. It was a scary job. Their families did the best they could. And Maya Angelou has a quote that I truly love, and I think about it periodically, is that you do the best you can until you know better. And when you know better, you do better, okay? And it's simple, but it's true. So I definitely will advocate trying to follow her lead on that. But I'm going to let my pals here who have been so patiently waiting. This song is called From the Miner's Wife. And it's how a woman would try to connect in an honorable way what's been happening and what's going to be happening to her children. And so, down there's Dunn. Come out of the sweet light of the sun. He cared for us, he worked for us. He kept the family faith. It's time to stop digging coal. Leave it in the ground instead. In the darkness of the mine, your grandpa served his time. He raised your daddy up, clawed the earth for every dime. So when you grew to be a man, he followed where they'd gone. Now it's time to search your soul, to see where you're going. So ancient times, leave it in the ground. We've seen the warden sign, they will provide. Leave it in the ground. Sometimes barely, I confessed I was afraid. No darling, I won't read a day. You'd leave for work, stepsets. The owners took their profits, left destruction in their wake. They trampled on the life and land, kept their eyes on what they'd made. Their pockets filled with money, while your lungs filled up with dust. If no man goes, let them coal cars turn. Sometimes it's so hard. It's the great unknown, as us are wondering. But our children need our help, and they will know the way. They'll be proud their daddy stood up, strong and wise to say. Owns of ancient times, we've seen the warden live out. I don't know how many of you folks have been to any of these, or knew anything about this program. But I've got to say, whoever put this committee together, and the idea of this together, sure gave me a gift. And I urge you to go listen to all the other performers who have had this opportunity. As Chris explained earlier, the archives are here to inspire us to be used. And if my experience is like anybody else who might walk into this particular aspect of our library at the university, you will be met with some of the most helpful people you'll ever want to have anything to do with. And when Chris called and said, you've been selected to be our boundless artist, I was just really surprised, because I spent so little time in these buildings when I was here. Because honestly, Cumberland Avenue really held a great attraction. I don't go down there anymore, because I like to remember how it used to be. And oh my, I got snagged by the music bug, and it grabbed my attention. And I was young and free and running into musicians and sitting on the wall with our guitars, and just having a good time, and it was tough. It was tough to go to zoology class and stare at a screen, a little screen up on the wall, and a room full of hundreds of people, and it was just like, whoo, compared to going down to one of those cool little clubs down on the Strip, everybody's having a beer and having a good time, and you know, digging it and playing the music and jumping up on stage and wearing my leather pants and everything. That's zoology, TV didn't have a chance. So anyway, so like I said, UT wanted me to come back over there, and I thought, wow, so first day, first day I came over here, they gave me a little plate, they told me where to park, and my first year at UT, I lived in Grieve Hall. So from where they told me to park, I was walking by Grieve Hall. And oh, the memories flooded back. And it was really hilarious because in 1966 they locked the women up at night, you know, for our own good. They locked us up. I don't remember if it was 10 or 11, if anybody remember, but it was around in there. Now if you had a really bad date, you were kind of glad you had that excuse. Because you know, those arches, I was looking at those arches where you said good night to your date, which you could, you know, if it was a bad date, you wanted to make sure that was quick. And zoom in, oh, I got to sign in, you know, can't be late. But then the other thing is all these damn little robot things that are running around. So here, that was weird. And you know, so I'm dodging this thing, this little thing that's coming at me with lights beeping, and I thought, well, what's the protocol here? Do I get out of its way, or is it going to go around me? And so I finally asked somebody, I said, what's going on with the robots? These little boxes that are, you know, fighting me for the sidewalk. They said, oh, they're delivering food. That's really odd. It's very odd. Because when I lived in Grieve Hall, and they locked us up, and we'd get hungry, I know I've kind of gotten off the track of talking about the boundless program, but I did want to share this with you all. We'd get hungry, you know, we'd be up studying, telling stories, getting our ears pierced, doing all that stuff that you do. And if you got hungry, you'd go down to that dreary place down in the basement with the tomein machine, all those sandwiches, you know, the unknown meat sandwiches, the kind of gray-looking chicken salad or whatever it was, and then the American cheese thing, and then the kind of dried-up ham. But you just couldn't think about putting that in your body, even back then, you know? We had a better idea. So we'd call up some of the boys who were out running free, and at least one of them may be in this room right now. And if you are, raise your hand. So we would open our window, write our order up, put the money in a basket and a rope and lower it down to our buddies, right? And they would take our order happily just waving at us, you know, it was a really fun little thing. And they'd run over the hill to the crystal where we'd get some good food, right? But that was the only thing that was open 24 hours, I think. But that was kind of the 1966 version of the robots. The basket, you know? It was much greener process, really, when you think about it. Cost a lot less. And I think Michael might have been part of that team. Michael, if you're out there, I never will forget the fact that when we were hungry you and some of the other guys would go get us some good French fries and cheeseburgers from Crystal. So anyway, that's one of my college experiences. But anyway, coming to the Boundless Project, coming over here and meeting, I wanted to thank Anna Marie for herding cats. She would always get our calendar set up. She had six or eight of us to get our schedules together. Came over, we sat at a big table. We all talked and laughed and they encouraged me to talk way too much, kind of like they have in this event. But I just thought, well, these people are just so welcoming. And this is just really going to be fun. And so we started scheduling some trips over. And I noticed Jennifer Beale when I would say, I'm interested in stories about strong women. She wrote it down. She wrote it down. She was on me like a duck on a Junebug. She knew what I was going for. And it was the beginning of a wonderful relationship. I don't know where Jennifer is, but where are you, Jennifer? Are you hiding out back there somewhere? Anyway, we had a great time because we got to be in the archives together and talk about just stories or ideas or history. And she would bring these things and put them on a cart for me. And it was just this wonderful, generous time that she spent helping me find something that I would like to use, or perhaps this, perhaps that. And she emailed me with different things. And I just really loved spending time with her researching. And there is a mountain, there's a huge mountain of material that I could have selected or that I'd ever even saw. But all that takes is something, just a something, in the case of writing a song or being inspired. And that's what this serves, this collection. It supports us. And it's, as someone who spends way too much time on the Internet, it was such a different, wonderful human connection. And to turn pages in old books and to see artifacts, you know, actually touch them and look at them and wonder how they arrived here and why someone saved them and being grateful that they were saved. And everything is catalogued and protected and appreciated. And so I just loved that. I just thought that that just really was so on time for me because I had gotten into such a rut of just spending all my time, you know, on the computer. It was with people and real tangible things. And I just appreciated so much just getting to have that experience again. Talking, laughing, exchanging ideas in person with such knowledgeable people. And there was no question I could ask that was too dumb. They might laugh at me behind my face, but they never laughed at me in front of my face. But Chris, whether you know it or not or for anything about this, we write the songs, we arrange for recording of them. Chris and I worked and picked up, we picked a studio and the program allows us to do professional recordings of the songs and which is just delightful. And that experience was great. And Shelly over here, Miss Ovar, and I had a great time as well. We took, we had a photo session where we laughed and we discussed how we were pretty determined when we were younger as to what we would and would not wear. And anyway, so we talked, she's provided some wonderful slides today to go with a couple of the songs. And I think I've talked to her, I'm not going to speak too quick, but Jerry, Jerry Thornton is here this evening and he is the chair of our Harvey Broom Group Sierra Club. And I think we've got a volunteer over here. She's told me that she's willing to help us out so there's one and if any of the rest of you want to come help us out, we want you. So anyway, but just the fun time we've had, she followed us to the studio and she was so connecting and yet unobtrusive. She was capturing what she was doing, doing her magic in there while we were trying to figure out what we were playing. And so they document everything we do. So, I mean, it's just a lovely gift that they do that. And so you feel like you really want to try to hit the mark and you don't know if you do or not, but you do what you do. Right? So anyway, we did start, Jennifer and I spent some time trying to pull some more materials together for the strong women, the women who were dealing with their lives in coal mining camps and simultaneous to this, there was a lot of kind of synchronistic things happening. A friend of mine had been asked to write the story of a family who had grown up in coal camps and the fellow, one of the children as an adult asked her to write a story of his life, of their family. And so when she told me about it, I didn't have a copy right away, but I went up to La Follette, met her and got a copy of the book. And in this book, he wanted to honor his mother. She was 14 years old when she got married and her husband had already been a coal miner for seven years and they had five children. And I can't imagine a harder life. I'm sure that there are places, but while they're worrying about the health of their husband or their son or their brother or whoever is coal mining, in the meantime, they're also feeding their children, having their children, dealing with everything else that has to go on to keep everything running, right? And they wear a dress while they do. You know, I would have definitely drawn the line. I know Jennifer would have drawn the line right there. But being a coal miner's wife had to be just a damn tough job. And because it was fear, there was lack of funds. You know, a lot of the coal miners got paid in script and the coal miners, the coal companies, owned the houses. And if you had a union and you went on strike, they threw you out of your house. You got evicted out of your house and you had to go live in a tent with your children and cook and do laundry. And so, God bless them, is all I can say. I just don't know how they managed. So here was this other story of this grown man who wanted to honor his mother because he said, no matter how tough it got, Mom always came back up with a smile on her face ready to take on the next challenge. So there was another strong woman and he wanted her to be honored. And there's thousands of stories. Those women are all over the country who have lived the coal miner's wife role. And so I wanted to write a song about them. So that's one of the songs that we're going to do for you. And I think we can do it now. I hope we can do it now. And I was going to see if I had a few more notes here. I think the thing that I found so insulting, one thing that was pretty interesting to me was that the unions would have the women helping guard to keep the folks who might come in to try to break the strike. And those long dresses actually served a purpose. They could have a rifle under them. And they did. And I read this one little piece about how this woman said, yep, that we would put our tents because the union owned the tents and they'd set them up close to the edge where if they were trying to bring people in to break the strike, the women would stand guard by Golly. And they'd run them off because they didn't want them to break the strike. So she said, I had a rifle under one side and a rifle on the other side and my pocket's full of bullets. She said I could barely walk, but by Golly I was going to protect that strike. But wow. So women, if you look at the history, women played a huge role in the coal mining industry when they worked so hard just for the miners to be able to do what they did. But they were also really, really integral in the unions and how the unions became stronger because the women were so determined and played a big role in helping the unions support better conditions for the miners. And there's a lot of history about these, some of the greatest heroes of the unions. Mother Jones is one of the probably most well-known. I don't think she made it down into the Tennessee area but she was very involved in the West Virginia coal wars. All right. You guys ready? I don't know, are we? We're playing trapped. Okay. Let's check our tuning. I need to check my tuning, I know that. Are y'all doing all right? Anybody taking a short nap yet? I'm starting to settle down a little bit. I'll tell you what, it's been a while I haven't done anything other than fuss on the steps of TVA. I haven't done many concerts in a bit but I really am looking forward to getting back out and playing a little bit and I'm hoping these folks will join me some more. While I'm tuning, would you guys like to acknowledge Kathleen and Greg for coming along? Thank you. Because I feel a lot safer with them on either side of me. We're not even armed. We're going to have some of Shelly's work here to... She's saying, don't say that. I don't understand why these people are so talented. I guess that's why you work in the library. You guys want to hide in the stacks, don't you? The rest of us have to be out here in the spotlight. But that's okay. I'm glad for what you do. Shelly Obar is a very creative person and I'm so appreciative of her work and the time because these folks could have slid by and sort of done this, just kind of get by but they're not just get by people. So I'm just impressed with them. I got to tell you. Okay. Alright, this one is called Trapped. Okay guys, I forget how we start it but let's do it anyway. When I said I'd take his hand A new full well it wasn't mine Felt so hard, gave my heart away Minor's wife I hear I am a minor's wife Ain't gaining any ground Nothing much gets better Trapped here in this mining camp Chopping wood and hauling water Chopping wood and hauling water Rolling out biscuits Pooking him white beans Scrubbing that laundry And him old person that caught in my belly Won on me Our best to find some comfort Do our best to give each other comfort He coughs in his sleep Dust in his lungs How much can it take I'll feed the stove before the sun comes up Oh this life gets daily This life gets daily On strike we'll move to the tents Ready to fight Armed wives guard to keep the scabs away I pray we'll settle before winter I pray we'll settle before winter Now nothing much got better Got trapped here in this mining camp Digging coal and hauling Cooking up cornbread Smelling them soup beans Cursing that cold duck Raising our baby in my belly And two running round my knee Listen hero, what your mom and daddy did Get out of this hauler and make your way There's a whole world out there We're looking to your faces That's what we see We love you so much That's why you must go Now go and find your freedom Oh go and find your freedom When I said I'd take his hand I knew full well he wasn't mine Felt so hard, gave my heart away I'm his wife, I hear I'll stay I thought of that woman that that book is being written about in the process of writing that song that there was an expression my mother had used to use and she quoted this other friend of hers and I thought it was an interesting quote She says, sometimes life sure does get daily and that just seemed to be a good fit to keep that phrase going Life gets daily Okay, simultaneous to our desire to explore and honor strong women in the coal mining camps Jennifer and I were having a conversation and in La Follette there were quite a few Italian immigrants who came into La Follette and I realized it just a little bit when I was young, living there but I moved when I was 12 I just wasn't thinking about it but I remembered the names sounded indifferent when somebody referred to and then later on when I went back to work on the Louis Bleu Festival we realized that Howard Armstrong had learned to speak Italian from his Italian neighbors so these little pieces just kind of kept coming along so anyway Jennifer and I were talking and after our conversation she would send me emails with ideas that I might want to pursue next time I came back to the library and one of the titles totally tripped me out tripped me out I don't know why I said that but the name of this book was Tennessee Home for Intelligent Immigrants and it was in a she had it on her list and when I came back to the library it was in this little brown box and this is about what it kind of looks like when you look at it and uh-huh she have it up there I told you, I told you ace on it, ace on the case and during this time I'm sure there's so many gaps in my education it just like I said it was hit or miss for me when I was in that process but during this time period La Follette was being built and they needed workers but it was true in so many areas but there's still quite a few Italian immigrants ancestors living in La Follette and they had a different experience than a lot of immigrants had across this country and we've for every one of the millions of immigrants have come here, there's a story and we've been kind and we've been cruel and people have struggled and people have been successful but I was just amazed at how many people came to this country because where they I didn't know Italy was in such a disastrous state of being I didn't know that there was so much poverty and so much famine and so much disease and a lot of folks were actually this book was written by a man who was the commissioner of agriculture and immigration for the state of Tennessee and it was published in 1879 and his language, the way he wrote this you would think Tennessee was the only place on the planet worth living I mean he was a PR guy from the get-go but it said the people of Tennessee earnestly desire good immigrants nature has overpowered her population with lavish gifts of soil of mines of timber of water powers of scenery all in a climate so mines of so genial that existence itself is happiness I mean this is how he's talking about us he's talking about Tennessee Tennessee will welcome with hardiness and cordiality all good men and women self-interest alone would compel her to do this her possessions cannot be utilized without skilled labor her wealth lies in possibilities her people are not so stupid as not to know that their prosperity their property cannot be increased in value without an influx of intelligent industrious capable men and women who can seize the natural advantages and rest tangible wealth from them benefiting themselves and others let them come okay that's just a little piece that's a little flavor of the way this thing is written so I was intrigued I'm sitting there just very carefully turning the pages and what was interesting about his approach was he would compare we know that Tennessee's sort of three sections geographically and he would compare these different parts of Tennessee to certain countries he would say this region is very similar to northern Italy or this is similar to central Spain and so I thought wow this is really something and Mr. Lafollette there were two brothers Harvey and what was his brother's name? Chris I told you if I had to forgot something I was going to ask you anyway these fellas bought 28,000 28,000 acres up in the valley there and wanted to build and he would go to Europe and he would advertise in the newspapers all this was just totally new to me I didn't realize that that's how the Italian immigrants got to Lafollette I just thought it was a random thing because so many Scotch Irish folks just kind of wandered down they said oh this is familiar we'll stay here but this was a specific pipeline where if you made it from Italy to New York you would get on a train to certain cities in the United States that was all set up before you left home and Lafollette was one of those cities so and I listened to an oral history of a minor who his family was his family he was three or four when they came over but when I heard this oral history he said my family left Genoa went to New York and got on a train to Lafollette, Tennessee that became real that was real and so that's why we're doing a song now about immigrants and so we had kind of two tracks running here but you know the stories of immigrants and how they were treated like I said there was horrific treatment cruel treatment devastating treatment the people who stayed in the cities lived in horrible tenements and horrible conditions no indoor plumbing so in many ways folks who did come to rural areas had at least an opportunity to have a little bit of a better life and there were two main waves of immigrants from Italy early on mostly folks from northern Italy came because of the need for the artisans who were stone cutters and it was a fine it was an art took a long time to become one later in southern Italy they were having a horrible time with crops they were having the vineyards were failing and mostly southern Italy was more farmers northern Italy some more artisans of other types so let's see where am I in this story so I've written you some songs that are songs that are hard times and dreams that were never realized or needed to be realized by the next generation so I wanted to write a song about what it would be like if things went right and a song that was about hope hope that was realized and so I know those other stories existed I did not want to bring those to this particular project so I wanted to bring a song of hope what I also know to be true is that there are numerous folks of Italian descent who live in La Follette who still love being in that area and are celebrating this year their first what they call the Tallytown Festival where they get together meet each other's children and celebrate their Italian heritage so I think that's going to be fun and I want to go and I encourage you guys to check out Tallytown Festival on Facebook and it's this is the 100th anniversary of a building that was at the foot of the street where I lived as a kid and it was called the Piedmont building back then back in the old days and then it was later bought by an oil company or something and the radio station was housed there and so this was about this story takes place about at the same time that some of those buildings would have been being built but there was a gentleman named Lovertini and he built that in Lafala, it still exists and but I walked by it every day two times to go to school and so I would just enjoyed the fact that people did come to a place where they were invited to be there and they were successful and embraced and were able to have the dream so this is called to be in America this is Anna I have a story to tell we were in search of heaven but walking through hell but as you can see we came through it all I stand here now an old woman with a heart full of memories stories of Marco and me in 1905 I was 16 years old just a young bride my husband Marco so young and so strong ready to take on the world to prove himself to the world and keep a promise to me whose head to have a life of prosperity we should move to America from Genoa early that spring two pieces of luggage contained everything that we were allowed to start a new life I stood on that deck a young woman leaving all our journey from what we had learned there was cold to my king stones trade and he knew he would make better pay to build a man looking back now disease and so much poverty famine crippled our homeland after two weeks at sea we stood in held hands our hearts were pounding the day we made land to clear so food fell in line with our papers our breath to sea we could continue our dream we'd make our new home in Tennessee where uncle would be at the station in a boarding house where we could stay Marco next day to insure a place on the crew working stone so proud when he came back to tell me we're just beginning boom town drew folks from even a church of our faith nearby grateful for our good fortune when we found us to meet that booked passage for mama to come to America thank you so much okay we're losing a few folks but that's okay I wanted to say a couple of things other than a huge thank you to the boundless folks a few nights ago I was reading about Betsy Creekmore right for which the collection is named and I found an interview she had done and I thought it was appropriate that we share this one little piece she says I honestly believe that one makes the world a better place by making one small spot in the world a better place she feels it's important to offer opportunities to others whenever possible she said I can't save the world but I can help this person or do this small task it makes the world a better place she points out that at UT she was blessed with the opportunity to work with extraordinary leaders both women and men who had not only excelled themselves but who were willing to help others succeed Betsy says that's half the battle if you are succeeding you need to reach out and help others succeed and I would like to say I think this boundless committee would make Betsy Creekmore very proud so let's for the team for the boundless team I appreciate you so much you've been so kind to me and thank you all for coming and it's been a wonderful experience Maggie I want to see if anybody has any questions for you before we let them go here I'm sure they've heard enough out of me they have but they might have questions still does anybody have any questions by chance the songs will be available I don't know if they'll be a part of a CD right away but they'll be available to hear we're going to have them on the library site very soon yes and I have copies too but thank you so much and I hope you appreciate I wanted to tell you on the recording our friend Daniel Kimbrough I'm sure a lot of you have heard play in Knoxville he was able to do the recording and he and his trio will be in town this Sunday and there's that so if you haven't had a chance to hear these folks there's Daniel in the middle and he played bass on the recording but get down there to the Bijoux and make them feel welcome because there's a great Sam Lewis is from Knoxville and Martin Harley is from England and so it'll be a great show so I don't want you to miss that but I wanted to acknowledge that not to argue or anything but Daniel's actually from being from Morristown myself one of my homes Daniel's from Morristown East Tennessee but anyway thank you very much and I hope you can go see him I'm going to be there anybody who's smart anybody who's smart anybody who's smart is going to be there it's going to be fabulous it is going to be fabulous Daniel's got a massive career coming and going right now anybody else have any questions I really appreciate every single one of you all for coming out it's boundless I think for all of us as a labor of love I can't I'm going to rat him out here Steve Smith our Dean of Libraries this is his idea originally it's a wonderful idea we've loved it I have loved being a part of it thanks Steve another good one thank you all thank you very much thanks for being here