Each Sunday night, at 8:30 PM EST, folks from all over the world listen to The Cumberland Trail -- a half-hour radio program featuring the musicians who live within shouting distance of our trail. This is grassroots music from the eleven-county corridor surrounding the trail, put forth as realistically and fully as possible. The Cumberland Trail offers the rarest recordings from our region, often never-before issued or broadcast. Low fidelity. Exquisite. A few rough edges for traction. Electrifying, raw, brilliant performances for those who like the way our music really sounds. The Cumberland Trail is the only state or national park in America using weekly musical documentaries to present and preserve its heritage.
The Cumberland Trail features a lot of custom-pressed LP album cuts -- vinyl that never made it to the stores, was never sold by mail order houses, and can't be located on the internet. We play custom 45s and cassettes -- the kind that sold only a few hundred copies, or not even that many. We feature home recordings made by families and "field recordings" made by professional folklorists -- 78's, reel to reel recordings, and home cassettes -- that only exist as a single copies, music that was recorded in the living rooms, basements, and front porches everywhere in our region. Festival and concert recording make it on our show, too, from events in the Cumberland Mountains that bring out our best music, like the Mountain Opry in Signal Mountain, the Rocky Fork Jamboree in Morgan County, or the Mountaineer Folk Festival at Fall Creek Falls State Park. And, we play the great music from the full-time professional musicians who were born and raised along the Cumberland Trail or live there now, folks like fiddling Curly Fox, Charlie Collins, Don and Earl, and the Isaacs, and the commercial 78s, 45s, 33s, cassettes, and cds that have been produced of our semi-professional bands and players.
The host of the program is Bob Fulcher, Park Manager of the Cumberland Trail State Park. He has worked as a park naturalist and ranger for over 25 years, a great portion of that time in Cumberlands. Since 1976, he has recorded and presented musicians from the Cumberland Mountains for the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, the Tennessee State Library and Archives, Tennessee Arts Commission, the Tennessee Bureau of State Parks, the National Folk Festival, and for County Records, the Tennessee Folklore Society label, and several other small labels.
The Cumberland Trail radio program also keeps folks up to date on volunteer work projects, as we continue to build the Cumberland Trail. For more information about the trail, call or stop by our office across from the historic courthouse in Crossville, Tennessee (931-456-6259). For great and rare old-time, bluegrass, gospel, rockabilly, balladry, vintage country, western swing, blues, folk, and more, from our backyard, from 1926 to 2000 and something, tune in The Cumberland Trail every Sunday night.
TO TUNE IN: Go to www.WDVX.com to find the live webcast. You may have to download the suggested software to access the program.
|
The Cumberland Trail is the only state or national park in America using weekly musical documentaries to present and preserve its heritage. The host of the program is Bob Fulcher, Park Manager of the Cumberland Trail State Park. Each Sunday night, at 8:30 PM EST, folks from all over the world listen to The Cumberland Trail -- a half-hour radio program featuring the musicians who live within shouting distance of our trail. This is grassroots music from the eleven-county corridor surrounding the trail, put forth as realistically and fully as possible. The Cumberland Trail offers the rarest recordings from our region, often never-before issued or broadcast.
 Lunch Break Presentation On the Banjo's Role In Appalachian Music Music, environmental education, and cultural heritage presentations are part of the Cumberland Trail experience for volunteers in BreakAway and Big Dig trailbuilding programs. Lunch break presentations and evening programs by Park Rangers and area historians and naturalists add to the volunteer's Tennessee experience. Building trail is hard work, and volunteers look forward to musical performances and presentations.
|
RETURN TO MAIN PAGE