Appalachian History

John Jacob Niles composed the Appalachian influenced Christmas carols The Carol of the Birds, The Flower of Jesse, What Songs were Sung, Jesus, Jesus, Rest Your Head, and Sweet Little Boy Jesus. I Wonder As I Wander, one of his most popular carols, illustrates the working methods of this inveterate collector of homegrown musicality: “I [...]

It’s an important part of the local religious landscape. That’s probably the easiest way to sum up Fields of the Wood in Murphy, North Carolina. If you leave my hometown of Cleveland, Tennessee, headed east on U.S. Transcontinental Highway 64, you’ll go through Polk County (the southeastern most county in Tennessee) and then cross over [...]