Music
photo courtesy of MTSU
It’s probably inevitable that country music scholars don’t get much respect. After all, their work appears to be of little commercial value in the offices of Music Row. The music’s fans tend either to focus on country’s newest and most visible artists or to think that its earthy origins aren’t worthy of scholarship that goes beyond cataloging the most obscure releases and obsessing over the minutiae of recording sessions. As for academia, country’s rural roots, its working class identification and ongoing commerciality still lead too easily and too often to one kind of scorn or another.
Even so, there are scholars whose life and work demand respect, and none deserves it more than Murfreesboro’s Dr. Charles K. Wolfe, who died last Thursday after a long struggle with diabetes and the complications that attend it. No country music writer was more prolific than Wolfe, who published 19 books and was at work on several more projects at the time of his death. And none ranged more freely across the sweep of the music’s history, tackling subjects both broad and narrow. Most importantly, none was more engaged with the object of his study, applying the insights gained from close attention to the music’s early years to the trends and happenings of today.
Those who focused, professionally or not, on the string bands of the 1920s and 1930s knew that Wolfe could be relied on to fill in a blank, or at least to point them in the right direction. But journalists covering country music news, too, knew that he was always ready to provide an informed, clear and pointed context for the latest developments and controversies.
Though country music itself is old, the serious study of country music is not, and it is no exaggeration to say that Wolfe, together with a handful of colleagues, was instrumental in the construction of country music history as a worthy and viable subject. Yet while his research was as thorough as possible, his work was aimed not so much at other scholars as at those who were involved or interested in the music, or who could be persuaded by a blend of passion and knowledge to become so.
By necessity, most of Wolfe’s books were published by academic presses. But he was also a frequent contributor and consultant to both public and commercial television documentaries. His publications in scholarly journals were matched by dozens of liner notes that accompanied contemporary releases and reissues of undeservedly obscure recordings.
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The range of Wolfe’s interests—and hence of his knowledge—was simply staggering. The Devil’s Box: Masters of Southern Fiddling, a collection of essays published in 1997, covered subjects ranging from the age of fiddle styles heard on country’s earliest recordings to the career of Tommy Jackson, who played a key role in defining the instrument’s role in the 1950s and beyond. Another collection, Classic Country (2001), offered succinct sketches not only of Hall of Famers like Grandpa Jones (with whom Wolfe co-authored an autobiography) and Bill Monroe, but of forgotten figures like songwriter Arthur Q. Smith and the mysterious Seven Foot Dilly.
With historian Kip Lornell, Wolfe co-authored a book-length study of the great African American blues and folk singer Leadbelly. He also acted as the chief consultant for PBS’ broad American Roots Music series and wrote a biography of gospel legend Mahalia Jackson.
To all of these subjects, Wolfe brought an unalloyed, infectious enthusiasm, and it was natural that the same spirit led him not just to scholarship, but to engagement and activism. Sometimes this manifested itself simply in encouragement and assistance to other students of roots music, including those he taught during the course of more than 30 years at MTSU. At others, it led to lasting collaborations and friendships with a diverse collection of artists and musicians. At still others, it took the form of public commentary and advocacy, perhaps most notably when Wolfe adopted the title of “curmudgeon” to weigh in on personnel changes at the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum.
Given the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Distinguished Achievement Award in 1990, Wolfe also served behind the scenes in helping to create the organization’s Leadership Bluegrass program. The initiative is aimed at shoring up not only the music’s ongoing creative vitality but its commercial survival.
“In an age when country music seems to be shooting off in a dozen different directions, it is important to remind ourselves that there was once, and still is, a broad mainstream that genuinely defined the genre,” Wolfe wrote in the introduction to Classic Country. Ultimately, it’s the assertion of country music’s importance that points to his greatest legacy. For while his work has its own merits, what may count for most in the end is his insistence that music, and especially country music, matters—that not only does it have things to tell us that we need to listen to, and not only does it have intrinsic joys and rewards, but that these can only be enriched by a deeper knowledge of who made it, and how and why. Whether or not they realize it, every denizen of Music Row, every fan and every artist, from the unknown fiddler tackling the “Black Mountain Rag” to the current toast of the town, owes Charles Wolfe a debt of gratitude.