inside story about putin's war on america and the election of donald trump." matterblack lives memoir." and the book "i know watch our weekend long l.a.age of the 26th annual times festival of books on c-span2 on book tv. ♪ . c-span has been in asheville, north carolina learning more about its history. up next, we learn more at about the appalachian music collection.

>> was there a particular time when you learned songs or just here and there? >> here and there. you didn't have nothing to do. >> uh-huh. learned from other people, too. ♪ i sure have been in trouble little life in trouble, girl \o a boy with a broken home ♪ i like to say that these people came of age before self-doubt was invented. they were educated in the natural world, the musical world , in their own folklore. andas just something deep

wide. standing in your mama's backdoor, whoo ♪ >> traditional music is just a catchall for the music of the appalachians, and it would involve old-time music, the banjo, fiddle music, it could be ballads and folk songs or dulcimer music. it could be bluegrass music. early country music. people use that term generally to refer to the music of the southern appalachia. all these things came together in the mountains. we really had a hybrid busting loose. saveis around -- i want to the banjo kicked things into

gear in the late 1800s, mid-1800s. the black influence from africa, a lot of blues on the banjo. that changed the music. that combination of english, dutch iris, and african-american made this incredibly powerful hybrid of music that was effective in its day. music archives at the worn wilson college are part of our special collection housed in the library, and it items,s of a number of recordings, photographs, other ephemera related to music makers of this region, lesser north carolina. the collection was

selected in the 1970's and early 1980's. >> in 1969, i came back and i was going to college at the met ralph'sand i family. i asked where i could go to learn this old-time he banjo style, claude hammer style. he said, you need to go back to asheville. this was summer 1960 nine. we traveled all through the southern mountains, which in georgia, fiddlers conventions every weekend. like stepping into a lost world. 1973 ortime, in 1969, something, a lot of these old-timers -- all of them were born in the late 1800s. were connected to our pie

and near ancestors more than modern people. so wonderful.e you would come back and you would build a repertoire. >> it became important for individuals to start collecting mountain music in the 1950's. there are a variety of reasons. music boom or an explosion of interest, and this manifested itself in performing trio's like the king sin or peter paul and mary, pop duo , paul,ston trio or peter and merrick, pop duo's. people where to explore the origins.

people became fascinated with these origin stories to the point of tracking down individuals who had recorded this music in the 1920's and 1930's. >> the folks decided it would be great to have a program where folks could understand -- not just talk about this, but learn to play the instrument, and i was new in town, really. i moved here in 1973, and we are talking about 1975. i was a guy from the outside, and pretty much the only guy from the outside collecting music. i had all of these different music. of the

they were mad at each other. i was a perfect person to go in between and have them come out to the college to teach. the collection is about 110 reel to reel cassette tapes. that was the best we could find in those days. i collected a lot of it and the students collected a lot of it. i had students that works for me and their job was to go out and collect music from these old-timers. night came home the other as drunk as i could be and i saw a horse and a second horse where my horse ought to be ♪ there became almost a critical need to document these people who were, at this point,

entering the twilight years of their lives before they passed away. my little girl oh, lordy i'm bound to go ♪ 1970's whenally the you saw the explosion of field recordings, people checking down musicians and recording them as a way to preserve their music and documented for the public record before they pass away and it would be unavailable. >> david holt started the traditional music program here back in the 1970's and i started

teaching here in the 1990's, after he had left. and i was aware he had recorded concerts back in the 1970's, and these recordings were all here they were ones and reel to reel tapes, and i realized they were not accessible. if you wanted to listen to them, who knew what was on those things? it was not a good setup. i wanted to make them available to our students. i had a student in 2002 who took the reel to reel tapes and we got a realtor real player and digitized them and we went through and looked at what was on here and picked out appropriate cuts to act as an online resource. >> so now we have these

resources -- we can let students learn them. in the case of a fiddler, they is a singing it group, they can learn what was popular at that time. and also, there are other singing styles. fallenat one is that one is fallen he dies no more ♪ to -- it is ay way to keep the tradition going. shape note singing is a way of unique tosic that is america. it originated in the early 19th century, and really what a shape

the literalto is shape of the notes that appear on a page. what individuals were experimenting with around 1800 were developing a system of notation that could make it easier for people to learn how to read music. [choir vocalizing] >> in the 19th century, it help peoplepular to learn how to sing, schoolmasters would travel around the region and teach singing schools were they would have a class of 20,

30, 40 individuals in the community and everyone would get together and learn to read the notation. after that singing school was who was left,on they would have a book and they would sing regularly from these shape note tunes. you had a blossoming of shape note singing. as a result, a number were published. in western north carolina, they by aarmony compiled gentleman named william walker. there is continuous christian harmony singing that has been going on here for over 100 years.

>> the ballot singing tradition here goes back to the earliest settlers. the 1500s,back to 1600s in scotland, england, ireland. they're waiting ♪ >> in the old days, this is how music along. madison county, just north of asheville still has ballad singers, people who have been singing the ballots for six or seven generations in their families. -- the ballots have been ballots have been passed along. there are people still singing about lords and ladies and milk white steeds even though they are in the mountains of western north carolina. waitingd thomas is

i'll go lord thomas is waiting i'll go ♪ ballads are telling a story in song. usually something happens and there is a moral to the story at the end. important forare passing along the customs and beliefs of a culture. buried there in my arms and the brown girl at my feet and the brown girl at my feet ♪ use the archives to show students the way that certain types of mountain music were performed and presented. reallyviduals who were 100 years ago.

it is a window back in time. recordings offer an excellent way to hear the nuances of someone's singing. this is american folk music. when i travel to other parts of the world and i say icing american falls music, they are like, we did not know there was any other music other than the commercialized music. but every country has a folk tradition. even though we are talking western north carolina here, this is american folk music. it's important to preserve it, make it available because it is part of our nation's history. these tunes are little bits of wisdom being passed it down from other generations that --

it's not an essay. it's not a book. it's something that is encapsulated in the tune and it can't be put any other way, but there is power and wisdom in itt team, when you run through your body, you run it through a whole group of people. it informs them in a whole different way. i think a lot of it is very uplifting, and i think it makes people healthier. it's a good message. >> our cities tour staff recently traveled to asheville, north carolina to learn more about its rich history. learn more by going to c-span.org/citiestour.

you're watching american history tv. all weekend, every weekend on c-span 3. >> tonight on "lectures in a class on nuclear weapons testing in the continental u.s. in the 1950's and 1960's and its impact on the environment. here is a preview. of how andstion where to secure nuclear materials -- certainly scientific, but also political, right? have seenmething we occur in our discussions of environmental history. the history of nuclear america is deeply tangled up with american environmental history. today, we talked about the itself, anding

ideas that are connected to a particular landscape. we are focusing on baby teeth -- maybe there's a different set of act or is or concerned. what do we see that we may not looking at brinksmanship. and this brings us back to the question of the scale of our stories. all of these stories offer a window into america, about risk and safety and the connections

between people and the natural .orld >> watch the entire program tonight at 8 p.m. eastern on onctures in history" c-span3. brands, author h.w. discusses henry clay, john c , and daniel webster. he describes why they were of 1812 between the war and the political compromise of 1850. mr. brand is a professor of at the university of texas at austin. this is 90 minutes. >>