JA-052 (Ray Hicks - JACK ALIVE)
- Description
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Ray Hicks, North Carolina's celebrated storyteller, lived atop Beech Mountain in Watauga County. He spoke a dialect of English that retained much of the vocabulary, phrasing, expression, and accent of earlier English and Scotch-Irish immigrants to the region. He was featured on Robert McNeil's PBS series "The Story of English." Hicks was particularly fond of telling a group of stories known as Jack tales. He was also a powerful singer of traditional British and American ballads and a soulful harmonica player. The North Carolina Arts Council was not the first organization to honor Ray Hicks. In 1983, he received the National Heritage Fellowship Award from the National Endowment for the Arts. He appeared in a number of film documentaries and was profiled in The New Yorker magazine. Hicks regularly performed at the annual National Storytellers Festival in Jonesboro, Tennessee. He remained at the forefront of a national revitalization of a venerable art form until his death in 2003 at the age of 80.
Recordings for JA0052, Jack Alive, were recorded and edited by Doug Dorschug at the Hicks home on Beech Mountain from July 1987 to January 1989 with a Sony 501 digital system. The Associate Producer was Brian Yerman, and June Appal project director was D. Gregory White. The final release, which came out in 1989, was produced for June Appal Recordings' Mountain Masters Series, with funding from the Ford Foundation.
This audio collection consists of ¼-inch production masters, and vinyl production masters.