A Cardboard History of Blue Ridge Music will be exhibited at Pellissippi State’s Strawberry Plains campus through June 15.
Once upon a time, troupes of traveling performers promoted their upcoming events through window cards and posters that were printed on inexpensive paper or cardboard so as to last only a few months, nailed to telephone poles, plastered on the sides of buildings, and placed in store windows.
Many of these rare entertainment announcements were discarded or left to deteriorate outdoors. Now, 55 of them – dating back to as early as 1939 – are available to view framed and on display in “A Cardboard History of Blue Ridge Music,” the latest exhibition at Pellissippi State Community College’s Strawberry Plains Library.
From the private collection of Tom Murphy, who has been preserving window cards, handbills, mailers, broadsides, and other posters of various genres for over 50 years, the exhibit’s pieces document the story of bluegrass, country, and old-time music from the region.
It features many Knoxville and East Tennessee venues, as well as artists like Dolly Parton, Roy Acuff, Chet Atkins and the WNOX Midday Merry-Go-Round, and country, old-time and bluegrass legends such as the Carter Family, the Monroe Brothers, Flatt and Scruggs, Kitty Wells and Doc Watson.
The exhibit was made possible by the Pellissippi State Libraries Appalachian Heritage Project, which was developed with a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and offers quarterly programming and scheduled exhibits to support humanities education at Pellissippi and in the community.
See the full article, including a video, here.
Pellissippi State Community College is a public community college based in Knox and Blount counties in Tennessee and operated by the Tennessee Board of Regents. The college operates four campuses: Hardin Valley, Blount County, Strawberry Plains, and Magnolia Avenue.
Follow KnoxTNToday on Facebook and Instagram. Get all KnoxTNToday articles in one place with our Free Newsletter.
