July 2017 - Page 2 of 2 - The Birthplace of Country Music

Volunteers: The Glue that Holds Us Together

Festival Museum

July 10, 2017

Posted on July 10, 2017June 17, 2021 by Rene Rodgers

Every year, volunteers across the country lend a hand to help organizations, charities and nonprofits, schools, and churches to do their work and to carry out their missions. In museums alone, volunteers give over a million hours of volunteer service every single week!

As a small nonprofit, the Birthplace of Country Music is fortunate to tap into the time and talents of hundreds of volunteers each year. We recruit these dedicated people throughout the year – from calls for volunteers for Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion to regular training sessions at the museum.

Our volunteers act in dozens of important roles supporting all three elements of our organization: the museum, the festival, and the radio station. They are docents and gallery assistants, work behind the scenes in our archives, tackle the logistical puzzle of our 3-day music festival, greet and transport performing musicians, help facilitate our live radio shows, and so much more. There is no doubt that they are integral to our success.

There are many reasons to love our volunteers – I could definitely write a hugely long post about this – but, for now, here are our top 5!

1. We consider our volunteers to be the equivalent of members of staff. Every day we see their professionalism on display, and we know that they take their responsibility to our visitors seriously. By sharing their input with us, helping us when our paid staff cannot fulfill all the organization’s needs and roles, and holding themselves accountable on a daily basis, it also means that they make our work easier. This allows us to focus on other necessary tasks knowing that whatever they are doing is in good hands. And because they are immersed in our work – and truly understand the depth of that work – our volunteers are our very best advocates, sharing our story and our mission with visitors, the local community, and even further afield.

Volunteer gallery assistant Kathe shares her passion for Tennessee Ernie Ford with our visitors. © Birthplace of Country Music

2. Our volunteers are interesting! We have volunteers from all walks of life – from retired schoolteachers to neurologists, high school and college kids to history buffs, and artists and musicians. Every day we get the chance to have a fascinating conversation with a volunteer, learn something new about a topic we previously knew little to nothing about, or tap into their many skills, making all the difference to our work.

3. Volunteers help make our grant applications even stronger. The significant amount each and every one of them gives to our organization can be viewed as in-kind donations from our community. Each year we have over 800 volunteers on the ground from the break of dawn until late at night at the Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion festival; we also have volunteers working on the planning committees for the festival all year round. Since the Birthplace of Country Music Museum opened in August 2014 and Radio Bristol launched in August 2015, our museum and radio volunteers have given almost 10,000 hours to help us on a daily basis. Volunteers also pitch in with other outreach projects like the annual Border Bash concert series and our support of Bristol Motor Speedway’s Speedway in Lights program every winter. All of the time and support given to us by our volunteers is a tangible marker of community support and engagement, which is integral to successful grant applications – and successful grants help our organization to develop and to deliver our mission.

4. Not only are our volunteers good at what they do, but they also know how to have a good time – and how to make our lives fun! From getting into the spirit of a volunteer party theme by dressing up like country musicians to sharing the best-tasting potluck dishes in town at our annual Christmas party, you can count on our volunteers to bring good cheer and good fun to every occasion.

While helping to set up an outdoor display during Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion, volunteer Bob tried his hand at the spoons. © Birthplace of Country Music

5. Most importantly, because our volunteers are dedicated, welcoming, and knowledgeable, they have a direct and meaningful impact on our visitors. Our festival may be a blast, our museum may be engaging, and our radio station may make your toes tap, but it is our volunteers who make your time with us special.

René Rodgers is Curator of Exhibits & Publications at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum. If you are interested in volunteering at the museum, new volunteer training is being held on July 25 and August 1.

I’m Running Out of Wall Space! The Poster Artwork of Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion

Festival

July 5, 2017

Posted on July 5, 2017June 12, 2021 by Charlene Baker

The primary marketing piece for any music festival or event is the commemorative poster. Companies like Nashville’s Hatch Show Print, Knoxville’s Status Serigraph, and Asheville’s Subject Matter Studio have built their businesses – and stellar reputations – creating distinct artistic visions of their clients’ brands. For music fans, posters are a sentimental reminder of a good time and great music; they are also an essential collector’s item.

Since the inaugural festival in October 2001, Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion has commissioned a variety of local and regional artists to create designs that we feel capture the essence of the event. A few of our most popular are now out of print, though they occasionally pop up on ebay for purchase at a higher price than they originally sold.

If you have been collecting Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion posters since the beginning – that’s 17 posters and counting this year – you might find that wall space has become an issue. To help with that challenge, and for those who want to collect on a smaller scale, we started producing a collection of festival poster note cards. The note cards are small, frame-worthy, and run through the 16th annual event so you can display them without taking up a lot of space. And, of course, they are great cards to send to friends and family to encourage them to come to the festival!

Even we are running out of wall space in our office! © Charlene Tipton Baker

For those of you who collect and frame, we recommend having your favorite posters professionally framed using museum quality glass to keep the colors vibrant. Can’t decide on a favorite? Have a frame shop cut a piece of museum quality glass to fit a store-bought frame so you can change posters out on a whim. If sticker shock is an issue, think of it as an investment. We have no plans to reissue out-of-print posters so they retain value and, with care, the glass is something you’ll have forever even if you switch out frames.

We’ve pulled together all the Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion festival poster designs we’ve collected over the years (with those that are no longer in print indicated) below so you have the chance to see each and every design. Hats off to all the wonderful artists for their inspired visions of our event – they showcase a variety of styles and themes from funky graphic music-related designs and historic references to playful story art and striking hand-pressed prints.

These three posters use a combination of historic images of Bristol, drawings of old and new musicians, and other photographs and artwork. 2001 poster: Concept, design, and photography by Malcolm J. Wilson and Jennifer Wilson (out of print); 2002 poster: Concept, art direction, and design by Katherine DeVault, vintage Bristol photographs by Bristol Historical Association, and photograph of the 1926 Martin 00-45 12-fret guitar courtesy of Gruhn Guitars Inc. (out of print); 2005 poster: Original art by Willard Gayheart, and graphic design by Saundra Reynolds.

The 2003, 2008, and 2009 posters used graphics focused on instruments within their design. 2003 poster: Original painting by Malcolm J. Wilson, and design by Jennifer & Malcolm J. Wilson (out of print); 2008 and 2009 posters: Graphic design by Chad Carpenter.

The posters created for the 2004, 2007, and 2012 festivals were also very graphic design-based and went for a more “decorative” look and feel. 2004 poster: Design by Katherine DeVault; 2007 poster: Original art by April Street; 2012 poster: Graphic design by Bobby Starnes.

Local artist Charles Vess – an internationally acclaimed fantasy and comic illustrator – has created original artwork for three of our festival posters: 2006, 2010, and 2015. The artwork for each poster is filled with detail and energy, and they reflect Vess’s graphic style and the use of nature as a major theme in his art. Vess’s posters always prove hugely popular with festival-goers and collectors – the 2006 and 2010 posters are both out of print.

The artwork for the 2011 and 2016 posters was also created by two local and regional artists: P. Buckley Moss and Leigh Ann Agee. Moss – a well-known artist whose wonderful renditions of rural life, especially in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, are highly collectible – has created other pieces of art for the Birthplace of Country Music, including a commemorative poster for the museum’s opening in 2014. Her festival poster from 2011 is out of print; the graphic design for this poster was done by Charlene Tipton Baker. Muralist and artist Agee, originally from Bristol, based the 2016 poster on her popular Moon Bound Girl artworks. The graphic design for Agee’s poster was done by Hannah Devaney Holmes.

Three of the most recent posters – for 2013, 2014, and 2017 – reflect a wonderful vintage style and are all individually hand-pressed on manila paper. Instruments are central to the designs of each of these posters, and the 2014 poster takes inspiration from the roots in Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion. 2013 and 2017 posters: Graphic design by Justin Helton, Status Serigraph (2013 is out of print); 2014 poster:
Graphic design by Drew Findley, Subject Matter Studio (out of print).

Charlene Tipton Baker is a Marketing Specialist at the Birthplace of Country Music. Please note that some posters are not sold in our online store, but you can call our office at 423-573-1927 to see if they are available.

Country Music Icons: Immortalized and Celebrated in Stamps

1927 and 1928 Bristol Sessions Museum

July 1, 2017

Posted on July 1, 2017June 17, 2021 by Rene Rodgers

July 1 is National U.S. Postage Stamp Day, a day to celebrate these miniature works of art and their important role in correspondence and communication.

While letters and messages have been sent throughout history, the first ever pre-paid postage stamp was issued in the United Kingdom on May 6, 1840. This stamp bore the profile portrait of a young Queen Victoria and was known as a “Penny Black” due to its cost and the ink color used for the printing. The first stamps issued in America were a 5-cent Benjamin Franklin stamp and a 10-cent George Washington stamp, both produced in 1847.

U.S. postage stamps are often used to commemorate important events and people in American history – the first American commemorative stamps were produced in 1893 to celebrate the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus. Since then, there have been numerous commemorative stamps and stamp series, including ones to honor the people who made a mark on country music.

Jimmie Rodgers

The 13-cent Jimmie Rodgers commemorative stamp was issued on May 24, 1978, and its first-day city was Meridian, Mississippi, Rodgers’s birthplace – it was issued during the town’s annual Jimmie Rodgers Festival. The design of the stamp celebrates his nickname as the “Singing Brakeman,” a persona based on his railroad career and reflected in a character he played in a short film of the same name. The film, produced by Columbia Pictures and Victor Talking Machine Company in 1930, features Rodgers singing three of his songs at the “Railroad Eating House” after a long day on the rails. As with many stamps, the Jimmie Rodgers stamp was part of a series, the first issued in the U.S. Postal Service’s Performing Arts and Artists series.

Legends of American Music Series: Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, The Carter Family, and Bob Wills

From 1993 to 1999, the U.S. Postal Service produced the Legends of American Music Series. This series covered a host of genres and contributions to American music, including rock-and-roll, jazz and blues, gospel, opera, folk, and popular music; songwriters, conductors, composers, big band leaders, and Hollywood and Broadway songwriters and composers; and, of course, country music icons. The country music stamps, all issued in 1993, featured Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, The Carter Family – A. P., Sara, and Maybelle, and Bob Wills. The stamps were presented at various dedication ceremonies, including one highlighting the Hank Williams stamp at the Grand Ole Opry, which was attended by his son. Williams Jr. noted that his family was thrilled about the stamp, adding that he had told his children that their grandfather now had his picture in the U.S. Post Office, and not on an FBI poster!

Artist Richard Waldrep designed the stamps, creating the artwork for them at 400% of the actual stamp size using gouache that had been thinned so it could be applied with an airbrush, creating a smoother surface showing no brush strokes; he then filled in the minor detailing with brush and colored pencil. The results are vibrant portraits of these artists, capturing their personalities and performance. Waldrep has created 38 stamps for the U.S. Postal Service, including several other commemorative series. He remembers in particular his work on the Centennial Olympic Games stamps of 1996 when he was asked to sign 30,000 sheets of the stamps – he says his signature has never been the same since!

Roy Acuff

Rather than artwork, the 37-cent Roy Acuff commemorative stamp bore a photographic likeness of the “King of Country Music.” As with the Legends of American Music stamps, the Roy Acuff stamp was printed using the gravure process, a type of printing where the image is engraved on a metal plate for use on the printing press – 52 million Acuff stamps were produced. The stamp was first issued in Nashville, Tennessee, and it was presented at a dedication ceremony during a live Roy Acuff tribute show broadcast from the Grand Ole Opry on September 13, 2003. By coincidence, Johnny Cash had passed away the day before, and the former Postmaster General Marvin Runyon promised he would do all that he could do to be sure Cash was also memorialized through a U.S. postage stamp in the future.

Johnny Cash

The promise made at the Roy Acuff issue ceremony came to fruition in June 2013 when the U.S. Postal Service released a Forever stamp commemorating Johnny Cash, part of their Music Icons series that also included Lydia Mendoza and Ray Charles. The dedication ceremony was attended by son John Carter Cash, daughter Rosanne Cash, and musicians Larry Gatlin, Jamey Johnson, The Oak Ridge Boys, The Roys, Marty Stuart, and Randy Travis, amongst others. The image used on the stamp is a photograph by Frank Bez, taken during a photo session for Cash’s album Ring of Fire: The Best of Johnny Cash (1963). The level of detail and thought put into stamp design is often extraordinary – for instance, the square stamp pane surrounding the Johnny Cash stamps was designed to resemble a 45rpm record sleeve.

Country Music Stamps and Beyond

Other stamps from the U.S. Postal Service and Canada have celebrated other country music icons. For instance, the U.S. Postal Service issued stamps focused on cowboys of the silver screen, two of which were also known as singers: Gene Autry, the “singing cowboy” and Roy Rogers, the “King of the Cowboys.” And Canada Post released a series focused on the contributions of Canadian country music stars with stamps of Shania Twain, k. d. lang, Tommy Hunter, Hank Snow, and Renée Martel.

René Rodgers is the Curator of Exhibits & Publications at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum. Special thanks to Patricia Raynor at the National Postal Museum, Richard Waldrep, Karen Court, Josh Matas, and Andrea at the U.S. Postal Services Rights & Permissions Department for their help with this post.