My Curious and Jocular Heroes (ePub)

We were going down the road, and we came to this house. There was a little boy standing by the road just crying and crying. We stopped, and we heard the biggest racket you ever heard up in the house. œWhat ™s the matter, son? œWhy, Maw and Paw are up there fightin ™. œWho is your Paw, son? œWell, that ™s what they are fightin ™ over. Brimming with ballads, stories, riddles, tall tales, and great good humor, My Curious and Jocular Heroes pays homage to four people who guided and inspired Loyal Jones ™s own study of Appalachian culture. His sharp-eyed portraits introduce a new generation to Bascom Lunsford, the pioneer behind the œmemory collections of song and story at Columbia University and the Library of Congress; the Sorbonne-educated collector and performer Josiah H. Combs; Cratis D. Williams, the legendary father of Appalachian studies; and the folklorist and master storyteller Leonard W. Roberts. Throughout, Jones highlights the tales, songs, jokes, and other collected nuggets that define the breadth of each man ™s research and repertoire.|
Cover
Title
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
BASCOM LAMAR LUNSFORD
Jokes, Stories, Songs, and Recitations That Lunsford Liked to Perform
JOSIAH H. COMBS
Combs's Stories, Scholarship, Wit, and Songs
CRATIS D. WILLIAMS
A Sampling of the Scholarship, Wit, and Humor of Cratis Williams
LEONARD WARD ROBERTS
Tales, Riddles, Jokes, and Songs from the Leonard Roberts Collection
Notes
Sources
Index|Loyal Jones is the author of numerous books on Appalachian culture, including Country Music Humorists and Comedians . He served as director of the Appalachian Center at Berea College for twenty-three years.