by Frank Matheis 2016
Joseph T. “Joe” Wilson, born and raised in the Blue Ridge Mountains of East Tennessee,was a folklorist and journalist who served as the executive director of the National Council for Traditional Arts (NCTA). He was perhaps the greatest mentor and supporter of John Cephas, and Cephas & Wiggins, and their de facto manager. Joe Wilson was a tireless supporter of folk and traditional music of every kind, including bluegrass, early Appalachian mountain music and blues. He embraced many traditional artists and served as their mentor and champion, and he stands as one of the powerful supporters of the music of the Blue Ridge region. At the NCTA he was involved in the preservation and archiving of all sorts of folk music and arts of the region. He was also director for the Blue Ridge Music Center in Galax, Virginia, which stands as a monument to his accomplishments and his advocacy of the significance of traditional folk music.
In his long career he produced 42 large-scale music festivals in 11 states, including some of the most significant in North America: the National Folk Festival; the Lowell Folk Festival in Massachusetts; the Border Festival in El Paso, Texas; and the Old Fiddler’s Convention in Tennessee. He organized 21 national tours by musicians and dancers, nine international tours that visited 33 nations, and 131 LP and CD audio recordings of various forms of folk music. With Lee Udall, he co-wrote the book Folk Festivals: A Handbook for Organization and Management. He was also involved in the production of 12 films. He was a founding member and former chairman of the board of the Fund for Folk Culture, a private foundation located in Santa Fe, New Mexico. [1]
In 2001, the National Endowment for the Arts awarded a National Heritage Fellowship to Wilson, an award also bestowed on John Cephas, largely by the support of Joe Wilson.
In the listing of this award, the National Endowment for the Arts stated[2],
While he has been a country record producer, a door-to-door salesman, a civil rights reporter, a Madison Avenue consultant, Joe Wilson is most well-known for his work as the Executive Director of the National Council for the Traditional Arts, the oldest organization in the nation devoted to the presentation of folk arts. From this position, he has had a profound influence on folk and traditional arts programming in this country. His mark can also be seen in the shaping of the national institutions such as the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as in the cultural programming at the National Park Service, the White House, and the Arts America program of the United States Information Agency (now in the Department of State)…His current resume wryly closes with the statement, “Joe Wilson was reared in the Blue Ridge Mountains at Trade, Tennessee’s easternmost and oldest community. He has no graduate degrees and is not listed in the Who’s Who of anywhere.” In spite of that, his work and his inspiring commitment to folk artists is quietly visible everywhere.
He was certainly visible as a mentor to Cephas & Wiggins, with an essential career forming influence second to none. Under Joe Wilson’s friendship and the NCTA’s umbrella, Cephas & Wiggins were included in Joe Wilson’s many activities, including numerous tours abroad; even performances at the White House by the duo were directly attributable to Joe Wilson’s connections and advocacy.
Essentially, Joe Wilson was a career catalyst to the duo, a close friend to John Cephas and an important mentor. He was instrumental in getting the important record contracts with Flying Fish and Alligator Records; he connected the duo with the Piedmont booking agency. While it is true that the first career spark for Cephas & Wiggins were the first recordings on the German L+R Label, as produced by Axel Küstner and Ziggy Christmann, those records were not widely distributed in the U.S., and hardly served to be the basis of recognition and name awareness to support a career launch. As Phil Wiggins reminisced, “We were better known in Europe than in the U.S. The European tours gave us the confidence that what we were doing is valuable and respected. But once we came back, we were still only known in our own communities in and around D.C. ” The true start of the career ascent of Cephas & Wiggins happened largely by the power of Joe Wilson, who had great influence on the traditional music scene in Washington, D.C., and beyond. While the duo had successful worldwide tours and two albums in Europe under their belt, their success at home, and career, was intricately tied to Joe Wilson. As Phil said,
Joe Wilson was the only person on the planet that John would listen to. Joe was a really unique person – it’s like a cliché, but he was really like a force of nature. He was a really special brilliant person and he and John were best of friends. Joe just liked everything about John and he felt like John had strong character and he just loved him – best friends all the way.”
He produced their most important albums:
- Dog Days of August – Flying Fish Records 1984 (W.C. Handy award winner)
- Guitar Man – Flying Fish 1989 (W.C. Handy award winner)
- Flip, Flop & Fly – Flying Fish 1992
- Cool Down – Alligator Records 1995
- Homemade – Alligator Records 1999
- Somebody Told The Truth – Alligator Records 2002
- Master of the Piedmont Blues – Cracker Barrel Series 2002
- Shoulder to Shoulder – Alligator Records 2006
The duo also received two W. C. Handy Awards for the Best Traditional Album of the Year and were also named Blues Entertainers of the Year in 1996.
Pete Reiniger, currently sound production supervisor for Smithsonian Folkways Records, recalled, “I knew Joe from 1980 – a long time ago. There was only one Joe Wilson. Joe was his own person. My impression of Joe Wilson was that he was an enabler. Joe’s was the type of person who worked on his own and his clock did not always sync with other people’s clock. He was a great schmoozer and a great human interface. He could talk to anybody.”
Phil Wiggins and Julia Olin, the current director of the National Council for the Traditional Arts in Silver Spring, Maryland, spoke about the NCTA and their memories of Joe Wilson:
Julia Olin had the distinction of singing on the Cephas & Wiggins critically acclaimed album Flip, Flop & Flyon the Flying Fish record label. Originally from the Saint Louis, Missouri, area, she was very involved with traditional cultural and fieldwork and all sorts of things in both the black and white communities there. She recalled,
“Joe made me sing on that album. I was really taken in. John and Phil were the first local musicians I heard. I am still delighted when I hear it today. The blues from St. Louis is very different (from the East Coast Piedmont style). It’s very much related to the river, the Mississippi River corridor. That’s what I was most familiar with. The blues from this region (Maryland, Virginia, Washington, D.C.) is much more melodic, with a delicate lyrical approach – very distinctive… Joe Wilson was the executive director of the NCTA for nearly 25 years, stepping down in 2004. I came in as associate director and then became director after he retired. He became director in 1976. That was a seminal period for the NCTA which is the oldest traditional arts organization in the United States, founded in 1933. For an 11-year period, from 1971 to 1982, the National Folklife Festival, which is the longest running multicultural traditional arts celebration in the United States, was produced here in Washington at Wolf Trap. That plays very much into the connection to the local blues scene here, because that is where the festival was featuring artists like Big Chief Ellis, and I think that’s where a connection was made with John Cephas and with Phil.”
Phil Wiggins:
“Shortly after the day we met at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival was my first appearance with John Cephas, Chief Ellis, and James Bellamy at the National Festival at Wolf Trap. I remember, because I remember Jerry – the great harmonica player from Birmingham, Alabama – was there and shared the stage with us. I’ll never forget that. After we jammed together, they invited me to join the group. We had played before at the Childe Harold and the first official gig that they had that they invited me to join them was out at Wolf Trap. That was in’76. Almost any traditional musician you can think of that has had a personal relationship with Joe Wilson — he impacted American music across the board, any tradition you can think of, whether it be like Dewey Balfa or –you name it.”
Julia Olin continued,
“In the ‘60s and ‘70s when regional traditions and local traditions that were virtually unknown to the broader public, that was a period when Joe was very active in bringing out these traditions and presenting them to larger audiences, through the festival and tours that he organized. He was a particular advocate for the East Coast or Piedmont blues, because he recognized it as a distinctive tradition and an important one that was often overshadowed in the public mind. Everybody thought the blues only came from the Mississippi Delta, when as a matter of fact, and as Joe was fond of saying, this (the East Coast blues) is the oldest form of blues. If you know anything about American history you can see that that is absolutely the case. The NCTA also worked with Archie Edwards and John Jackson and later with Nat Reese. That support of the regional blues continues to this present day. …The NCTA is primarily about live public programs, creating these encounters between traditional artists and the American public. That’s definitely something that has continued. We work with Phil Wiggins at every opportunity. Another interesting facet of what NCTA’s involvement with traditional artists and with blues here is our work and relationships with national agencies in bringing artists like John Cephas and Phil Wiggins in to perform at a meeting of the National Council of the Arts or at the American Folklife Center, in ways that educate policymakers about the blues and about the traditions and about the power of these traditions and their value. It works both ways: it’s good for the artists, but it’s also good to educate those who are granting agencies or policymakers. And that’s something in particular that we’ve been able to do….Joe Wilson and I worked on an exhibition for the Blue Ridge Music Center down in Southwest Virginia called the Roots of American Music, and it’s basically tracing the story of the meeting of the African banjo and the European fiddle in colonial Virginia and Maryland and how it developed and how aspects of it are very much still living culture in Southwest Virginia. To me that story, particularly of banjo music coming out of this region, translated to the guitar. That’s what I hear when listening to Phil and John. I hear how string band music, which was very much a shared tradition of black and white musicians, and with an overlapping repertoire – how that translated to the guitar, and that is to me a fundamental aspect of the style. It comes from this melodic dance music, as well as other musical streams feeding in at times. John Cephas played the banjo. John Jackson played the banjo. Joe used to go on for a long time how minstrelsy and the racism of minstrelsy put most of the black population off of the banjo. When the guitar came in, they took everything they knew musically and transferred it to the guitar. In a lot of the material with the alternating bass and the melody –people don’t dance to it anymore, but they could, because the beats are still there. Think about that blues House Party film that Eleanor did. The dancing in that was wonderful. Not just group dancing but individual dancing. Some of the documentation that Eleanor Ellis has done is priceless. What Phil does on the harmonica, as we’ve written, almost defies classification because he can play with anybody and he’s a very in-the-moment musician, and he has the technique to do anything he wants to do. But the way he really developed, as I can tell, a harmonica style that so perfectly exemplified the Piedmont style, it shows a tradition that isn’t dead – it’s evolving and it’s creative and it’s even changing instruments to a certain extent….Joe Wilson used to say that the influence of the parlor guitar fad and the techniques and music that were inserted was important in the development of the Piedmont blues style and many styles, as the entire nation was mad for these finger-picked styles with a bass line and melody. It was at the turn of the (19th and 20th century) when the parlor guitar became fashionable. This was the era of the mandolin orchestra and the banjo orchestra, and every young woman who was considered to have any accomplishments at all was expected to be able to play the guitar and accompany herself on guitar and sing, in addition to piano. But there was all this sheet music being published and it coincided with the availability of instruments through mass production. There were a lot of things that were feeding into learning the music, including open tunings and all sorts of things like that, as well as the alternating thumb and the melody. But the popularity of that traditional music, with things seeping every which way, it’s all about what people decide to keep, isn’t it? It’s not necessarily where it came from originally; it’s what you decide to keep and how long do you keep it….I would hypothesize that if you go back to the European colonization of the United States, the first Africans came into Virginia in 1619. This was a phenomenon, that it was coastal. It was the tidewater Virginia, all the way up the Chesapeake in Maryland. This was a very early region of settlement. If you go back to the early records and you want to look at who was playing the banjo, the music was being made by Africans and indentured servants. Those are the people who made the music for the dancing and for parties. You can find record and record of this. So you have a black-white interchange happening right there, and the banjo and the fiddle are coming together. I think that what makes this region unique in terms of the music that has descended and evolved since that time is that there is a direct connection. There is really a direct connection to the really first what you might call – other than Native American – syncretic truly American music – which had its genesis in this region, and those elements were in place from that time. Nothing holds still, but – so here is a continuous tradition that has evolved here and been maintained regionally. If you look at some of the picking that Wayne Henderson does or other people do today down in the Blue Ridge, and you listen to what John Cephas was doing, there’s a lot of similarity there….The thing that I love most about musicians is that they are for the most part basically color-blind people. They are so passionate about it – they have these beautiful communities and no one cares ever what you look like or where you came from, because there’s this sharing that transcends all other boundaries. That’s what took place at Archie’s barbershop. The community here in Maryland and D.C. is like that. But it’s been like that probably for a pretty long time….Of course you have these terrible stories of people in the music community that are not that open minded. But I think as a rule of thumb musicians hear with their ear, not with their eyes. And if they hear something that speaks to them, they get really excited about it. I’ve seen that happen in the present and in the recent past, like going around with these Masters of Steel-String Guitar tours and see the mutual respect and the really strong natural curiosity that the musicians have about what each other are doing. One of my great impressions was one of the first Masters of Steel-String Guitar tours I was allowed to go on. The first stop – I forget where we were, but it was one of those motels where all the rooms are on one level and it’s a big lawn. Everybody got to their room and put their stuff down and left their door open and sat down and started playing. It was like an open-air market of culture. You’d go from one door to the other, and everybody was playing something different and it was all beautiful. Then people started going into each other’s rooms and saying, “Hey, let me hear that” – and playing along. It’s a natural thing among musicians to do that. …The Bluebird Blues Festival was a really interesting example of if you put something where people feel that they own the space they’re going to come. It’s frankly unusual these days to see large African American audiences at blues-based events, but that festival has been the exception because Prince George’s Community College is in a majority black county and in a neighborhood that is predominately African American.”
Phil Wiggins reminisced,
“Black people come out for the Bluebird Blues Festival. People love it. It’s been over the years one of my favorite places to play, in Largo, and what I said before it’s like old home weekend – all the people are glad to see me and we talk on a real personal level. “Where you been?” “How you been doin’?” “Sorry that your partner passed.” Just really connected. In terms of the local blues community and people wanting to teach, people wanting to carry it on, when I first met John Cephas, he had no concept of being a musical ambassador or anything like that. He was kind of a jitterbug guy that loved to play, make music and play parties and drink and have a good time. He didn’t really care that much. He was just there having a good time. He was glad and happy to be able to just play. But over the years, mainly from his association with Joe Wilson, he started to realize, “You know, I play this music. This music has great history. It has important cultural aspects that people need to know about. This has value.” My friend at Port Townsend, Pete McCracken, said that he talked to John one time and Pete was asking questions. John Cephas said, “You know, I’m just glad that my life amounted to something, because I never imagined that it would.” Or “I’m glad that in the end my life has a balance” – or something.”
Julia Olin,
“John Cephas really took the role of musical ambassador, blues ambassador later on. He was very serious about it. People like Joe Wilson, and organizations like the NCTA, can help shine the spotlight on wonderful and beautiful things that maybe have not received as much attention as they ought to as being essential to our cultural identity. That doesn’t account for the continuing sense of musical community here, but, it just contributes to it. We couldn’t make that happen. We couldn’t make Archie’s barbershop happen. We could just be a part of maybe as Phil was saying, changing the perspective of the musicians themselves as to the value of what they’re doing. It’s not just fun; it’s also important. Oftentimes a senior member of a music community who has a generous spirit and is a teacher will inspire everyone around them to adopt that same attitude as this is part of what you do, what you should do and by example is saying this is what you should be and how you should share your music.”
Phil Wiggins,
“Absolutely. The person that really leaps to mind when you say that is John Jackson. He was just naturally a world-class, world traveled musician, that anybody could go to his house and sit in his living room and learn from him. He was so unassuming, so humble. I know that between him and John and Chief and Archie they definitely helped to form my attitude about playing music and about dealing with people and just being open. They were so generous to me. I know I wasn’t that easy to have around. But the fact that they welcomed me and taught me and like took me as family – I mean, you know, how can I do any less? If you talk to Mike Baytop or to Rick Franklin, they would tell you the same thing – that those guys really set a tone for them in terms of generosity, in terms of dignity, in terms of you know realizing the value of the culture and of the music. They’ll tell you that being around those guys is what instilled that in them.”
Julia Olin.
“And John Jackson was able to put more syllables into a single word than anyone else with that Rappahannock accent. At his funeral there must have been 500 people there. He was such a good man…I think that being situated here where there are a lot of cultural institutions and a lot of individuals– like Dr. Barry Lee Pearson– very passionate about the blues – and the Smithsonian, and the NCTA, and the Library of Congress – and all of these institutions presenting this music and by doing so affirming its value. I think all of these things may have played together to reinforce what was already happening within the musical community itself. So perhaps there may be other elements there as well that may have contributed to this. But in a way it’s the old-time way. I used to be a musician and I hung around with all the old fiddlers in the area of Missouri where I was living. And there would be – the jam sessions were a big circle– and if you’re new and you’re bad – you’re playing guitar, you’re playing fiddle, you’re kind of at the outside, and you’re playing kind of soft. But they would always make sure that you had a turn, right? “Okay – okay, Julie – Miss Julie, now you play one.” You know, maybe I played badly. But it was inclusive. There was a hierarchy but it was still inclusive. The better you got, right, the more you were allowed to move into the circle. It’s not that they kept you out, it was you just knew that you didn’t quite belong up in the first tier yet. It was the old-time country way of things.”
Practically the entire career of Cephas & Wiggins, since the mid 1980s, was heavily shaped by Joe Wilson, including major tours internationally and in the United States. This included NCTA sponsored tours such as:
Masters of the Steel String Guitar – 1990 and 1991.
Masters of blues, Appalachian flat-picking, Hawaiian slack key, dobro, jazz and rockabilly guitar styles were showcased in the first Masters of the Steel String Guitar tours, which helped open the doors of major performing arts venues to traditional artists in the early 1990s. Listen to tour recordings that capture live performances by John Cephas, Jerry Douglas, Wayne Henderson, Ledward Kaapana, Albert Lee, Tal Farlow, and others. Echos of Africa – A National Tour Exploring the African-Folk Origins of American Popular Music and Dance.[3] During these tours John Cephas appeared solo. Phil Wiggins joined the tours in 1993 (same lineup) and 1999/2000 (with John Cephas, Wayne Henderson, Linda Lay, Eddie Pennington and Johnny Bellar).
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning – A National Black Heritage Tour of Blues, Gospel, Buckdancing and Storytelling. 1986
This 18-city tour brought together the gospel ensemble The Badgett Sisters, Buckdancers John Dee Holeman and Quentin “Fris” Holloway, blues guitarist and buckdancer Algia Mae Hinton, and Cephas & Wiggins. The shows featured storytelling, “Patting Juba” dancing, buckdancing. Joe Wilson wrote in the show pamphlet: “This tour brings together the rich musical tradition of the house party, the road house and the church. It offers a glimpse of Juba, a rhythm and dance from old Africa and early America. You’ll hear a story passed through the generations in a black family.”[4] The Piedmont Blues was defined as “Bringing Good Sounds to the Hard Times.”
The influence of Joe Wilson was paramount on the career development of Cephas & Wiggins and his relationship with John Cephas was a life-changing connection that could well deserve a book in its own right.
Perhaps no individual had a greater influence and impact on Cephas & Wiggins career.
[1]Joseph Wilson. Folklorist, advocate and presenter. Silver Spring, MD and Trade, TN. Press release. National Heritage Fellowship 2001.
[2]Joseph Wilson. Folklorist, advocate and presenter. Silver Spring, MD and Trade, TN. Press release. National Heritage Fellowship 2001.
[3]Masters of the Steel String Guitar Tour 1990 and 1991. Website listing http://ncta-usa.org/mssg/2016
[4]Show pamphlet. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. The National Council for the Traditional Arts. 1986.