Speaker Session: Dr. Randal Williams on The Carter Family: A Representation of the Sacred Ideal in Early Country Music – Virtual Only

Date: Tuesday, December 10, 2024

Time: 7:00 p.m. ET

Location: Zoom (virtual) but must pre-register

Cost: Free and open to the public

REGISTER HERE

Join us at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum on Tuesday, December 10, 7:00 p.m. for our monthly Speaker Sessions with Randal Williams on “The Carter Family: A Representation of the Sacred Ideal in Early Country Music.” The dichotomy of the sacred and the profane is intrinsic to early country music and its mythology of troubadours, the eternal struggle against evil, and damnation and redemption, all of which have become tropes of the genre and remain so to this day. These ideas were especially important in early country music and its evangelical Christian foundation. The dichotomy of the sacred and the profane is accepted as being real in an evangelical Christian context. The oppositional nature of the sacred and the profane has been fundamental to the development of country music, and more broadly, roots music in general. Early roots musicians who were enculturated in an evangelical, fundamentalist ideology intrinsically understood the sacred and the profane, good and evil, God and the devil. Life to them was an existential struggle against these opposing forces. The Carter Family, even though they had a wide repertoire of songs from various genres, are often remembered sentimentally as singers of sacred religious songs. They represent the sacred ideal in early country music, which can be heard in their music and discerned in their choice of musical material and in their collective public persona.

About Randal Williams

Dr. Williams was born at Fort Meade, Maryland, and has lived all over the country – however, his ancestry runs deep in Tennessee, and he considers himself a proud hillbilly. With a background in anthropology, history, and cultural studies, Dr. Williams has worked as an archaeologist, historic preservation planner, cultural resources manager, and university professor, among myriad other occupations, including everything from guitar builder to truck driver to chief cook and bottle washer. Dr. Williams comes from a long line of old-time and gospel musicians, and he grew up steeped in Appalachian musical traditions. Dr. Williams holds a Ph.D. from Tennessee Technological University. His dissertation is titled The Lost Highway: The Dichotomy of the Sacred and the Profane in Early Country Music, 1921-1957.