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Civil War Stories from Happy Valley
In 2009, the North Carolina Arts Council commissioned me to create an audio piece on war stories from Happy Valley NC. The client 1) wanted at least four stories about the Revolutionary War and the Civil War as they were experienced in Happy Valley and 2) wanted these stories to be told by people who were either from Happy Valley or who were closely connected to the area in some way.
All of these stories were to be included in the same piece of audio with no narration. Any music had to be from a musician who was either from Happy Valley or elsewhere in Caldwell County NC. (Etta Baker was from Caldwell County.) Below is a short edit of what I produced for the client. All the stories in the edited piece below are about the Civil War.
The people telling their family stories are, in order, John Coffey, Eliza Bishop and Effley Howell.
The “soft” grand opening of RichardZiglar.com
So, I think the form of this web page is what I want it to be, and the links are current. I have a few audio samples I want to add but that is about it. These last audio samples are a few things I produced as a volunteer DJ at WXDU so they are not archived anywhere. I’ll have to store them on my own host, but Dreamhost, as some of you might know, has a very small default file size. That is getting fixed tomorrow and those last audio samples should go up by sometime next week.
If you have any suggestions please feel free to contact me here or on the other websites I maintain:
A new beginning
Hi folks,
All the posts before this were ported from my former Blogspot blog, which was last updated in 2010. There are some broken links in those old posts. As soon as I can fix those links, I will update the information in those blog entries, post again the ones that are relevant and delete the old Blogspot posts.
Thank you,
Richard
(This blog was last updated March 2, 2011 by Richard Ziglar.)
Thanks for your patience…
It has been a busy few months in audio doc land. Here are a few of the things I’ve been up to:
1) The War Stories of Happy Valley did get published to a CD. You can buy a copy here,
http://ncculturaltrails.org/happyvalley/contact/happyvalleycd.aspx
This was a work-for-hire piece so I am not making any money on the sale of the CD; however, it has quite a few interesting stories, including one about the legend of Tom Dooley. So definitely check it out.
2) Barry and I made our second interviewing trip to New Orleans, which he has blogged pretty extensivel. Sadly, it was our last extended trip down to Louisiana, for a while anyway. Most of the interviews are done. For the next few months I will be logging tape and, with Barry, creating the script and producing two one-hour radio docs on South Louisiana blues.
3) You may have gotten to this blog (well, actually an archive) by seeing the link at AARP’s Truckin’ My Blues Away . Barry and I co-wrote and co-produced that piece and it is the first major feature-length work we have produced together. From the blurb:
“This music-rich hour-long special introduces listeners to the stories and sounds of four older Southern bluesmen—and to the efforts of Tim Duffy, founder of the Music Maker Relief Foundation, to help lift these musicians from poverty and obscurity.
The musicians cover a wide swath of the South: Boo Hanks from Virgilina, Va.; Captain Luke from Winston-Salem, N.C.; Eddie Tigner from Atlanta; and Little Freddie King from New Orleans. In their own words and performances, these men bring us the story of a music, an era and a culture that are uniquely American.”
The program is co-produced and co-written by Richard Ziglar and Barry Yeoman, who traveled around the South collecting interviews and field recordings of the musicians. Yeoman, who co-produced our Gracie Award-winning program “Picking Up the Pieces,” narrates.”
If you have not heard Truckin’, please take some time to listen to it and let me know what you think: http://www.aarp.org/content/aarp/en/home/aarp/broadcast/aarp_radio/radio_prime_time/articles/truckin_special.html