Deuce Richardson scouted up this fine nod to Fennario…
The Birthplace of Country Music Museum in Bristol Tennessee/Virginia is hosting a special exhibit on the old ballads that crossed the sea from the British Isles to Appalachia, featuring the fantastical art of Charles Vess.
Ballads – folk songs that tell a story through narrative verse – have been passed down through English, Irish, and Scottish oral traditions and continue to echo throughout the Appalachian Mountains today. Ballads have long captured the hearts and imagination of songsters, storytellers, and listeners, including award-winning illustrator Charles Vess. In 1993, Vess was inspired to illustrate the ballads he had loved to listen to for so many years. He worked with several award-winning and ballad-loving fantasy authors to develop scripts and compiled a series of beautifully illustrated comics, which he published in The Book of Ballads.
The exhibit, Charles Vess: The Book of Ballads, features seven ballads reimagined by some of the greatest fantasy writers of our time. The featured comics, including “The False Knight on the Road” by Neil Gaiman, “Thomas the Rhymer” by Sharyn McCrumb, and “Barbara Allen” by Midori Snyder, are an excellent introduction to traditional ballads for those not yet familiar and a special treat for those who already are. The exhibit also explores the tradition of ballad singing in Appalachia and traces the origin of each ballad and its journey through time. After all, singing is one way to keep ballads alive, art is another.
Deuce and I connected many years ago through a mutual love of the works of Robert E. Howard — who was himself something of an aficionado of the old Appalachian ballads.
FP readers know I am deeply enamored of suchlike, the Fennario described by Robert Hunter as:
“…a peculiar place where Appalachia met immigrant Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish folk traditions, to my mind the mythic territory of Fennario, where Sweet William courted Pretty Peggy-O with such romantically disastrous consequences.”
How I love that peculiar place…
It is most gratifying to see Fennario brought to the foreground in the birthplace of country music. Bristol, which is bisected by the Virginia/Tennessee state line, was the site of a series of 1927 recording sessions featuring the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers, regarded as the Big Bang moment of modern country music. The town features in Steve Earle’s bad-tooth hillbilly murder ballad, where the narrator kills his rival for the love of Carrie Brown.
I shot him in Virginia and he died in Tennessee…
I have long appreciated Vess’ work, and I have a copy of the Book of Ballads… somewhere…
Matthew says
As a comic nerd I can say Vess has extraordinary talent.
Quixotic Mainer says
Cool stuff! The image of the young traveller or road agent reining up his pony, is really evocative. Reminds me of ‘the Black Rider snippet from Howard. He should ease up on the bit though