Documentary screenings: picking, dancing, singing, and hollering in the North Carolina Piedmont

Thursday, 7:30-10pm

Talking Feet
The first documentary to feature flatfoot, buck, hoedown, and rural tap dancing. Featuring 24 traditional dancers videotaped on location in West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia, and North Carolina, including Piedmont NC musicians Algia Mae Hinton, John Dee Holeman, and Fris Holloway.

1932 Star Fiddlers' Convention
Footage from the 1932 Star Fiddlers' Convention featuring dancing by Marshall and Quentin Hammer of Ether, NC. This short film is notable for its documentation of old-time banjo styles in the North Carolina Piedmont.

A Singing Stream
This documentary highlights the importance of religious faith and music in the Landis family of Granville County, NC, and shows the impact of tenant farming, Jim Crow, the New Deal, civil rights, migration, and issues of land inheritance in this extended family. 

Friday, 7:30-10pm

The Ballad of John Henry
This documentary traces the history behind the well-known ballad and oft-heard tune. Drawing heavily on historian Scott Reynolds Nelson's research in Steel Drivin' Man, the documentary argues that John Henry was likely a real railroad laborer working in the post–Civil War South under laws called the Black Codes, and not a purely mythical figure.

Lauchlin Shaw, A.C. Overton, and Wayne Martin
Footage of Harnett County fiddler Lauchlin Shaw and Chatham County banjo player A.C. Overton with Raleigh's own Wayne Martin at the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes in Port Townsend, Washington. 

Daybreak with Homer Briarhopper 
A 1973 episode of WRAL's country music variety show. Homer Lee "Briarhopper" Drye was a household name in Raleigh, performing on television, radio, and at his popular dance club on Poole Road. He retired from music a few years after this episode was filmed and died in 1983 at the age 61.

Country Morning featuring Glen Dyer and his Brothers'n'Bluegrass 
A 1978 episode of WRAL's country music variety show, featuring "traditional old-timey bluegrass" picking and singing by Glen Dyer and his Brothers'n'Bluegrass. This group was a regular fixture at the NC State Fair in Raleigh for over four decades.

Welcome to Spivey's Corner
Every year, on the third Saturday of June, in an otherwise sleepy borough of southeastern North Carolina known as Spivey's Corner (population 49), some 5,000-10,000 folks gathered from far and wide to take part in the festivities and entertainment in the day-long extravaganza known as the National Hollerin' Contest.