2016-464-E Arts - Eno Publishers - Spring 2016 Arts Grant Agreement

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DocuSign Envelope ID:A7B705FD-OEDD-4AC5-8764-8905D8B8991 F When invited by the Southern Foodways Alliance several years ago to speak about Moon Pies at their annual meeting,I asked Mrs. Council if she remembered eating that delicacy. She immediately replied, "I love a Moon Pie. I'd eat one now if I had it. They were a snack thing that they had everywhere, like in the service stations and grocery stores. I remember at first they all had chocolate. They had a chocolate covering. And in the late eighties and nineties they came out with a cream cover. The inside was crispy like a cracker." Mrs. Council expanded my study of the American South with her wise voice. Each fall I teach an 8:00 am course on Southern Music that traces the region's music from its roots in Indian music, spirituals, and ballads to country music,blues, and rock and roll. Inspired by Marcie's study of foodways, I include a final class on southern music and food. For that class,my students and I gather in the back room of Mama Dip's around tables laden with her delicious breakfast specials. As the students begin their breakfast, I lecture about the importance of food in southern music. Whether at Sacred Harp sings with dinner on the church grounds, at blues house parties, at country music honky tonks, or at southern music festivals, food is an essential ingredient of the music performed. Mama Dip's begins to rock as we listen to a recording of Blind Boy Fuller singing "I Want Some of Your Pie": I'm not jokin'and I'm gonner tell you no lie. I want to eat your custard pie. You got give me some of it, `Fore you give it all away. Then we listen to Big Bill Lister's recording of"R.C. Cola and Moon Pie." Standing six feet seven inches tall, Lister billed himself as "the world's tallest singing cowboy," and who would dare question his claim as he sang: I may be just a country boy, But Brother I get my thrill, With an R.C. Cola and a Moon Pie, Playing "Mabel on the Hill. " There are many food connections to Chapel Hill music worlds. Local band Southern Culture on the Skids insists that before each concert begins,buckets of fried chicken must be passed out to their audience, who then eat the chicken while dancing to songs with lines like Got too much pork for just one fork. Won't you pass that apple pie? Interviewed by my student Michael Spinks, band leader Rick Miller explains that, "Our music is a lot like a southern plate lunch. Every item on the menu has been cooking for a while and has its own flavor,but they all run together when you put them on the plate and start to eat. We take 2