Lee Knight performing at MadStone Café and Catching Light Books

Description

Lee Knight will be coming to MadStone Café and Catching Light Books to perform. The program is free and an open jam follows the hour-long concert. The jam sessions are open to pickers and singers of all ages and experience levels, but also to those who just want to watch and listen. Lee’s performance is part of the ongoing “The Way We Worked” exhibit on display at WCU’s Mountain Heritage Center.

The program will be held Thursday, November 1st, 2018 in the MadStone Café and Catching Light Books beginning at 7pm. The Café and bookstore are located on the ground floor of Noble Hall, Western Carolina University in Cullowhee.

Over the years, Lee has learned music about work from traditional sources--people from across the country who had used songs about work or songs that helped them work.

Lee is a folklorist, musician, story teller and outdoor leader. He plays various instruments, including the five-string banjo, guitar, and the Appalachian lap dulcimer. He also collected songs and stories from Southern Appalachia as well as England, Scotland, Central Asia, Columbia and the Amazon region of Peru. He is about to publish a book of Adirondack ballads and folk songs as recorded by Marjorie Lansing Porter in the 1940's and 1950's.

Lee did the music and voice-over for the documentary video The Nantahala: Land of the Noonday Sun. He also has two cds out and regularly performs at concerts, workshops, Elderhostels, festivals, camps and schools. Lee has also participated in artist-in-residence programs with the South Carolina Arts Commission, the North Carolina Arts Council, the Tennessee Performing Arts Foundation, and the Georgia Arts Council.

The Smithsonian traveling exhibit on display at the Mountain Heritage Center in Hunter Library through Wednesday, November 7, documents late 19th- and early 20th-century jobs and labor shaped by many factors &é immigration and ethnicity, slavery and racial segregation, wage labor and technology, gender roles and class &é as well as by the American ideals of freedom and equality. Hours are Monday through Friday 10 am – 4 pm. The Mountain Heritage Center will also be open from noon to 4 p.m. on Saturdays October 27 and November 3.

“The Way We Worked” exhibit has been made possible at WCU by the North Carolina Humanities Council, a statewide nonprofit and affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. “The Way We Worked,” an exhibition created by the National Archives, is part of Museum on Main Street, a collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution and state humanities councils nationwide. Support for Museum on Main Street has been provided by the U.S. Congress.

The First Thursday series will continue in December 2018. Please bring your instruments if you would like to participate in the open jam. For more information about this program and others, please call (828) 227-7129 or visit http://mhc.wcu.edu