Josiah H. Combs, Knott County Kentucky Musicologist

Josiah H. Combs was born in Perry County Kentucky and grew up at Hindman in Knott County Kentucky where he was the first graduate of the Hindman Settlement School. He graduated from Transylvania University and obtained a doctoral degree from the Sorbonne in Paris. He was one of the most important collectors of folk songs in America and his book, “Folk Songs of the Southern United States” (University of Texas Press) is considered a classic in the field. The book is based on his doctoral dissertation at the Sorbonne and was originally published in French in Paris. He also published “A Syllabus of Kentucky Folk Songs” which contained more than 300 songs collected in Eastern and Central Kentucky. Dr. Combs's publications include “The Kentucky Highlanders” (Lexington, Kentucky, I912), “All That's Kentucky” (Louisville, Kentucky, I9I5), and “Folk Songs from the Kentucky Highlands” (New York, 1935), as well as textbooks and contributions to the “Journal of American Folklore”, “Books Abroad”, “Folk-Say”, and the “Kentucky Folklore Record”. Much of his important work remains in manuscript, including "The Language of Our Southern Highlanders." Josiah H. Combs’ is one of the four great writers and educators whose lives are detailed in the recent Loyal Jones book “My Curious and Jocular Heroes”. Josiah H. Combs was an important professor of foreign languages (French, Spanish, German) and a first rate linguist. He was a friend to H. L. Mencken who was very laudatory of his writings in “Dialect Notes”, “American Speech”, “Publications of the American Dialect Society”, and “Publications of the Modern Language Association”. He collected and preserved folk songs in Kentucky, West Virginia, and Texas. Many of his documented versions of American folk songs are either the only versions ever preserved or considered to be the most accurate. They often contain language variants which are more correctly and accurately preserved than those of lesser scholars and writers. He taught foreign languages at Texas Christian University, the University of Oklahoma, and the University of Virginia. Many, if not most of his papers, are preserved in the Special Collections Department of the Berea College Library. While Josiah H. Combs’ literary work may not be well known in today’s literary world, he is one of the most important figures in the voluminous body of literature which is rooted in Knott County Kentucky and his published works are among the most respected in his fields of specialty. I have a major problem with the computer language on this blogspot website and I can't seem to get it corrected. My last few posts have had major errors in them which I can't seem to edit away. I apologize and I am working to correct it. When the problem has been addressed, I will re-edit the previous several posts. Keep coming back and thanks for reading my blog!

"My Curious and Jocular Heroes: Tales and Tale-Spinners from Appalachia" by Loyal Jones--Book Review

 

For many years, Loyal Jones has been the dean of Appalachian scholars and is one of the founding fathers of the field of Appalachian Studies.  But like most other people who earn a preeminent position in any field, he also had mentors, teachers, professors, and a wide collection of others who helped shape him into the scholar and writer he is.  Loyal Jones is now fully retired at age 93 after a long career as a professor, writer, and creator of the Loyal Jones Appalachian Center at Berea College.  I have been influenced greatly by Loyal Jones and his work and have written about him extensively on this blog.  He wrote at least two of the most important books in the field of Appalachian Studies, "Appalachian Values" and "Faith and Meaning in the Southern Uplands".  He also wrote several books of Appalachian humor with his co-author, Billy Edd Wheeler, who is sometimes better known as a song writer. 

This book, which was published in 2017 by The University of Illiniois Press may well be Loyal Jones' last book since he is now 93 and no longer living in Berea, Kentucky, near the college where he spent his academic career.  This book pays homage, both in biographical essays and the inclusion of selected works, to four of his professional heroes, three of whom he knew personally: Cratis D. Williams; Bascom Lamar Lunsford; Leonard Roberts; and Josiah H. Combs.  These men were all experts in the field of Appalachian Folk Music and Appalachian Humor which includes the world famous Jack Tales.  The book, as mentioned above, is composed of biographical chapters about each man and an immediately following section of folk songs, folk tales, or jokes each man is credited with documenting and publishing in their work.  This book is a wonderful assessment of the lives and academic careers of each of these men and a tribute to the extensive work they performed in collecting these songs, stories, jokes, and riddles which have been passed from person to person in an oral tradition which predates the English settlements in the Tidewater region.  Each of these men were also well educated and worked professionally but the book also makes apparent that each of them was most likely happiest when he was sitting in a hickory bottom chair on a porch in some isolated hollow in Appalachia listening to songs and stories being told by a local resident who often had no formal education but had spent their lives hearing, remembering, and retelling these stories, singing these ancient folk songs, and passing them on once again so they would be preserved in the record over time.  

Josiah H. Combs was the first graduate of the Hindman Settlement School and obtained a doctorate from the Sorbonne in Paris.  He worked as a professor of languages in several major universities and published several collections of these stories and songs in his lifetime.  Cratis D. Williams rose from a one-room school in Lawrence County Kentucky to become the dean of the graduate school at Appalachian State University and wrote a master piece doctoral dissertation about the literature of Appalachia.  He was also, like Loyal Jones, one of the founding fathers of the field of Appalachian Studies.  Bascom Lamar Lunsford was both a collector of these historic tales and songs and a performer as well.  He also happened to be an attorney and founder of the eponymous folk festival which still exists today at Mars Hill University in Mars Hill, North Carolina.  

Leonard Roberts grew up in Pike and Floyd Counties in Eastern Kentucky and was a multi-instrumental performer and college professor at both Berea and the University of Pikeville.  He is known as one of the greatest collectors of Appalachian folk songs and folk tales. He founded the University of Pikeville Press which published some of his work.  His two best known books, "Up Cutshin and Down Greasy" and "Sang Branch Settlers", are both required reading for anyone who wants to learn about Appalachian folk tales and folk songs.  He died far too young in a wreck with a coal truck near his home in Betsy Layne, Kentucky.  

Loyal Jones did a masterful and loving job of writing about the lives of each of these men whom he refers to as "my curious and jocular heroes" in the title of the book. He explains in the book his use of the multi-definitional word "curious" to describe these men.  Curious can mean both inquisitive, inquiring, and odd or strange.  Each of these men fits that definition in the most positive manner.  They were odd in that they chose to spend their lives collecting, recording, and passing on these stories and tales which most of their neighbors never bothered to remember.  And each of them was deeply curious about their native world in Appalachia and wanted to learn all they could about it in order to preserve and propagate that knowledge.  If you love Appalachia and Appalachian Studies, you need to come to know these five wonderful men with Loyal Jones included as their equal and biographer.  If you love a good folk tale, often leaning to the ribald, you will love these men and this book.  Read it and enjoy it, and learn some of these songs and stories to pass on along your way.