108 OXFORD AMERICAN MAGAZINE FEATURES DR. CHARLES WOLFE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Oct. 4, 2006
EDITORIAL CONTACT: Professor Beverly Keel, 615-898-5150

Renowned MTSU Scholar’s Article, Obituary Included in ‘2006 Music Issue’

(MURFREESBORO)—Once again, MTSU music scholar Charles Wolfe gets the last word.
The Grammy-nominated professor emeritus of English and folklore, who succumbed to diabetes in February 2006, has one of his final scholarly works, "’I'll Blow those Cats into the Cumberland River': Louis Armstrong, Nashville, and Country Music," featured in the Oxford American magazine’s highly anticipated 2006 Music Issue.
Headlined “Country Music in Black and White” by the OA, the article traces jazzman Armstrong’s career-long connections with country music and his role in helping galvanize Nashville into the civil rights sit-ins.
In an online exclusive, the OA’s Web site (www.oxfordamericanmag.com) also features the grainy videotape of Johnny Cash and Louis Armstrong, joyously recreating Jimmie Rodgers' "Blue Yodel No. 9" at the Ryman Auditorium in 1970, that serves as the electronic accompaniment to Wolfe’s article.
In it, Wolfe reveals the little-known fact that Armstrong played on Rodgers’ original recording of that song in 1930. The renowned trumpeter’s appearance on Cash’s TV show culminated a whirlwind trip to Nashville to tout what would turn out to be his final album, “Louis ‘Country and Western’ Armstrong.”
“Absolutely fascinating,” Wolfe said with a grin while viewing the tape in February 2005 while reading his article at the “Perspectives on Popular Music” lecture series by the Center for Popular Music.
OA Editor and Publisher Marc Smirnoff had the same reaction to Wolfe’s article. So much so, in fact, that it’s one of the highlights of the new Music Issue, the latest annual compendium (complete with CD!) of sometimes obscure nuggets of Southern music past and present, boasting writers like Chet Flippo and Peter Guralnick and artists like Eartha Kitt and Uncle Dave Macon.
"That article demonstrates so many of his strengths: his scholarship, his interest and the breadth of his knowledge,” says Smirnoff with reverence. “The story may be known to some, but Dr. Wolfe brings it out so more people can share it.
“It affected people, and that’s part of his legacy. He spread such good news: the more art that’s out there, the more triumphs we’ll see.”
Alongside Wolfe’s article, MTSU recording industry professor Beverly Keel recounts the final chapter of the story: Wolfe’s fascinating obituary.
“It was an honor to write about Dr. Wolfe for Oxford American, but also a bit daunting because he was the dean of the country music scholars,” says Keel, who also serves as director of the Seigenthaler Chair of Excellence in First Amendment Studies. “He was universally adored and respected and inspired several generations of students, scholars and writers.”
The magazine is available by subscription, online purchase and at Davis-Kidd Booksellers, Hastings, Barnes & Noble and Borders.
“If you believe in the power of writing and of music,” Smirnoff says, “that’s what counts. The fact that all these people in this article—Louis Armstrong, Jimmie Rodgers, Johnny Cash, Dr. Wolfe—have died doesn’t mean that all their work isn’t still alive. Once again, art triumphs.”

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ATTENTION, MEDIA: For a color file JPEG of Dr. Wolfe viewing the video, a color TIFF of the cover of the Oxford American 2006 Music Issue and/or a headshot of Professor Keel, contact Gina E. Fann in the Office of News and Public Affairs via e-mail at gfann@mtsu.edu. Thanks!