More than 4,000 people surrendered their homes and land to create the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The park covers more than 500,000 acres and straddles the border between North Carolina and Tennessee.
It is the most visited national park in the country, but few people know about the rich history of its former residents. The new folk music album “On Top of Old Smoky: New Old-Time Smoky Mountain Music” pays tribute to the lives of those individuals. It features contemporary reinterpretations of field recordings gathered in the 1930s, ‘40s, and ‘50s.
Host Frank Stasio discusses the album and efforts to preserve music from the region with Ted Olson, album producer and professor of Appalachian studies and bluegrass, old-time, and country music studies at East Tennessee State University. He is also joined by grammy-award winning musician David Holt who performs live in studio.
