{"id":26673,"date":"2018-10-12T15:15:33","date_gmt":"2018-10-12T19:15:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/college.unc.edu\/?p=26673"},"modified":"2024-07-02T16:56:53","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T16:56:53","slug":"welch-wolfe-lecture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=26673","title":{"rendered":"Welch, Rawlings blend story and song during Thomas Wolfe Lecture"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"On
On the eve of Thomas Wolfe\u2019s 118th birthday, Grammy Award-winning lyricist and musician Gillian Welch, this year\u2019s Wolfe medal recipient, and her song-writing partner David Rawlings performed in Moeser Auditorium. (photo by Jon Gardiner)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Despite her preference to sing rather than speak, Gillian Welch filled the Oct. 2 Thomas Wolfe Lecture with plenty of stories about creative inspiration for her lyrics, while telling other stories through her songs.<\/p>\n

On the eve of Thomas Wolfe\u2019s 118th birthday, the ceremony brought the Grammy Award-winning lyricist and musician and her song-writing partner David Rawlings to Moeser Auditorium.<\/p>\n

Welch, known for her at-times dark Americana songs, is the first musician to be awarded the Wolfe Medal. The Thomas Wolfe Society and Carolina created the medal in 2000 to commemorate the birth of Wolfe, an alumnus (class of 1920) and author of novels such as Look Homeward, Angel<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Mary Floyd-Wilson, professor and chair of the English and comparative literature department, welcomed the audience. Then Savannah Bradley and Grace Morse, Thomas Wolfe Scholars in the class of 2022, stood on either side of Welch and slipped the medal over her head to the audience\u2019s applause.<\/p>\n

\u2018Powerful musicality\u2019<\/h3>\n

Bland Simpson, a Kenan Distinguished professor of English at Carolina, prefaced Welch\u2019s introduction by mentioning the \u201cpowerful musicality\u201d of Wolfe\u2019s prose, that Wolfe wrote a song for his father and that he included lyrics and music titles in his writings. Simpson said it is fitting that Welch, whose work in a deeply American art and whose art is the composition of lyrics and melodies that reach our \u201chearts, minds and I daresay, our souls,\u201d should receive the Wolfe Medal.<\/p>\n

Earlier, Rebecca Godwin, a Barton College professor of English who is president of the society, said that Wolfe\u2019s writings had inspired at least 44 musical compositions, ranging from works for ballet to symphonic to jazz arrangements.<\/p>\n

\"Grace
Grace Morse, left, and Savannah Bradley, Thomas Wolfe Scholars in the class of 2022, stood on either side of Gillian Welch and slipped the Wolfe medal over her head. (photo by Jon Gardiner)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Simpson called Welch a prophet and minstrel before welcoming her onstage.<\/p>\n

Welch and Rawlings thanked the crowd and the University for being honored. Welch said it was \u201cpersonally meaningful because of what Thomas Wolfe means to me.\u201d They then launched into the song \u201cHard Times\u201d with Welch\u2019s \u00a0banjo-playing front and center. Welch called their time on stage a\u00a0show, then corrected herself to say lecture, much to the audience\u2019s delight.<\/p>\n

As they prepared to perform \u201cThe Way it Goes,\u201d Rawlings and Welch said the song exemplifies their interest in how versions of folk songs become more and more focused over time, but less linear, as verses are lost or altered. They wrote around 20 verses before settling on the song\u2019s final form. \u201cWe accelerated the process by a couple hundred years,\u201d Rawlings joked.<\/p>\n

Writing \u2018Orphan Girl\u2019<\/h3>\n

Welch remembered a more streamlined process for writing one of her earliest songs \u201cOrphan Girl.\u201d \u201cIt was one of the very few without working with Dave,\u201d she said. \u201cI think his contribution was saying, \u2018It\u2019s done.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Rawlings added, \u201cI think I said, \u2018You don\u2019t have to worry about that one.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Welch said that, although she is an adopted child, she did not realize in any way that the song was autobiographical. \u201cI\u2019m often the last to know,\u201d she said with a shrug. She went on to\u00a0say that she knows little about her birth parents, but knows that her mother came from North Carolina. \u201cMy blood\u2019s from here, anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

For inspiration, Welch mentioned books. Her song \u201cAnnabelle\u201d was borne from a Walker Evans photo of a child\u2019s grave in James Agee\u2019s Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. \u201cIt broke my heart,\u201d said Welch, who then wrote a mother\u2019s lament for her daughter, whose death leaves behind \u201conly words on a stone.\u201d They performed the song with Rawlings\u2019 guitar picking ending it.<\/p>\n

Welch recalled that Carolina alumnus and respected Nashville music publisher David Conrad gave her and Rawlings their first break. \u201cI have a vivid memory of sitting across from his desk and playing \u2018Orphan Girl,\u2019 then he shook my hand and said, \u2018I have no idea what we\u2019re going to do with you but we\u2019re going to sign you.\u2019 I\u2019m glad he listened to his heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inspirations and a trusted ear<\/h3>\n

Other inspirations came from overhearing college boys ridiculing Elvis Presley, which led Welch to write \u201cElvis Presley Blues.\u201d The audience listened to the song, its lyrics conjuring visions of Elvis shaking it like a \u201choly roller,\u201d a \u201cHarlem queen\u201d and a host of other ways.<\/p>\n

Welch then stressed how important it is for a lyricist to have what she called \u201ca trusted ear around the house.\u201d She said that a few days after she was absently singing bits of a tune she equated to a nursery rhyme, Rawlings told her that she should finish the song. She did and that song became a crowd favorite, \u201cLook at Miss Ohio.\u201d<\/p>\n

The musicians performed \u201cRevelator,\u201d perhaps their best-known song, before answering a few questions from the audience about how they first met and learned to harmonize, Welch\u2019s micro view of her surroundings and how that contributes to their writing, and their memories about creating
\n\u201cApril the 14th.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll send you home with one more,\u201d said Welch, and\u00a0the duo ended the night with the romping, stomping \u201cRed
\nClay Halo.\u201d<\/p>\n

By Scott Jared, University Gazette<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Singer\/songwriter Gillian Welch, known for her at-times dark Americana songs, was the first musician to be awarded the Thomas Wolfe Medal. The Thomas Wolfe Society and Carolina created the medal in 2000 to commemorate the birth of Wolfe, an alumnus (class of 1920) and author of novels such as “Look Homeward, Angel.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":26674,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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