The following oral history interview with Harry Rice, Berea College Sound Archivist, covers a variety of topics, including Harry's personal and educational background; his work in Special Collections and Sound Archives; the Appalachian Music/Sound Archives Fellowship; and the significance of Frances and John Reedy's music and documentation.
We learned a lot about Harry that we didn't know in terms of where he grew up and went to college. Timi was surprised and pleased to learn that he had lived and worked in the counties and towns in Eastern Kentucky that she is most familiar with (Barbourville, Corbin, etc.). Harry answered most of our prepared questions without being prompted and in general was an excellent interviewee who needed little guidance. He also offered some good insights about oral histories and archives that are inspiring and useful.
The overall interview is about 40 minutes long, which is relatively short given Harry's background, knowledge, and experience. There is especially much more that could be said about the Reedy project in particular, so we anticipate that we would like to interview him again at some point. He also has a special interest in David Lundy of Lundy Records in Barbourville, and he would like to meet with him in the near future to discuss his recollections and musical collections. We hope to facilitate this meeting in addition to setting up an oral history interview with Mr. Lundy.
* We conducted this interview with Harry Rice in conjunction with our Appalachian Sound Archives Fellowship as well as the Community Scholars Program sponsored by the Kentucky Folklife Program. The contextual information is excerpted from the corresponding "Interview Log" and "Field Notes" that we completed as part of our overall graduation requirements to become Community Scholars.
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