Album Notes

This collection of three CDs, with 24 stories told by 22 JSG members, commemorated the Guild’s 10th Anniversary. It offers only a sample of the variety of tales waiting to be told. Our special thanks to the many visitors from across the nation and from lands beyond, whose imaginations gave wings to the stories crafted by JSG’s tellers in our first decade.

In 1972 a handful of storytellers gathered from the mountains in and around Northeast Tennessee and spent a weekend sitting on hay bales and swapping tales in Tennessee’s oldest town, Jonesborough. Their desire to keep alive this art form, nearly eclipsed by the arrival of movies and television in the 20th century, grew into the annual National Storytelling Festival held each October. By the early 1990s a nearby university was offering a unique master’s degree in storytelling through the reading center at its college of education, encouraging teachers and librarians to revitalize children’s imaginations by introducing them to the fascinating realm of oral tradition.

In 1994 seven local tellers formed the Jonesborough Storytellers Guild (JSG), to preserve and perpetuate storytelling by offering year-round performances in shops and cafes along Jonesborough’s Main Street. After more than a decade, JSG still gives local audiences the opportunity each week to share humanity’s most ancient form of communication — story.

And now.....it’s time for a story. Do you remember old-time radio with its variety of mystery, comedy, adventure, and terror? Did grandparents enthrall you with tales of magical kingdoms and heroic adventures? Were your summer evenings spent with neighbors, gathered on front porches (before television and air-conditioning), laughing at whoppers until your sides hurt? Then we hope this collection will evoke wonderful memories. If you were born after that calmer era, we offer you this gift of story as a reflection of what life was like then. May it help you develop a taste for the wonderful world of imaginative listening.

A point of etiquette: The storytelling community’s code of ethics places on each teller the responsibility of giving proper credit to the creators of any stories that he or she plans to share with listeners. If you like a story on this album, please contact its author for permission before telling it publicly. And realize that recording it — whether for sale or not — without permission, is a naughty thing to do. The directory of tellers in this album is slowly becoming out of date as our vagabond members move along; so please visit the JSG Web site — www.storytellersguild.org — for an updated directory of its active members.

For further information, visit these Web sites:
www.storytellingcenter.net — International Storytelling Center
www.etsu.edu/mdstread.html — master’s degree program in storytelling at East Tennessee State University
www.storynet.org — National Storytelling Network