The Poplin Family Recordings: Locating Mountain Music in the South Carolina Flatlands

This paper considers the construction of “mountain” music in the case of a South Carolina stringband’s recorded repertoire. It raises questions of power, agency, and the meaning of Appalachian music in the 1960s folk revival. Laura Legrand’s husband jokingly calls her family “flatland hillbillies.” His comment highlights the persistence of the family’s Appalachian roots, three generations after Laura’s grandfather Henry Washington Poplin walked from Anson County, North Carolina to Sumter, South Carolina. Henry’s children Edna and China Poplin were local stringband musicians in Sumter. Their musical careers changed dramatically in 1962, when they met a young Jack Tottle. Tottle sent his field recordings of the Poplins to Folkways’ Moe Asch, who released them in 1963 as The Poplin Family of Sumter, South Carolina. After a few years of touring and another record released by Melodeon, the Poplins ceased playing beyond their local region. Despite the brevity of their national career, their recordings continue to circulate widely among both singers and instrumentalists are captivated by China’s distinct two-finger banjo style. A careful review of Tottle’s recordings, archived at ETSU, demonstrates that the Poplin repertoire was extensively edited for their Folkways album, leaving out songs with clear origins in minstrelsy, and songs from commercial sources. Through analysis of such choices, this paper - based on MA research completed at the University of North Carolina - identifies the process by which the Poplins’ music was reframed as “folk” music, providing an example of how “many mountains, many musics” have come to be constructed.