As I often tell audiences, these old folk tales and these old folk songs, these are the words of your ancestors being spoken directly to you.” “And that’s what the storyteller is for, too. “The fundamentalist preacher’s role is to give the people a sense of mystery, that there’s something beyond their meager lives,” Rucker says. “The explanations got longer and longer to the point that I was sometimes doing a 15-minute introduction to a three-minute song,” he says. He tired of simply playing songs during concerts and began to tell audiences the song’s history. James “Sparky” Rucker was a musician before he was a storyteller. Older folks in the community shared Brer Rabbit tales, African-American stories that date to the days of Aesop’s famed fables which were merged with Cherokee “trickster rabbit” tales during slavery. At annual memorial services for his grandfather, a prominent bishop in the church, he heard humorous “preacher tales” poking fun at the people in power. As a child, Rucker would listen as his father’s large family told stories over supper. Growing up, acclaimed storyteller and folk musician James “Sparky” Rucker’s family was closely tied to Knoxville’s African-American Church of God. But general folk tales from Cherokee, European and African traditions are resurfacing. Some stories remain underground, such as tales that refer to sacred medicine or contain gender-specific information.
“In a couple generations there has been a huge renaissance in storytelling and in passing information along,” artist and storyteller Davy Arch says. This summer, regularly scheduled storytelling sessions were held at a bonfire at Oconoluftee Islands Park and, near Halloween, the tribe held its first Myths and Legends Tour, featuring contemporary and ancient haunted tales. Just down the road from Gary Carden on the Qualla Boundary - the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians’ reservation - traditional tales are also moving into the spotlight. Carden hopes future Liars’ Bench sessions will cover topics such as the last hanging in Webster County, N.C., and local lore surrounding a charismatic Cherokee chief from the 1950s. Instead, their stories, music and visual presentations study a regional theme. The popular Liars’ Bench programs aren’t the same as stories told during the winters of Carden’s childhood, nor are they quite like the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tenn., or the hip Synergy Story Slams in Asheville, N.C. Their storytelling programs have moved to an auditorium at Western Carolina University’s Mountain Heritage Center in Cullowhee, N.C., and even with the auditorium’s 92 seats and crowds standing in the hallway, each event has still turned people away. Nearly two years ago, Carden formed a group called the Liars’ Bench to revive the casual, tale-telling atmosphere of small Appalachian towns.
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