Hey, do you remember hanging out at Picassos? How about dancing to Slickrock, Government Cheese, or The Outskirts appearances on local public TV?  Do you remember the Hilltoppers and their smooth melodic vocals?  How about blues artists like Kenny Lee, Michael Gough and country artists like Arthur Hatfield, Joe Marshall, Jordan Pendley and even Cousin Emmy?  Who can forget the spirit filled music of our churches like Hillvue Heights?

Anyone who has lived or even visited South Central Kentucky for any length of time has realized that this part of the state has an incredibly rich cultural heritage with regard to art, theatre and especially music. Music has always been a part of everyday life here and musicians are well known and loved like members of the family, because many of them are members of the community.

This month an exhibit opened in the Harry Jackson Gallery of the Kentucky Library and Museum on the WKU campus called “Playing Our Song: Southern Kentucky Notes“ that celebrates the rich popular music history of the southern Kentucky region. This exhibit, the first of its kind at the library is designed to celebrate the wide variety of music and musicians that have lived and performed in the region.  From gospel, to bluegrass to rock-in-roll, this exhibit showcases many of the people and places that have made the musical history of this area so rich and known throughout the world.

The exhibit is also designed to let people know about the library’s collection of all sorts of items that relate to the world of popular music in south central Kentucky from rock to gospel to country to bluegrass.  The Kentucky Library and Museum has, for many years, been collecting tapes, sheet music, records, CDs, photos and personal effects and still encourages people and members of the community to donate such items. They now have some amazing treasures that are considered priceless.  In many cities, the popular music history of an area is often quickly lost with the passage of time, the loss of landmarks and the growth of cities.  Too often, when people start to try to honor this part of their heritage, it is too late.  The SKYMAPP project and the Kentucky Libraries and Museum are committed to insuring that this does not happen for our community.

This exhibit’s collection has been recently enhanced by wonderful gifts by local luminaries such as Tommy Starr and Joel Stoner and the folks at the WKU Libraries & Museum welcome anyone who may wish to add to the collection.  If you are interested in looking at some of the other items in the collection, simply log onto the WKU Libraries website on the WKU homepage and click on KENCAT. When you get to the search page, you can, for example, type “Picassos” and press search to see a group of posters from this famous Bowling Green night-spot.  Keep searching and who knows what you’ll find.

“We are trying to make the exhibit represent the wide variety of materials we have in our collection” said Sue Lynn McDaniel, Special Collections Librarian, WKU Libraries & Museum.  Helping Sue Lynn with the exhibit are Suellyn Lathrop, University Archivist and Nancy Richey, Image Librarian.  This exhibit is also affiliated with the Southern Kentucky Musical Archives Preservation Project (SKYMAPP) which has been working with the museum to secure donations and promote the longevity of the musical collection.

“When people think of music, they usually think of CDs and LPs but we have so much more of our musical history here” said Sue Lynn McDaniel “we have tickets, posters, rare photographs, musical instruments, everything you can imagine, and we’d like to have more.  For instance, we would love to have an 8-Track player and some tapes. How many young people have even seen an 8-track player?  Anybody got an old 8-track they want to donate?”

 Sue Lynn added “Whether you like country, classical, rap or rock, you will find that Southern Kentuckians are indeed playing your song.”  Come by and take a walk down this musical memory lane.

About the author: Jack Montgomery is a librarian, author and associate professor at Western Kentucky University where he handles bookings for musical acts in University Libraries, Java City coffeehouse. Jack has also been a professional musician since 1969 and performs with a celtic quartet called Watersprite. Visit him at MySpace/shadowdancerjack or on Facebook.