Hot Springs attorney and folklorist Terry Diggs will give some insights into Emma "Blind Emmer" Dusenbury and present a program of Arkansas folk songs and stories to the Garland County Historical Society at its monthly meeting at noon Tuesday at the Garland County Library.
Dusenbury, 1862-1941, was one of the great folk singers in American history, the Historical Society said in a news release.
"The Arkansas poet John Gould Fletcher said of her, 'Ever since the day when I heard, for the first time but not the last, this song sung in a leaky-roofed, decaying cabin by an old, blind, and illiterate
woman, dressed in flour-sack clothes, whose repertory consisted of nearly a hundred such ballads, I too have regarded the (Arkansas mountains) as a magic land,'" the release said.
As a child, Dusenbury resolved to "learn all the songs in the world, but eventually gave that up."
Diggs, a graduate of Hot Springs High, Hendrix College, and Washington & Lee Law School, is now "semiretired," with more time to concentrate on the old folk stories and songs he loves, the release said.
The public is welcome to attend the program.
Society on 11/17/2019