“The ETSU Walls of Time: A Bluegrass, Old-Time and Country Music Photomural” will be dedicated at East Tennessee State University on Wednesday, Sept. 17.
A formal ceremony will be held at 12:30 p.m. in front of Memorial Hall. Speakers will include ETSU President Dr. Paul E. Stanton Jr., and music will be provided by students in the university’s popular Bluegrass, Old-Time and Country Music Program. The ceremony will move indoors to the main (second) floor in the event of rain.
Following the dedication, participants will be invited to the third floor to view the photomural, which consists of 10 panels spaced along the length of the building.
Most panels are eight feet high, with the exception of 14-foot end panels at both stairwells.
This artful collage of 222 large and small photographs portrays more than 600 individuals. Identifying plaques provide names and other information keyed to figures showcased on the walls outside the Jack Tottle Bluegrass Suite which houses the musical program’s office and rehearsal areas.
The photomural, named for “The Walls of Time,” a song by Bill Monroe and Peter Rowan, has two major components, according to professor emeritus Jack Tottle, the ETSU program’s retired founding director.
The first component is a photographic history of the “brilliant first generation” of bluegrass musicians, as well as old-time and early commercial country musicians. These include such legends as Monroe, Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs, Ralph Stanley, the A.P. Carter Family, Benny Martin, Scott Stoneman and many others whose careers began in the 1940s and ’50s, like Uncle Dave Macon and regional favorites Curly King and the Tennessee Hilltoppers, and Bonnie Lou and Buster Moore.
“The photos portray literally hundreds of men and women – both well-known and obscure – whose musical gifts and sustained commitments to excellence underlie the entire field of bluegrass music,” Tottle said.
The second principal focus of the piece is the evolution of ETSU’s well-respected and world-renowned program, with pictures of students, faculty and supporters dating from the program’s humble beginnings in 1982. Also shown are various ETSU bluegrass alumni, both as students and as very successful professional musicians.
Some of the former students featured are Grammy and Academy of Country Music award-winning superstar Kenny Chesney; Tim Stafford, founder of the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) Award-winning band Blue Highway; IBMA winners Adam Steffey and Barry Bales, who, like Stafford, have enjoyed success with Alison Krauss and Union Station; Jennifer McCarter of The McCarters; Beth Stevens of The Stevens Sisters; Jill Andrews of the everybodyfields; Becky Buller of Valerie Smith and Liberty Pike; and Martha Scanlan, formerly of The Reeltime Travelers and now a solo artist.
Tottle says this unique photomural offers an opportunity for individuals who are new to bluegrass – as well as those already knowledgeable about the genre – to “view hundreds of musicians in a new context that connects them with their time and place in the history of bluegrass music.”
“‘The ETSU Walls of Time’ provides an opportunity for our students to see themselves as part of a vastly larger musical family than they might have imagined,” Tottle said. “As Willie Nelson says, ‘If you love music, you are my friend.'”
The Bluegrass, Old-Time and Country Music Program is now a vital unit of the ETSU Center for Appalachian Studies and Services, a statewide Center of Excellence. Program director and associate professor is Raymond McLain of The McLain Family Band, which performed all over the world for many years and still presents a few concerts annually.
And the assistant director and assistant professor is program alumnus Daniel Boner, who originally came to ETSU from his home state of New Jersey.
The acclaimed program continues to draw students to ETSU from throughout the United States and a number of other nations, including Canada, Scotland, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and India.
There are currently several hundred students participating in the program. While most of the 15 performing ensembles are bluegrass groups, the program also has a country band, two old-time string bands, and a Celtic band that formed in 2007.
Although informal jam sessions are always a favorite way to perform among musicians, students in various ETSU Bluegrass Bands over the years have also toured and performed nationally and internationally, in countries like Japan and the then Soviet Union (a year before the collapse of Communism). In addition, the ETSU Bluegrass Pride Band presented a special command performance at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.
The new photomural’s design is by ETSU alumnus Sam Mays in consultation with Tottle and Karlota I. Contreras-Koterbay, director of Slocumb Galleries in ETSU’s Department of Art and Design.
The wall panels were created and installed by Snyder Signs over the course of a week. The overall concept originated with Dr. Wayne Andrews, a former ETSU vice president who is now president of Morehead (Ky.) State University.
Persons planning to attend the dedication who do not have an ETSU parking sticker should visit the drive-up window at Public Safety – located at the campus entrance on University Parkway – to obtain a temporary parking pass, which enables them to use any faculty/staff or student lot.
For more information or special assistance for those with disabilities, call the ETSU Bluegrass, Old-Time and Country Music Program at (423) 439-7072.

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