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Local folk singers front film doc

Robby O'Daniel - Art and Entertainment Editor
Monday, November 26, 2007

Bringing the Documentaries in the Library Series to a close, director Heather Carawan looks into the lives of her parents, folk singers Guy and Candie Carawan, in "The Telling Takes Me Home."

With the film, Heather Carawan looks back at living in the South and how it has affected her. Guy and Candie Carawan were deeply involved with the Highlander Research and Education Center for more than 40 years.

"Guy and Candie Carawan have been the folk singers who helped spread traditional songs such as ‘We Shall Overcome’ and many others as inspiring anthems for crusades for social justice," said Anne Mayhew, a retired vice chancellor. "Not only will the film tell this story, but the evening will also provide an opportunity to listen to live performances of some of these songs and to meet with those who have made the music so much a part of the story of Highlander."

Guy and Candie Carawan counted it as a privilege to be involved in activism and music in such an electric atmosphere in history.

"We have always considered ourselves very lucky to have arrived in the South in 1959 and 1960, just when the civil rights movement was becoming such a force in this country," they said. "We were privileged to know such courageous and wonderful people who were primarily activists but also sometimes fabulous singers. Guy was a part of the folk music revival at a most interesting time as well — when there were large festivals bringing together traditional folk artists as well as topical songwriters and musicians and singers involved in movements for justice."

The two met at Highlander in April 1960 when Guy Carawan was a volunteer and Candie Carawan participated in sit-ins in Nashville. Throughout the ‘60s, they moved from city to city as the school moved, establishing their 40-year affiliation with Highlander.

The two parents recognized all the hard work their daughter put into the film.

"We feel very proud of Heather and the moving film that she created," they said. "She had to work through a mass of material and then find her own voice in telling a good story. She was the decision maker about what went into the film. She had to struggle with her own film faculty in graduate school — some of whom told her to do a straight documentary and keep her own voice out; and others who told her to strengthen and emphasize her own dialogue and viewpoint. We feel she made a wonderful synthesis and told an important story of the power of music."

The Documentaries in the Library Series will present their last film, "The Telling Takes Me Home," on Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the Lindsay Young Auditorium in Hodges Library. In addition to the showing, Guy and Candie Carawan, along with their son Evan, will give a speech and perform music. For more information on the Documentaries in the Library Series, visit http://www.lib.utk.edu/mediacenter/docs.