On Tuesday, June 21 at 7 p.m., the Birthplace of Country Music Museum is continuing its hybrid Speaker Series with Dr. Daniel Pierce, professor of history and distinguished interdisciplinary professor of the Mountain South at the University of North Carolina Asheville. Pierce will speak in-person at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum and via Zoom for a conversation about ”That’s Why All the Folks on Rocky Top Get Their Corn From a Jar: Myth, Reality, and Moonshine in the Southern Mountains.”
This program is supplementary programming to go along with the current special exhibit “It’ll Tickle Yore Innards!”: A (Hillbilly) History of Mountain Dew. All in-person Speaker Series attendees will be able to visit the special exhibit for free between 6 and 7 p.m. before the program.
Pierce is the author of Tarheel Lightnin’: How Secret Stills and Fast Cars Made North Carolina the Moonshine Capital of the World (UNC Press, October 2019), The Great Smokies: From Natural Habitat to National Park (UT Press, 2000), Corn From a Jar: Moonshining in the Great Smoky Mountains (Great Smoky Mountains Association, 2013), Hazel Creek: The Life and Death of an Iconic Mountain Community (Great Smoky Mountains Association, March 2017), and the first truly comprehensive history of early NASCAR, Real NASCAR: White Lightning, Red Clay, and Big Bill France (UNC Press, 2010). He has also recently collaborated with renowned Nashville, Tennessee poster artist Joel Anderson to produce the Illustrated Guide to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Illustrated Guide to Exploring the Grand Circle: Utah and Arizona.
