Restrictions to Access

RESTRICTED: Use of audio tapes may require production of listening copies.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Bland Simpson Papers Initial Inventory #4755, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Provenance

Received from Bland Simpson of Chapel Hill, N.C., in May 1995 (Acc. 95064) and September 1999 (Acc. 98447).

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• Authors, American--North Carolina--20th century.
• Country music--Fiction.
• Cropsey, Nell, d. 1901.
• Dismal Swamp (N.C. and Va.)
• Simpson, Bland.
• Simpson, Bland. Heart of the country.
• Simpson, Bland. King mackerel and the blues are running.
• Simpson, Bland. The Great Dismal : a Carolinian's swamp memoir.
• Simpson, Bland. The mystery of beautiful Nell Cropsey.

• Red Clay Ramblers Papers (#4756)

Bland Simpson was born in Elizabeth City, N.C., in 1948 and lived there until he moved to Chapel Hill, N.C., when he was ten. Simpson attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and later moved to New York City to be close to the music business.

Simpson released one album before he moved back to Chapel Hill and began performing with a band known as the Southern States Fidelity Choir. Simpson collaborated with fellow band member, Jim Wann, to create the off-Broadway hit Diamond Studs, a musical about the life and death of Jesse James. Since 1987, he has been the pianist for the North Carolina-based band called the Red Clay Ramblers. He is a lecturer in creative writing in the English Department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and, along with several theatrical collaborations, has authored several books.

The collection consists of materials relating to the writing of three books and a small amount of other material. An edited manuscript copy of The Great Dismal: A Carolinian's Swamp Memoir is included along with materials generated in the process of researching the book. A manuscript copy and the author's galleys of Simpson's novel, Heart of the Country, are included. Finally, a manuscript copy marked "early 1977 draft" of Simpson's non-fiction novel, The Mystery of Beautiful Nell Cropsey, is included along with an undated manuscript and page proofs and promotional materials from the musical King Mackerel and the Blues Are Running.

Note that the original titles of audio tapes included in the research materials relating to The Great Dismal have been preserved and that the tapes are listed in chronological order.

Items separated include pictures (PF-4755/1-2) and audiocassettes (C-4755/1-13).