Ruralite Cafe: Published 09/13/01

By Lynn Hotaling - Associate Editor

Queen provided inspiration for 'Songcatcher'

When theater-goers see the feature film "Songcatcher," they see a character based on 87-year-old Mary Jane. Known throughout Western North Carolina for her banjo-picking and ballad-singing, Mary Jane is mentioned in the movie's credits along with her youngest son, Henry.

What does one have to do, I wondered, to get their name associated with a movie? Mary Jane didn't mind telling me.

"Some people came from New York and interviewed me," Mary Jane said. "Maggie and David. We talked, and Henry and I made music for them."

Mary Jane's visitors were Maggie Greenwald, who wrote and directed "Songcatcher," and David Mansfield, who composed the film's original score and was its musical director. They learned about Mary Jane through a Waynesville acquaintance who had heard the Queens perform at Lake Junaluska.

Viney Butler (Pat Carroll), one of the film's central characters, is modeled after her, Mary Jane said, and Viney's grandson, Tom (Aidan Quinn) is based on Henry.

"Songcatcher" revolves around the adventures of turn-of-the-century musicologist Lily Penleric (Janet McTeer), who, while visiting her sister's isolated mountain school, discovers that the inhabitants of the remote settlement still sing pure versions of the Elizabethan ballads their ancestors brought from the British Isles.

Greenwald invited Mary Jane to spend a day on location in Madison County during "Songcatcher's" filming. Accompanied by her youngest daughter, Jeanette Schrock of Hendersonville, Mary Jane said she watched the shoot, met leading lady McTeer and viewed some of the day's clips.

"I told them I thought it was really good," she said. "They found one of the most beautiful places - it was such a beautiful view where they did the filming," Mary Jane said. "They wanted Henry to go over there and play the banjo. He should have gone, but he didn't."

After she saw her character in the film, Mary Jane said she told someone she was just like Buck Owens, who wrote and performed the hit song "Act Naturally." To demonstrate her point, she sang a few bars: "They're gonna put me in the movies. They're gonna make a big star out of me. And all I have to do is act naturally."

Mary Jane traveled over to Asheville earlier this summer to see the finished film and liked what she saw. "When the movie was over and we had gotten to the parking lot, a lady I had seen when they were filming came up and asked me how I liked the music," Mary Jane said. "I told her I thought it was good. And I did - I thought it was real good."

One of the songs highlighted in the movie, "I Wish I Was a Single Girl Again," is one of Mary Jane's stage staples, and she said she sang it for the two movie-makers when they visited her on Johns Creek. Viney's movie version of the song is reminiscent of Mary Jane's with regard to rhythm and phrasing, but Mary Jane says the words sung in the film are the Carter Family's and not hers.

"My brother and I wrote the words I sing," she said.

Though she doesn't remember anyone coming to this area to collect songs during her girlhood, Mary Jane said the movie brought back memories of bygone days in the mountains around Caney Fork.

"It reminded me of when I grew up - during my teenager years and in my 20s," she said. "There's people about that age in the movie."

Greenwald based her screenplay on the ballad collecting of Olive Dame Campbell, wife of John C. Campbell, founder of the Brasstown folk school that bears his name. Folk school director Jan Davidson, who met Mary Jane during his years in Cullowhee at Western Carolina University's Mountain Heritage Center, matched the musical matriarch with playwright Scott Eyerly some 15 years ago.

"Songcatcher" is not the only time Mary Jane's life has provided the spark for a creative project. Eyerly visited Mary Jane's Johns Creek homeplace before writing his play, "On Blue Mountain." When the musical opened in the Big Apple on Oct. 15, 1986, Mary Jane and daughter Jeanette journeyed north for the occasion.

"What thrilled me the most was to see the lady that imitated me," Mary Jane said.

Mary Jane, who is featured in a book on local culture and traditions written last year by students at Blue Ridge School, has been around music all her life. Her dad, banjo player Jim Prince, played all over the mountains, and her late husband, Claude, made music as well. All eight of Mary Jane's children sing, and six play the banjo, guitar or fiddle. Mary Jane began to play when her "arm got long enough to reach the neck of the banjo" and taught herself to play by watching her father's fingers, she said.

Mary Jane and her family will play and sing at WCU's Mountain Heritage Day Sept. 29 and during Jackson County's sesquicentennial celebration Oct. 20 in downtown Sylva. Don't miss your opportunity to see and hear a local legend who continues to inspire younger generations with her love of song and pride in her heritage.

"If some of the younger generation don't learn the ballads, why they'll just die out," she said. "There's very few who still sing them."

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