Haunting and twangy gospel music from Rickman, TN. The Coleman Looper Family is an acoustical (guitars, mandolin, bass, banjo & dobro) group with trio and quartet harmony vocals. The Group is on the road full time in the ministry for the Lord. They travel across the nation from coast to coast. Some say the group…
The link between two American visionaries.
Eleanor Dickinson was very close to the Mayes, visited them, recorded them, and she connected Harrison Mayes with the Smithsonian and got some of his work into their collection. Audio and video recordings as well as drawings and photos by Eleanor Dickinson is archived at the Smithsonian. https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2016/12/eleanor-dickinson-finding-aid/ Search results for Photo, Print, Drawing, Eleanor…
Mailing to a ministry in Jerusalem, asking them to put up an oil cloth sign/cross. (Smithsonian, Eleanor Dickinson Collection, 1967) https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_659735 https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search?return_all=1&edan_local=1&edan_q=Mayes%2C%20Harrison
Looking beyond the Highway | University of Tennessee Press Author(s): Stager, Claudette, and Martha A. Carver, eds. Sample some pages: Looking Beyond the Highway The original essay by Martha Carver in SCA Journal 18 (Fall 2000). Get a copy here on sca-roadside.org
We have documented a lot of signs of various sizes and kinds. Many pictures are in our research materials. But the only large barn-size sign that we had actually seen was located in LaFollette, Tennessee. This particular sign no longer exists. There is one barn sign that I am aware of, and it is located in and…
Another barn telling to “GET RIGHT WITH GOD” by Henry Harrison Mayes, near the Del Rio, TN barn, documented by Jacob Krejci I couldn’t locate it online, not sure if it is still there.
I saw the PREPARE TO MEET GOD barn for the first time on The Carpetbagger’s Flickr page and the only clue was Del Rio, TN a tiny town on a long winding road along a river. Mayes created the sign in the 50 and added the same message later with wooden letters above the metal…
From “A Coal Miner’s Simple Message” The cross bench is a very special sign that lots of people have enjoyed. This particular one-of-a-kind sign (bench) weighs two thousand pounds and is built in the shape of a cross. This shows the cross bench as it was first cast at Harrison’s homeplace. Later, it was moved to downtown. Presently, it is placed at…
The concrete heart at Totz, KY, appeared in an article in the National Geographic Magazine. In a demanding land that offers few rewards, religion provides sustaining comfort. This concrete sign, built to withstand the years—and, paradoxically, the bullets that regularly pock it—issues its prediction near the town of Cumberland in Harlan County.Similar messages adorn barns…
Harrison Mayes Railroad sign, April 1999 Trenton, Michigan (from A Coal Miner’s Simple Message by Catherine Mayes)
Only a Miner by Cadle, Tillman The Great Judgement Morning by Congregation of the Church of Ten Elders Around the same times, Henry Harrison Mayes was active, Alan Lomax traveled through Appalachia and recorded the music of the people there and the people themselves. Some recordings were released on Folkways, like When Kentucky Had No Union…
Sign by Henry Harrison Mayes in near Old-Hwy 63, Speedwell, TN Location: 36.52185783000347, -83.74941173203882 According to “A Coal Miner’s Simple Message” Book, a cross was relocated from Middlesborro to Speedwell, TN to Bill Hatfields property. I wasn’t able to find it via street view or satellite images, but I found a painted Mayes sign. Hatfield…
Mayes’ display near Middlesboro, KY, his hometown, in a short documentary about a snake handling church. Documentary about ‘snake-handling’ Kentucky church fails to grasp tradition, expert says
The Mayeses have mailed their bottle-contained messages all over the world, but so far, they said, they have not been able to break through the Iron Curtain. “I guess w e w ill have to float them in,” Mayes remarked. They m ailed four to the postmaster at Istanbul. asking him to throw them into…
The Legend of Harrison Mayes Liner Notes | Just Off The Wilderness Road It all began a hundred years agoWhen he painted a pig ‘cause the good Lord told him soGet right with God was what it had to sayThis is the legend of Harrison Mayes Up Mingo holler, down in a mineA broken rail…
The Carpetbagger is (or was ;-)) one of the best resources for Mayes markers. Jakob documented quite a lot. http://www.thecarpetbagger.org/2012/10/harrison-mayes.html Searching for Harrison Mayes on the Rattler
Henry Harrison Mayes wearing a trucker cap and a shirt with crosses painted on. Probably from an exhibition flyer.
37°46’04.2″N 82°19’49.0″W · 1990-2320 US-52, Williamson, WV 25661
PREPARE TO MEET GOD I wonder if this is an early photo of one of Henry Harrison Mayes painted signs. He put marker up in Williamson, WV, so it’s safe to assume he traveled there before. The typography seems a bit off brand though, so the sign could at least be inspired by Mayes.
