April 8, 2025
Songs From The Heart
The power of music to preserve family history takes center stage as we sit down with Nancy Brennan-Strange, a talented singer and balladist performing at the Tennessee Council of Social Studies conference in Gatlinburg. Nancy's musical journey reveals how deeply personal connections can transform into artistic expression that resonates across generations.
Website: Spotlight 4 Success
00:00 - Introduction to Nancy Brennan-Strange
00:46 - Nancy's Appalachian Music Background
01:58 - Family Influence on Musical Journey
03:19 - Live Performance: Kate Sullivan Ballad
04:37 - Final Thoughts on TCSS Conference
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Welcome to Spotlight for Success by American Book Company.
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I am Devin Pintosi, your host.
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We are here at the Tennessee Council of Social Studies in Gatlinburg, tennessee, really having a good time here at the conference.
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I am here with Nancy Brennan-Strange.
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Welcome, nancy, thank you.
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I'm happy to be here.
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Yes, nancy is a singer and balladist that is here at TCSS and she did some performances, I believe, last night.
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Is that right, right, that's wonderful.
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So, nancy, tell us a bit about how that went last night and your experience working with music.
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Okay, well, I come from Knoxville and I have a strong interest in Appalachian music, even though I sing jazz too sometimes.
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But the performance I did last night was a lot of Appalachian ballads and some original songs I've written, and some are kind of silly.
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And I came here because I used to play at Mark Fincham's school when he was at White Pine oh, okay, junior high school.
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So that's how I ended up here.
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Oh, that's wonderful.
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And so tell me a bit about what drew you to the kind of music you do.
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Well, when I started singing it was a while back and I was kind of a.
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I started as a folk singer and then I met a lot of people that worked at a place called Apple Shop up in Wattsburg, kentucky and they had a recording studio, june Apple Records.
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And so I ended up getting obsessed with Appalachian music and I went and worked at June Apple for a year in the recording studio with Appalachian music and I went and worked at June Apple for a year in the recording studio and just I love that music.
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I've moved on to do other stuff too, but I think Appalachian music's like Resonates.
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Yeah.
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Nancy, tell us a bit about how your story with your family is kind of intertwined with the music you sing.
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Hope to hear from you soon.
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Bye-bye.
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Well, I was working at a school this is like 30 years ago and my cousin told me a whole story about how my grandmother had come over from Ireland and what I was doing at the school was getting kids to interview older relatives or neighbors or something and ask them about growing up.
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And so when my cousin told me this story about my great-grandmother, I came home literally and just wrote this whole song called Kate Sullivan after my great-grandmother, that's wonderful.
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Yeah, that's great.
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Well, we would love to hear one of your songs.
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If you can sing that, that would be fantastic if that's good with you, alright.
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Okay, alright.
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My name is Kate Sullivan and I came from Ireland over to America in 1859.
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And I was only eight years old.
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We sailed on a great big ship Across the Atlantic Ocean and when the storms blew across the sea, we tied ourselves on board.
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We were bound for America, land of opportunity.
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Ourselves on board, we were bound for America, land of opportunity, leaving our homeland behind us Because of the.
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That's all right, okay.
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Is that enough?
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That's wonderful.
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Yes, anything you want to say.
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Thank you so much, that was great.
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Thank you, because you know, love hearing that music that resonates, you know, with someone's spirit, and then you're able to sing.
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That that's fantastic.
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Yeah, that's great.
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Well, do you have anything else you'd like to share with the TCSS community?
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This is a great conference.
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Yes, I feel a lot of energy here.
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That's great.
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I think you guys are going to have a great conference here, feel a lot of energy here.
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That's great.
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I think you guys are going to have a great conference here.
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Oh well, thank you.
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Nancy.
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Once again, this is Nancy Brennan-Strange, a singer and balladist here at the TCSS.
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Thank you so much for participating with us today.
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Sure thank you for having me.
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Thank you, it's nice to meet you.
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Yeah, you're welcome.
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