J.E. MAINER LETTER TO ANN BUSHNELL, 1967

There are writing teachers who believe you can be more effective if you write as if you were speaking to someone. J.E. Mainer was a master practitioner of that method. He didn't let a modern device like a mechanical typewriter intimidate him. Each telegraph operator had a distinctive "fist," or unique pattern when sending dots and dashes, immediately identifiable by other operators. J.E. had a similar typewriter fist.

Background: J.E. and some members of his band stayed with Bill and Ann Bushnell when Mainer's Mountaineers appeared as part of the American Folk Music series at the Tyrone Guthrie theater in Minneapolis in 1965. The attachment referred to in the letter is a copy of an article published in the Concord (NC) Tribune, Thursday April 20, 1967, describing a presentation to J.E. by the Mooresville Lions Club, a "marble and gold trophy, topped with a gold music scale with one big note, and inscribed: Presented to J.E. Mainer for outstanding contribution to country music."

J.E.Mainer Letter


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