Today we’d like to introduce you to Noah Marr.
Hi Noah, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My name is Noah Marr and I began Chattanooga Folk at the end of April 2025. I created this nonprofit purely through happenstance, I am a large-time media collector and frequently purchase hauls of VHS, cassettes, 8-tracks, and other analog formats. These hauls would have me traveling through Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia frequently.
As I purchased more hauls from Craigslist, eBay pickups, and Facebook Marketplace (I love to find “new” old music this way, throwing in a random old tape), I began seeing obscure music from my hometown of Cleveland, Tennessee, and surrounding areas. Tennessee Tom & Joe were the first I noticed, a father-son duo from Lookout Mountain that played traditional folk songs on dulcimer, they made two albums of mentioned recordings that were available on cassette and as records. Tom also was well-known for his wood-working and dulcimer-making talents.
This all came to a head when I posted a gospel record from the church I attended in my youth in Cleveland, a recording from the North Cleveland Church of God. After posting this in a historic group on Facebook, people began educating me on who the people were on the album cover. Folks telling me vacations the choir took together, and how caring the elder people of the church were, and the intention and life that was put into a record like this. After seeing the city come together to reminisce on days of yesterday that were almost lost to time, I created Chattanooga Folk to catalog and preserve analog recordings from the Greater Chattanooga Area & Southern Appalachias. However, this project has expanded to 4 countries and all across the United States, with almost 1,900 recordings preserved across over 15 states.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I do work a full-time job alongside this and struggle with ADHD & OCD. Those two can pair together to be a super-power, but I do struggle time-to-time with being able to focus and making time to meet my digitization goals per month. With it being just me, there are many things that need to be done, such as organization, research, and website maintenance. Those things do come second-hand to new recordings being preserved. Preservation is most important because we can get help researching and organizing later. A lot of these locally manufactured private press cassette tapes are not well-made like a popular release, so recordings are being lost to time as we speak, and this occasionally does happen. We always do our best to preserve as much as possible in the highest quality, free and accessible to all.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am a 27 year old man operating as a one persona nonprofit. We (I) preserve mostly music, but also dabble in analog film, ephemera, and printed materials. Anything that was regionally created and not mass-produced has an opportunity to be housed in the archive, anything that can be lost to time is something we are interested in. This includes anonymous photographs from the early 1900’s, photographs of artists and areas that have never made it to the web, lyrical compositions, and more.
We specialize in analog media preservation and research. A large part of the archive is not only the music or media, but the accompanying stories. Who the people are, their story, their reasonings, and as much as we can unearth. It is essential for citations to coexist, sharing our sources for said information. I am most proud of preserving Dalton Roberts’ catalog. He was our first county mayor in Chattanooga, and he revitalized the waterfront and helped created the Tennessee Aquarium. He was a devout musician in his free-time, and it was my honor to personally make all of his catalog available, save for an album or two that are lost to time still that we are actively hunting for.
Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
I enjoy doing this work. I enjoy the opportunity to stay busy in my free-time preserving music and media. I frequently get thank you emails and letters from the descendants of artists whose music I have digitized. When possible, we donate the recordings to next-of-kin so they can be reunited with the recordings and have a sentimental keepsake to remind them of that time or person. That is the only time we will get rid of a recording.
Pricing:
- We digitize media for free. Donations encouraged, there is a wait time.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.chattanoogafolk.org
- Instagram: @chattanoogafolk
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ChattanoogaLocalFolk
