Restrictions to Access

Use of audio or visual materials may require production of listening or viewing copies.

Restrictions to Use

No usage restrictions.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Tia Blake Collection #20444, Southern Folklife Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Tia Wallman in October 2009 (Acc. 101248), October 2012 (Acc. 101683), and December 2012 (Acc. 101709); and from Joan Blake in March 2019 (Acc. 103566).

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Processed by: Anne Wells, April 2016

Encoded by: Anne Wells, April 2016

Revisions by: Nancy Kaiser, April 2019; October 2020

Archival processing of the Tia Blake Collection was made possible through a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Since August 2017, we have added ethnic and racial identities for individuals and families represented in collections. To determine identity, we rely on self-identification; other information supplied to the repository by collection creators or sources; public records, press accounts, and secondary sources; and contextual information in the collection materials. Omissions of ethnic and racial identities in finding aids created or updated after August 2017 are an indication of insufficient information to make an educated guess or an individual's preference for identity information to be excluded from description. When we have misidentified, please let us know at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu.

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• Blake, Joan, 1930-
• Blake, Tia, 1952-2015.
• Folk music.
• Folk singers.
• Folk songs, English--United States.
• Folk songs, Irish.
• Travel writing.
• Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American.

Christina (Tia) Elizabeth Wallman (1952-2015) was a white writer, artist, and singer. She was born in Columbus, Ga., and lived much of her life in Montreal and North Carolina.

After graudating high school in 1970, Wallman began working her first job at the New York publishing house, Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Six months into the job, Wallman quit and moved to Paris. When she arrived in France she stayed with Sicilian fok singer, Benito Merlino, who helped her get a singing audition for the record label SFPP (Societe Francaise de Productions Phonographiques) in Paris. Under the name of Tia Blake, she recorded an LP of American and Irish folk songs with SFPP. The LP, titled Folk Songs and Ballads: Tia Blake and Her Folk-group, was released in February of 1972. The album features an eighteen year old Tia Blake on vocals and Bernard Vendame and Francois Brigot on guitar. The three performed songs from the album a month after its release at the Theatre du Vieux-Colombier in the 6th arrondissement in Paris. This was the only live performance to promote the album's release. In 1973 Wallman recorded demos and rehersals in Paris alongside a guitarist named Jack (last name unknown). Songs featured in this session include "Betty and Dupree," "Hangman," "White Bird," and "Wish I Was A Single Girl Again."

In 1976 Tia Wallman was living in Montreal and approached the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) radio station after learning of a general request for original songs from local artists. Soonafter she recorded her own songs at the CBC studio, including "My Father Is A Lonely Man," "Yellow Hair," and "Country Boy." The CBC radio station did not express any interest in the songs and gave the tape of the studio recording to Wallman. Wallman had also previously worked as an off-camera vocalist on a handful of National Film Board of Canada produced films, including Saskatchewan River. She did not perform professionaly after 1976.

In 1989 Wallman graduated magna cum laude from Smith College, where she won the Elizabeth Drew Writing Prize. After graduating from Smith, Wallman became a freelance writer and editor and eventually settled in North Carolina. Her memoir about Saigon was published in the English literary magazine, Granta, in 2006. The memoir, titled "We Went to Saigon," recounts her and her sisters visit to see their father in Saigon during the Vietnam War. Her ten-minute comedy, co-authored with her mother, Joan Blake, was performed at the 2007 New York Cringe Festival.

Water Music, a record label based in California, reissued Folk Songs and Ballads: Tia Blake and Her Folk-group in 2012. The reissue also contains bonus tracks, including her 1976 recordings at CBC studio in Montreal as well as demos from her 1973 recording session in Paris.

The Tia Blake Collection consists of audio recordings on open reel, CD, and LP, as well as, photographs, papers, and publications created and compiled by the white writer and singer, Tia Blake Wallman. Under the name of Tia Blake, Wallman recorded an LP of American and Irish folk songs at the age of eighteen with a small record label in Paris. The LP, titled Folk Songs and Ballads: Tia Blake and Her Folk-group, was released by SFPP (Societe Francaise de Productions Phonographiques) in February of 1971. The collection primarily consists of materials related to this release, including a misprint copy of the LP, photographs, flyers, posters, correspondence, and a copy of the recording contract. The collection also includes an open reel audio recording, 1973, of rehearsals and demos by Wallman and a guitarist, an open reel audio recording, 1976, of original songs created by Wallman, audio recordings, 1956-1957, of Max Dunbar on LP and CD collected by Wallman and her mother, a recording contract between Wallman and the National Film Board of Canada, and a copy of the literary magazine, Granta, which contains Wallman's first published piece.

The Addition of March 2019 consists chiefly of writings by Blake, with a few cowritten with her mother, Joan Blake. Manuscript titles include "Bad Lady," "Forbidden Games," "Candomble...All that Is Blackened," "The Ordinary Bell Curve of Life," "On Trip with Dad," "Blame it on the Puritans," "I'm Ready for the Lord," "The Age Game," "It Was Christmas Eve," "The Wisdom of the Animal Friends," "Halloween Mask Murder." There is also an album of handwritten poetry on slips of paper and one photograph of Tia Blake holding a gun and an anaconda snake skin outside a hut.

• Audiotapes (FT-20444/1-2)
• CDs (CD-20444/1-2)
• LPs (FC-20444/1-2)
• Photographs (PF-20444/1-6; OP-PF-20444/1)