Appalachian History

When you buy clothes on easy terms,
The collector treats you like measly worms;
One dollar down and then, Lord knows,
If you don't make a payment they'll take your clothes.

When you go to bed, you can't sleep,
You owe so much at the end of the week.
No use to collect, they're all that way,
Peckin' at your door till they get your pay.

Chorus:

I’m a-gonna starve, ev'rybody will.
You can't make a livin' at a cotton mill.

When you go to work, you work like the devil,
At the end of the week you're not on the level.
Pay day comes, you pay your rent.
When you get through, you've not got a cent

To buy fat-back meat, and pinto beans
Now and then you get a turnip green.
No use to collect, they're all that way,
You can't get the money to move away.

Chorus:

I’m a-gonna starve, ev'rybody will.
You can't make a livin' at a cotton mill.

Twelve dollars a week is all I get
How in the heck can I live on that?
I got a wife and fourteen kids,
We all have to sleep on two bedsteads.

Photographer Ben Shahn made this 1937 photo on the same trip he photographed square dancers at Skyline Farms in Jackson County, AL. He doesn't identify the player by name, however. More commentary at end of lyrics.







Patches on my breeches, holes in my hat,
Ain't had a shave since my wife got fat.
No use to collect, ever' day at noon
Kids get to cryin' in a different tune.

Chorus:

I’m a-gonna starve, ev'rybody will.
You can't make a livin' at a cotton mill.

They run a few days, and then they stand,
Just to keep down the workin'man.
We'll never make it, we never will,
As long as we stay in a roundin' mill.

The poor are gettin' poorer, the rich are gettin' rich,
If I don't starve, I’m a son of a gun.
No use to collect, no use to rave,
We'll never rest till we're in our grave.

Chorus:

I’m a-gonna starve, ev'rybody will.
You can't make a livin' at a cotton mill.

from Our Singing Country, A Second Volume of American Ballads and Folk Songs, collected and compiled by John A. Lomax and Alan Lomax, New York, The Macmillan Company, 1949
online at www.archive.org/stream/oursingingcountr013537mbp/oursingingcountr013537mbp_djvu.txt

Notes to piece from Our Singing County: No. 1629. Acc. on guitar and sung by Joe Sharp of Skyline Farms, Scottsboro, Ala., in Washington, D.C., 1939. By courtesy of Nicholas Ray. See also "Cotton Mill Blues." Decca 5559.

Sharp played mandolin for the Skyline Farms square dancers when they performed for Eleanor Roosevelt at the White House, and his band was recorded by the Library of Congress on that trip. Players: Chester Allen, guitar and violin, Joe Sharp, mandolin, Herbert Green, violin, and Thomas Holt, guitar.

Dan Dutton, whom she mentored, discusses her legacy in more depth today on the Dandylandmuse blog.

From his post:

Jean wrote this email to one of her folk music friends who wasn't feeling well a while back, and posted it on the Mudcat traditional music discussion board. It is such an insightful and brave introspection:

"Here. We're back- son Jon from a two-week hospital stay,still having tests after getting home as they still can't find what the trouble is. George from another series of test, taking 18 different pills a day, soon to be told to start dialysis. Myself growling around the house with a hundred aches and pains. I can see and feel big changes coming, and know that this long Growing-Old part of our lives is coming to an end--- We ARE old! I start reading sympathetically about poor OLD people, and suddenly it hits me: What? I myself am 86. What do we do with our house? Man- all these taxes, who'll pay them next year? Will we go to a nursing home? Have a live-in nurse? I tell you, it's so hard when you finally realize that Life makes you keep on learning- right up to the end. I guess, as long as I can understand Life's messages, I'll be able to go on.

"And I tell myself, "Just think of all the people that ever lived in this world. How many problems and worries and tragedies have they endured, along with the fewer joys and goodtimes and successes? And, when you come down to it, one is one and all alone and evermore shall be so. Or another way of putting it, You got to cross that lonesome valley by yourself.

"I don't dread it, once I accept it. I have so loved my Mother and Father, all my gaggle of sisters, my three brothers (only one out of all of them is still in the world with me). We hurt with them if they have pain at the end, but we cannot go with them or ease that journey. Someone said, "The dead always look peaceful." I believe they are. I believe that they have walked the valley and found at last the destination we all are are striving to find. What else is Life, but a trip towards something higher and better? People who have almost died, have talked of being in a dark tunnel with a faint but bright light far ahead; then their passage is forbidden and they have to turn from the light and return to Life- to do an unfinished task there? To help or guide someone else for awhile longer?

"I wonder- but it doesn't matter, does it? None of us can live forever. We must live Life to the fullest, then give those behind us a loving farewell. That's what I hope I can do.

"I'll stop, because I don't know what I'm trying to say, but I thought it ought to be said. I guess I was trying to understand, myself, that not all of us CAN live to be old, or WANT to, and so arrive earlier at that entrance into the next world. In my personal prayers, I always say in my thoughts, "Lord, I'll stay as long as You need me, so show me what to do..."

"Big Mick, feel better, and I hope that Fate, or Karma, or whatever, eases up on you. I know you'll be needed in this Life for a long time, so take the reins that have been handed to you, and have a good, long run. You have many who love you and are running along with you, and that lonesome valley is still far away.

"Love to you all, Jean

"PS: Darn- I bet y'all will think this is a stupid letter, and tomorrow I may think so myself! But it's what I felt like saying."

Rebecca Dart, a Vancouver comic book artist and animator, is turning heads this week with her fresh visualization of the old-time tune "On the Banks of the Ohio." Click on each panel to see her wonderful linework enlarged.






Says Wikipedia of this tune: "Banks of the Ohio is a 19th century murder ballad, written by unknown authors, in which 'Willie' invites his young lover for a walk during which she rejects his marriage proposal. Once they are alone on the river bank, he murders the young woman.

"The first recording of the song was by Red Patterson's Piedmont Log Rollers on August 12, 1927. The song has since been recorded numerous times, by Henry Whitter, Ernest Stoneman, Clayton McMichen, The Carter Family, Blue Sky Boys (whose version, performed in 1936, appears in the soundtrack of the 1973 film Paper Moon), Johnny Cash, Monroe Brothers, Joan Baez, Olivia Newton-John (with Mike Sammes, in 1971, her second commercial single in the United States), Dave Guard and the Whiskeyhill Singers, and Doc Watson, with slightly different lyrics when sung by a female.

"The song is similar in subject to Pretty Polly, and likely tells the same story (Both songs date from approximately the same time, tell roughly the same story, and feature a villain named 'Willie')."

compiled from My Ashe County Home column by Muncy Gaultney in Ashe County NC newspaper “The Plow” (1960s-1980s)

"I like to forgot I was supposed to talk about old time music and I guess Albert Hash and the Whitetop Mountain boys are next on the list. Albert is known far and wide for his woodworking and instrument making. He is a shy retiring kind of feller, but let the boys and girls get together and he ain’t a bit shy with a fiddle. He is known all over, so I’ll put him head of the class, even if he don’t’ play 'The Walls of Jericho' or 'Granny, Will Your Dog bite?'

"I could talk about Albert for a week and not do him justice. We both come up the hard way. It was root hog or die. No jobs. So what you had was to make do or do without. He made his first fiddle with a pocket knife. He is a very adept wood carver.

"Well, I guess I also need to talk about the ones that help him make music---Thornton Spencer, a violinist and guitarist and a top musician; his wife, Emily, who is a number one guitarist; and Flurry Dowe, a clawhammer banjo player. Thornton is a very fine person and should be rated among the best of the old time fiddlers.

Banjo built by Albert Hash for Edward Lee Blevins on display at Birthplace of Country Music Museum in Bristol, VA/TN.

"I was at Thornton’s store the other Saturday and there was more fiddles, banjos and guitars than Carter had Liver Pills. There was a lot of good music. Albert Hash played “Pretty Patty,” which is one of my favorites. I tried to accompany him on the 5-string banjo but I guess I made a mess of it.

"Some of the old Brushy Mountain Boys came in the other day. We had a good time with Doc Watson and Charles Francis, two old clawhammer banjo players. Charlie is 80 years young but he can still play. His mother taught me what little I know about a banjo.

"The Helton Music Festival was finally pulled off. It was a grand event to me---meeting old friends and listening to the music. I love to try to play. I don’t want anything out of it, no money, no praise, just a feeling of peace, enjoyment and to be among friends. There is nothing more enjoyable than mountain music. Old Sage once said “Music soothes a savage beast.” He must have been an old time fiddler.

"It looks like Albert Hash is going to have to spur up as Ms. Emily Spencer is coming along on the Old Time fiddle. She is a wonderful person, and by gosh, I’m going to have to do sump’in cause my fiddling is gitten stale. I guess it’s because I’m gitten old maybe because I never could fiddle too well. I haven’t got it figgered out. Anyway, I think everyone that attended the convention had a good time. Helton is a wonderful little community. A good place to live.

"Now, you’uns be good and come see us when you can. Get all your roots and yarfs together, Granny, she’s a goin’ to be a cold ‘un this winter.”


sources: http://whitetopmountainband.tripod.com/id6.html
http://www.answers.com/topic/albert-hash
http://www.unctv.org/folkways/musicfthills/ahash.html
www.myspace.com/alberthashmemorialfestival

A prolific composer, South Carolinian Lily Strickland (1884-1958) published 395 musical works for popular, church, and children's performances. Her early works displayed the influences of life in the Jim Crow South, incorporating numerous elements of African American spirituals and folk music and the rhythms of Southern speech.

Lily was the only daughter of Charlton Hines Strickland and Teresa Hammond Reed. The family lived with her maternal grandparents, Judge & Mrs. J. Pinckney Reed at Echo Hall in Anderson, described by The State newspaper in 1958 as "a beautiful old place in the midst of formal gardens." The home was built by Judge Reed, whom the paper went on to portray as a "man of such great personal charm and ability that his legend persists after six generations. He is remembered as an immaculate dresser, who wore frock-coat and stove-pipe hat and carried a gold-headed cane. Yet he often 'fiddled,' as he called it, for dances at his house when his many daughters were young, and is said to have been full of fun and frolic."

In addition to his distinguished career as a judge, Reed was a successful lawyer, publisher of Anderson, SC's first newspaper, and a member of the South Carolina Secession Convention. Lily’s grandmother was also known for her friendliness and charm, and both grandparents provided strong influences on Lily Strickland’s childhood.

For a brief time the family relocated to New York City, where Lily's father's work as an insurance salesman had taken them. But upon her father's death a few years later, Lily and her two brothers returned with their mother to Echo Hall. Often sung to sleep by her mother and aunt, Lily was surrounded by a musical, and warm, loving family.

She attended local Anderson schools and began learning to play the piano at the age of six. At an even younger age, her family reminisced that she would stretch up on tiptoes, barely reaching the keyboard, to pick out a few notes of musical expression. As a small child she often listened to the cotton pickers as they sang while working in the nearby fields.

Absorbing the Negro rhythm and melodies and the other influences of the natural environment of long Southern days amidst the pines and magnolias and the chirping of songbirds provided Lily with inspiration for her first compositions. Her older cousin Reed Miller, a noted concert tenor, encouraged her by singing the songs she made up. Other family members fostered her musical ambitions as well, and Lily played the pipe organ in the local Episcopal church and published her first compositions when she was only sixteen.

Lily received her formal musical education at Converse College in Spartanburg, known across the South for its strong music program. She studied piano and composition there from 1901 to 1904. Strickland went on to fame and fortune elsewhere, but in recognition of her accomplishments as a composer, Converse College conferred an honorary Doctor of Music degree upon her in 1924.

Lily Strickland enjoyed wide popularity, an unusual accomplishment for a female composer in the early twentieth century. Numerous ensembles, including the New York Philharmonic, the Charleston Symphony, and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, performed her work.

MAH LINDY LOU
Words and music by Lily Strickland (1920)

Honey, did you hear that mockingbird sing last night?
Oh Lord, he was singing so sweet in the moonlight
In that old magnolia tree, bustin' his heart with melody.
I know he was singing of you, Mah Lindy Lou, Lindy Lou
Oh Lord, I'd lay right down and die
If I could sing like that bird sings to you,
Mah little Lindy Lou.

Lindy, did you smell that honeysuckle vine last night?
Oh Lord, he was smelling so sweet in the moonlight
Clinging 'round my cabin door, reckon it's 'cause he loves you so.
Honey, that's the way I love you, Mah Lindy Lou, Lindy Lou
Oh Lord, I'd lay right down and die
If I could be as sweet as that to you,
Mah little Lindy Lou.

Lindy, did you feel that south wind blow last night?
Honey, it was kissing you sweet in the moonlight
Blowing from that old bayou, seems to say it loves you so.
Honey, that's the way I love you, Mah Lindy Lou, Lindy Lou
Oh lord, I'd lay right down and die
If I could be that wind a-kissin' you,
Mah little Lindy Lou.

Her most famous composition was a popular piece with a Southern flavor, Mah Lindy Lou, which entered the popular repertory through repeated performances by ballad singers in vaudeville in the 1920's, and later was recorded by both Burl Ives and Paul Robeson.


sources: More Than Petticoats, Remarkable South Carolina Women, by Lee Davis, Globe Pequot, 2009
http://www.scencyclopedia.org/strickland.htm



Lily+Strickland appalachian+music appalachian+history +appalachia +history+of+appalachia

Listen to Buell Kazee play "The Dying Soldier"

Oh brother Green, oh come to me,
For I am shot and bleeding,
Now I must die, no more to see,
My wife and my dear children.

The southern () has layed me low,
On this cold ground to suffer,
Stay brother stay and lay me away,
And write my wife a letter.

Tell her that I'm prepared to die,
And want to meet her in heaven,
Since I believed in Jesus Christ,
My sins are all forgiven.

My little ones, I love them well,
Oh could I once more see them,
That I might bid them a long farewell,
But we will meet in heaven.

Oh brother I am dying now,
Oh see I die so easy,
Oh surely death has lost it's sting,
Because I love my Jesus.

Go tell my wife she must not grieve,
Oh kiss my dear little children,
For they will call for me in vain,
When I am gone to heaven.

Recorded on January 18, 1928 in New York City

Buell Kazee was a master of the high, "lonesome" singing style of the Appalachian balladeer. His banjo style was a unique variation on the traditional frailing style, and he played in as many as eleven different tunings. Because most of his life was taken up with preaching and his duties to his Baptist congregation, he had a limited time for music.

In 1926, W. S. Carter, the proprietor of Carter's Phonograph Shop in Ashland, KY (who was also a representative of Brunswick-Balke-Collender Recording Company) heard Buell sing. As a result, Kazee the following year was asked to record for Brunswick in New York. The producers of the sessions asked Kazee if he could sing with more of a southern accent---he was a bit perturbed by this, having worked relentlessly to hone his voice to a point he considered worthy of recording.

Over the next two years, he recorded 52 songs backed by New York musicians. Many were religious, but others ranged from traditional to popular ballads, including "Lady Gay," "The Sporting Bachelors," and "The Orphan Girl." His biggest hit was a version of "On Top of Old Smoky" called "Little Mohee," which sold over 15,000 copies on 78 rpm recordings.

Buell Kazee's career as a professional musician came to end in 1929, despite offers of tour support for county fairs across the country and membership in the radio cast of WLS' National Barn Dance in Chicago. His priorities were spiritual, not musical. "I couldn’t go that way," he said (he heard the call to preach at 17). "My life was cast in a different direction and there wasn’t any reason to consider it. I was going to preach all my life."

Kazee was born on this date in 1900, at the head of Burton Fork in Magoffin County in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky.


sources: www.cmt.com/artists/az/kazee_buell/bio.jhtml
www.appalshop.org/archive/kazee/
www.archive.org/details/Dyingsoldier
http://leoweekly.com/?q=node/5781



appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history appalachian+music Buell+Kazee Magoffin+County+KY

Listen to the Coon Creek Girls play "Flowers in the Wildwood"


On the evening of June 8,1939 limousines began to deliver the cream of Washington D.C. society to the East Room of the White House. President and First Lady, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt were entertaining King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of England and had arranged a command performance in their honor.

Music for the evening was provided by the finest representatives of American culture, including opera tenor Lawrence Tibbett, classical musician Marion Anderson, pop diva Kate Smith, and Alan Lomax singing Western songs. The evening also featured four energetic young women called the Coon Creek Girls, who would play traditional stringband music and accompany Bascom Lunsford's square dance group from North Carolina.

"Coon Creek Girls was a very happy time. As far as I know, we were the first all-girl string band," recalled band leader Lily May Ledford at Berea College during a 1980 solo performance there. "We startled the audience by being all girls — our sound was drowned out by the uproar of applause and yelling."

Ledford has been widely recognized in Kentucky and throughout the nation by scholars, musicians, and listeners who have unanimously credited her with bringing the musical culture of eastern Kentucky to the world. She was an inspiration to generations of younger musicians, including Pete Seeger.

Ledford learned to play on an old discarded fiddle formerly belonging to "Gran'pappy Tackett," who was a famous old-time fiddler of the Kentucky mountains, as was her father, White Ledford. She told the story of how she made her first fiddle bow from a willow switch and a generous portion of the tail of "Ole Maudie," "Gran'pappy's" white mare.

In 1936, at the age of nineteen, Lily May left Pinch-em-Tight Hollow, KY to begin her public music career in Chicago, where she joined the National Barn Dance. A year later she ventured on to Cincinnati, where she became a regular on musical promoter John Lair’s newly formed Renfro Valley Barn Dance.

It was here that Lair, an early promoter of women entertainers, encouraged Lily May along with her sister Rosie, Violet Koehler, and Daisy Lange to form the Coon Creek Girls. It was called that "so that people will know at once what kind of music they're going to hear," Lair said. The group made its broadcast debut on October 9, 1937.

How Many Biscuits Can You Eat? was their first number at the White House soiree, featuring Lily May's outstanding five-string banjo, Rosie on guitar, Violet on mandolin, and Daisy on bass, with all four sharing the comical verses. They knew this piece was a favorite of Mr. Roosevelt and had performed it countless times back home in Kentucky and Ohio. Another FDR favorite, Get Along Miss Cindy was planned as well as an English ballad, The Soldier and the Lady, in honor of the royal couple.

Meantime John Lair, in order to get in to see the performance, had to pose as the the bass fiddle carrier for the group. Lily May said they laughed in the back of the limo as Lair lugged the big bass along, "Law, how times has changed, back home he's king, and we're the subjects you know, up here we're riding in the limo, and he's trailing along totin' the bass fiddle—that done us good!"

In 1939, after Koehler and Lange left the band, the Ledfords were joined by their other sister Susie. The high mountain harmonies of the group proved to be an exciting contrast to the sentimental home-and-mother styles of the period. The trio, singing and playing with the true family mountain sound, served as a musical standard for the old-time genre for years to come.

At a time when traditional music was being brushed aside by many in favor of bluegrass, swing, and smooth country crooning, the Coon Creek Girls stepped up to the mike with a fresh, energetic approach to tunes, songs, and instrumental styles that were as old as the hills.


sources: www.nativeground.com/cooncreekgirls.asp
www.wku.edu/kentuckyfolkweb/KYFolklife_Ledford.html
www.talentondisplay.com/renfrovalleyartists.html
www.nea.gov/honors/heritage/fellows/fellow.php?id=1985_05





appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountians+history appalachian+music Coon+Creek+Girls Lily+May+Ledford National+Barn+Dance Renfro+Valley+Barn+Dance

Please welcome guest blogger Kevin Bannister. Kevin was born in Pike County, Kentucky in 1958 and raised in Mingo County, West Virginia till he was 18. These days he runs Liberty Graphix, a graphic design studio in Atlanta. His favorite quote? "I started with nothing and have most of it left."


Granny---that's what we called my great grandmother---and what a wonderful and complex woman she was; so full of life, love, lore, stories and song. For several years in the late 1950's Granny had the honor of participating in the American Folk Song Festival in Ashland, KY hosted by Jean Thomas, the "Traipsin' Woman."

Here's a photo of my Granny (on the far right), with Jean Thomas the "Traipsin' Woman" (rear middle) at the 1959 American Folk Song Festival. Her oldest daughter, my Great Aunt Polly, is slightly behind her on her right. The seated woman is Dora Harmon; her daughter Elizabeth Robinson stands behind her.

Lula Maynard Curry was born October 15, 1890. She had already lived sixty-eight years before I came along. I only knew her for 17 years before she died, but I'm so glad I had the opportunity to get to know her. She could be hard at times, as were the times she had lived through. But for a mountain woman of that time and place, she was well educated; she helped start Burch High School in Delbarton, WV, which my father and sisters and I all graduated from years later. And fittingly, all three of her daughters became teachers. She was well traveled too, having gone cross-country to California several times by car and train in the 1930s. Quite the socialite you might say.

One of the songs I remember her singing the most was Barbara Allen, of which there are over 90 versions. But since so many people might be familiar with that song here are the lyrics to The Squire's Daughter (aka The Two Sisters), which may be less well known, and like Barbara Allen, there are probably other versions.

So you think the big city has drama! The poor younger sister in this song was done in by her own kin so she could take her lover. Granny sang this song at the festival, though I'm unsure of the year.

The Squire's Daughter
There was an old squire in a country,
Bowers bend to me,
There was an old squire in a country,
He had daughters, one two and three,
True to my love, my love's been true to me.

There was a young Lord came a-courting there
Bowers bend to me,
There was a young Lord came a-courting there
Courting all the youngest fair,
True to my love, my love's been true to me.

He bought the youngest a beaver's hat
Bowers bend to me,
He bought the youngest a beaver hat
'Course the older she didn't like that.
True to my love, my love's been true to me.

Sister, sister yes walk out,
Bowers bend to me,
Sister, sister yes walk out,
See those ships, sailing about
True to my love, my love's been true to me.

As they walked out, around the bend
Bowers bend to me,
As they walked out, around the bend,
The older shoved the younger in.
True to my love, my love's been true to me.

Sister, sister, lend me a hand
Bowers bend to me,
Sister, sister, lend me a hand,
I'll deed to you my houses and land.
True to my love, my love's been true to me.

I'll neither lend you my hand nor glove,
Bowers bend to me,
I'll neither lend you my hand nor glove,
But I'll take from you your old true-love.
True to my love, my love's been true to me.

****************************************

Mountain people know passion about their loves, lives, land and kin, but I think those old ballads and folk songs were meant as a warning to us younger generations to not stray down the broad path to our own destruction. That's the thing that so many young people don't understand. When you do unto others you are really doing unto yourself, but it may take years to catch up with you. You really do reap what you sow. Ask me how I know!

Well, I hope all of you had a wonderful Granny or Gramps in your life to tell you about the awesome times and the tragic times which they lived through and the wonders their eyes have seen. Wonders like you coming into the world and growing up as they pass on their well earned wisdom to you. You can learn a lot from your elders if you just listen and sing along.


American+Folk+Song+Festival appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history appalachian+music Delbarton+WV Jean+Thomas Lula+Curry