Tag: Appalachia

Reclaiming Community: A Conversation with Tyler Hughes

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In early February, the Empty Bottle Stringband made their debut at the Carter Family Fold in Hiltons, Virginia, a hallowed ground for lovers of old-time and country music. A quartet of old-time musicians based in Johnson City, Tennessee, the Empty Bottle Stringband specializes in the lively, toe-tapping fiddle tunes that fill the floor with dancers at the Carter Fold, and the band is familiar with the musical family who gave the venue its namesake. When Tyler Hughes takes up the autoharp and introduces the Carter Family song, “There’s No Hiding Place Down Here,” the sounding rhythm is closely kin to the style of Mother Maybelle Carter, a living example of the sound that brought Southwest Virginia to the world’s musical attention. Hughes’s performance carries other ties to the cultural ground he’s standing on: in the clear, true tone of his singing, the stories that enrich the music, and the down-home humor that has brought laughter from generations of careworn audiences.

As a solo performer and member of the Empty Bottle Stringband, Hughes has represented Appalachian culture on stages across the eastern United States since his teenage years. Now in his mid-20s, he continues to live, teach banjo, and organize cultural arts projects in his home community of Big Stone Gap, Virginia. Hughes is a graduate of the Old-Time, Bluegrass, and Country Music Studies program at East Tennessee State University and, during his time as a student, he performed extensively with the ETSU Old-Time Pride Band. Whether he is attending a board meeting for a community foundation, calling a square dance, or showing a local kid their first chords on the banjo, there’s a reverence of heritage evident in all of his work. The ties to Hughes's Appalachian heritage are collective — traditions of music and dance which work best when a group will put them to use, not admiring them from a distance, but participating in the present.

Tyler, tell me where you grew up, some of your family’s history there, and how you started to play old-time music.

I grew up in Big Stone Gap, in Southwest Virginia. I grew up in town, but on top of a mountain; we have a really beautiful view of Powell Valley from our front porch. I grew up in the mountains, playing in the woods, and I had some interest in music as a kid, but later in my teen years, I took up music more seriously. My family’s been here for several generations now, and my mom and dad were both raised here in Big Stone. My dad was raised in town and my mom was raised outside of town in Powell Valley in a little holler called Cracker’s Neck, which sounds like a really magical place and it was. My mamaw and papaw lived in Cracker’s Neck, and my papaw still lives there. Both of them were avid country music fans — and so is my mom — so I grew up listening to modern country, '90s country, but I also listened to a lot of older country like George Jones and Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton. I was taught to appreciate all that. I remember going to my grandparents’ house, and my mamaw would get out her record player and her eight-track tapes and listen to those artists. My grandparents were a big influence on me and they were also big fans of the '90s line dancing craze so, when I was younger, they would take me out to line dances, and I would be part of their line dancing group pretty often.

I started playing music when I was about 12. I’d always had an interest in music — I was in chorus in school and in theater — but I really didn’t have an interest in traditional music until a little bit later, when I started taking guitar lessons. I started taking banjo not too long after that, and I attended a local camp here called Mountain Music School. I attended Mountain Music School in its second year, and it was there that I really got introduced to the region’s music — people like Papa Joe Smiddy — but especially I remember the Whitetop Mountain Band came one day and played for us, and Emily Spencer, who’s a really wonderful banjo player from Southwest Virginia, was one of the leaders of the group. I just remember seeing and hearing her play the banjo and I thought, “That’s what I want to do.” Emily’s playing really struck a chord with me, I guess you could say. At Mountain Music School, I learned how influential Southwest Virginia’s music is on the world’s music. I really had no idea about people like Dock Boggs or the Carter Family until I started going to Mountain Music School and hanging around the folks that helped organize the camp, like Todd Meade and Julie Shepherd-Powell and some other folks.

The Empty Bottle Stringband at the Carter Family Fold. From left: Ryan Nickerson, Tyler Hughes, Kristal Harman, and Stephanie Jeter.

One thing we’ve talked about often is how the women who shaped the music of Southwest Virginia, what a great impact they’ve had on both of us, and I know one woman we really admire and look to as an inspiration is Janette Carter, who established the Carter Family Fold in memory of her parents Sara and A.P. Carter. Why do you connect with Janette’s music and what does her life’s work mean to you?

I, unfortunately, never got to meet Janette, even though I’d been to the Carter Fold several times and played at the Fold, but I didn’t start going until after she had passed away. On one of my first trips to the Carter Fold, I bought Janette’s book, Living with Memories, and read it. I was just so impressed with her because she overcame so much. The Carter Family … the Carters were in no way rich, especially growing up in Poor Valley in Scott County, Virginia … so Janette really rose above the poverty that most people see in that region. She was a radio star as a teen and she came back home, married, settled down to raise her family and went to work at the local school — she was a lunch lady there. She still played. She played the autoharp and guitar and sang songs. She felt so strongly about her family’s influence on music and her father’s music that she wanted to keep this promise to him that she would help carry on the legacy of the Carter Family. She gave up her job and really risked pretty much everything to open their grocery store up as a venue, a concert hall. I think it really says a lot about how brave she was, as a person, because there was no guarantee that opening up a 20-by-20 grocery store and putting chairs in it and asking people to come out and pay to hear music would work, especially in a region that’s impoverished.

I do admire her for that. In an interview I’ve heard with her, Janette said, “One day I was working and I thought, ‘I have some talent and why don’t I use it,’” so she started putting on school programs and traveling with her music a lot. Another woman who has really influenced your work and music is Sue Ella Boatright-Wells; she is part of organizing so much of the region’s community music scene. Tell me about her.

Sue Ella Boatright-Wells is also from Scott County — she lives in Scott County today. She doesn’t play music, but old-time music fans who dig deep have probably heard of her father, Scott Boatright, who was really good friends with the Powers Family and Dock Boggs and the Magic City Trio; Scott played with several bands in the area. Sue Ella grew up with music in the home and, when she took her position at Mountain Empire Community College in Big Stone Gap, she wanted to use that as an outlet to help preserve that music.

Sue Ella has been an influential part of the Home Craft Days festival at Mountain Empire Community College, helping to get local artists and musicians to the campus each October to showcase their art and their music. She is the mastermind behind Mountain Music School, which was such a huge influence on me, and even today, Sue Ella works tirelessly to help support efforts by the Crooked Road and their Youth Music Initiative and the Junior Appalachian Musicians program, which is now in Wise County. She works very hard to see that those programs succeed and are able to expose children to the music, especially our youth here that probably didn’t grow up with this music. As in any rural area, money never flows freely in the form of grants or government funding for the arts, so it’s sometimes a pretty difficult fight to find funding and to find ways to make these programs go, but Sue Ella never backs down. She’s always got a plan and she always works extremely hard to see that these programs do happen and that they happen to the best of their ability.

I’m very, very lucky to call Sue Ella a friend. I’ve looked up to her for a long time and she was incredibly encouraging to me, coming along as a banjo player. After a few years of attending Mountain Music School, she asked me to come on and be an instructor there, and today I co-direct the program and try to do a lot of work with Sue Ella to see that these youth music programs happen. I do try to model my work after Sue Ella’s.

I guess most people wouldn’t think that organizing music or organizing dance and art, especially in the mountains … people probably don’t put the same value on that as maybe somebody who organizes a food drive or a fundraiser to build a park or whatever. They probably don’t see the same value in promoting the arts because that seems intangible. But advocating for local music and arts is such an important thing to do to build community. Unfortunately, we live in a time where technology, as great as it is, is diminishing our abilities to be together as communities — just humans, one-on-one — and to share experiences like music. That’s why I feel that it’s so important to continue to organize events and programs, especially for youth, to show that this music has continually brought people together for years and years and, hopefully, will continue to bring.

Tyler Hughes demonstrating flatfoot dancing at the Papa Joe Smiddy Festival. Photo by Dan Boner.

Speaking of community and music bringing people together … you’re a square dance caller and a prize-winning flatfoot dancer, so I want to hear about your background in dance.

I started learning to dance not too long after I started learning the banjo. Probably the first person that ever showed me anything was Anndrena Belcher; she was living in Scott County at the time and she’s also someone that I look up to. Anndrena really does see the true value of our own personal stories and songs, and she’s a really wonderful musician and writer and storyteller and dancer. She was the first person to ever show me any steps; I was lucky, I got to do several workshops with her around Wise County where we went out and taught other students to dance.

Anndrena teaches dance not just to preserve or carry on the tradition, but simply to do what any kind of art is created for: self-expression. I thought that was very important and something that we shouldn’t lose when we are passing on these cultural traditions. So often in the region, we just talk about how endangered our way of life can be, and how some tunes and music aren’t getting played as much as they once were, and some dances aren’t being danced as much as they once were. It is important to preserve these arts for the historical aspect, but also for the self-expression and the social aspect. For a long time, one of my very best friends lived here in Big Stone Gap, Julie Shepherd-Powell, who’s a really wonderful banjo player and also an award-winning flatfoot dancer. She taught me a whole lot and she spent a lot of time with me at some workshops and, just on the side, teaching me different dance moves.

Julie Shepherd-Powell is also a fine square dance caller, and I know not too long ago you hosted a square dance in Big Stone Gap, and it was one of the first that had been held there in quite a while.

I started to learn to call square dances about two years ago. For a long time, I was head of a contra dance organization at East Tennessee State University, where I went to college. Along the way, we were having a lot of fun with contra, but we wanted to experiment with square dances because square dances were much more closely associated with old-time music, the music we were playing in the program. We looked around and we only knew a handful of square dance callers, and we found out that there was no young person within our immediate crowd calling square dances in Johnson City. So I took it upon myself to try to learn some and, today, I’ve probably mastered about eight to 10 dances. In December, I pulled together several organizations — the Big Stone Gap Parks and Recreation Department, a couple local business sponsors, Auto World, and the local grocery chain Food City all pitched in and several community members baked goods and food, and we all met here at an old Girl Scouts cabin. Some wonderful friends of mine, Bill and the Belles, came over and played the music and we had the dance and it was successful. The dance was well-attended: People were really receptive and supportive. Dance is a very important tool to get people together to socialize and share experiences about what’s happening in their community.

While we’re talking about Wise County, another woman from that area that you and I both admire is Kate Peters Sturgill, the great songwriter. Tell me why you sing her songs.

Kate was from Josephine, Virginia, a little coal camp just below Norton out in the county. She was a wonderful guitar player and singer but, more than anything, I love her writing. I’ve always said she was one of the most poetic writers from the region that I’ve ever come across. She really puts her passion for her home community into her writing — songs like “My Stone Mountain Home,” which I perform now. Kate is not an incredibly well-known artist — most people, if they’ve ever heard one of Kate’s songs, it’s probably her best-known gospel tune, “Deep Settled Peace” — but she wrote a whole handful of beautiful songs and many of them deal with our home county. She wrote “My Stone Mountain Home” about the mountain chain that runs down Powell Valley and between Appalachia, Virginia. She also wrote about the Trail of the Lonesome Pine, which has a lot of significance here. The book and the outdoor drama by that title, written by John Fox Jr., were based loosely on local people and events here in Big Stone Gap. The context still exists to have Kate’s songs sung and played here.

The Empty Bottle Stringband playing for the extras party for the film Big Stone Gap at the Trail of the Lonesome Pine outdoor drama. Photo by Sam Gleaves.

I really enjoy the way that you use humor on stage when you perform. That’s a real tradition in country music. Why do you think it’s important to be funny and entertain as you present this music?

I think that often, especially as old-time musicians and musicians who want to preserve early country music in the form it was created in, we sometimes forget that we’re pretty much the only ones who are thinking so deeply about the historical context of the way the instruments were played or even what the songs were saying. When we take those out to a wider audience — unless you are playing for a special audience that is there to have this historical significance explained to them — people are still coming because it’s music, and music is fun and entertaining. This music is light-hearted or it can be really deep and emotional, and I think people want to feel all of that.

I think the best way we can present the music, truly, is putting it on as a show, because that’s the way it’s always been done. People in the 1920s weren’t playing “Cottoneyed Joe” or “Turkey in the Straw” to historically preserve the tune from the way it was played in the 1860s. They were thinking, “This is fun, this is entertaining.” I don’t think that’s anything we should forget, especially if we want to bring old-time music to a wider audience. It doesn’t have to be as if we’re presenting a piece from a museum.

I love to hear you tell a good June Carter joke, but in closing, I know another female musician and songwriter we really admire is Ola Belle Reed, and she once said in an interview, “We all need each other, whether we know it or not.” I think that speaks so much to what community organizing is about and what old-time music is about. Being a community organizer and someone who has put old-time music at the center of their life, can you talk about that?

I think that’s definitely true. Unfortunately, we still live in a world where stereotypes get placed on everybody. We all do it, whether we mean to or not. When most audiences think of old-time music, they probably have in mind a hillbilly character or, perhaps, only white men playing it or it being associated heavily with Protestant faiths — the stereotypical images of Appalachia that are often portrayed. Often, old-time music probably evokes those same stereotypes to people outside the region, but the beautiful thing is that old-time music is just as diverse as the region itself and, as anywhere else in the country — or the world, for that matter.

Whether it be old-time music or pop music, music transcends the barriers that society places on all of us. It really doesn’t matter whether you’re rich or poor or black or white or gay or straight; however you identify, music can touch us all and affect us all. If we aren’t brought together through some type of connecting bridge like music or dance or community events, then we may never know that we’re sharing the same experiences and how important it is — that we’re not alone. Often, I think we get bogged down as individuals in our lives but, by coming together through art, we find many others who are sharing those same feelings and can relate to us. When we relate to each other, there’s empowerment and there’s a healthier sense of community.

Lede photo by Kristen Bearfield.

Sam Gleaves is a folk singer and songwriter from Southwest Virginia. His latest record, Ain’t We Brothers, is made up of stories in song from contemporary Appalachia, produced by Cathy Fink. 

A Story Should Be Sung: Saro Lynch-Thomason on Ballads and Purpose

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On a hot August day in 2011, a long line of demonstrators were crowding the shoulder on the road that winds up Blair Mountain in Logan County, West Virginia. The protesters were speaking out against the threat of mountaintop removal coal mining that endangered the historic site where, 90 years before, 10,000 men and women had taken a violent stand for a working union and human rights in the coalfields. Against the reverberations of history rising up from that mountain ground, Saro Lynch-Thomason stood behind a megaphone and taught the crowd the refrain of “Hold On,” an African-American spiritual and mainstay during the Civil Rights Movement. Adapted for that moment and that struggle, she sang, “We’re gonna march our way to Blair and we’ll meet with our comrades there. Keep your eyes on the prize and hold on.”

Saro Lynch-Thomason sings with purpose. A large part of her singing repertoire and life’s work is Appalachian ballads — the narrative songs which helped an immigrant people remember their homes and histories in a strange land. Noted North Carolina ballad singer Sheila Kay Adams, one of Saro’s mentors, often tells of the older singers calling all the ballads “love songs,” despite storylines riddled with murders, jealousy, and bittersweet, complicated feelings. Whatever they are called, these ballads tell the truth. Set far apart from high-brow popular music, these songs tell the people’s history, brought over time from farmers’ fields and kitchens to concert stages and digital online archives.

In an age when music is most often consumed singularly — and through earbuds — a generation of young singers, including Lynch-Thomason , are committed to learning songs in person and valuing the stories that surround the music. Reviving the old “knee-to-knee” style of sharing stories line by line, Saro collects songs from mentors older than her and her age peers, then adapts the pieces to her own experience. In turn, she teaches workshops that continue to circulate this way of learning. Lynch-Thomason’s work with contemporary media and visual art also serves the mission of rejoining the music with its historical context. She co-produced the multimedia CD and educational resource Blair Pathways; wrote and illustrated Lone Mountain, a children’s book on Appalachian culture and mountaintop removal mining; and has recorded a beautiful solo album of unaccompanied ballads, hymns and group songs titled Vessel. 

Saro, could you tell me some about your first experiences with singing and what drew you to unaccompanied singing, in particular?

I was raised in a church that had a strong children’s chorus, so I grew up with a certain amount of unaccompanied singing in a religious atmosphere. I was raised Unitarian Universalist, and we had a very charismatic chorus director who exposed me to a variety of music styles, including shape-note singing. That was a big influence on me as a kid and, at the same time, my father played a lot of British folk revival music in our house and my mother played a lot of music by contemporary female balladeers — like Sinead O’Connor and Loreena McKennitt — and that music really struck me.

So I learned a lot of ballads growing up, just on my own, by myself, not knowing anyone else, as a kid, who liked to do that. Both of my aunts had been active in the folk revival and taught me a few ballads growing up, too.

I’m wondering, when you were young and learning some ballads — and as you continue to learn ballads today — do you think of them visually? I know you’re a visual artist and illustrator, so I was wondering if those two arts are connected for you.

Yes, definitely. I was raised doing a lot of art and had the intention of being an artist as an adult. When I’m singing ballads, I’m always visualizing the story in my head and I use that a lot as a memorization technique, as a way to stay rooted in the story and know what verse is coming next. In some ballads, I see myself as a character, especially when the ballads are in a first-person perspective, and I feel myself taking on and exploring the emotions and the attitude of that character. But, in other cases, I try to take a step back — especially if there are several different characters in a story. I take a step back and try to use my body in a voice that’s setting the scene for the story, and not be a character, specifically, in the story.

Speaking of singing and how it involves the body, I love your record Vessel, which you put out in 2013. I love what you said, that “with each transfer, the song is refitted and molded to the character of the singer.” So I was wondering if you could talk some about that and making that recording.

My CD Vessel is called “Vessel” because these songs, through the fact that they’re transmitted from person-to-person, sort of take on their own character and life. A lot of singers, including myself, feel like we’re vessels — we’re housing these songs until they pass on to the next person. In a way, we’re holding these songs that have their own spirits. So there’s a balance that you have to find between putting yourself in a story and also letting the story tell itself, and letting an audience or letting listeners interpret the song and take the song into themselves and let it be about their own story and their own narrative.

And Vessel, as my first CD, was an attempt to do honor to ballad singers I had learned from — including Sheila Kay Adams and Bobby McMillon and many singers who are long deceased — who told such beautiful stories and expressed themselves so beautifully … like Texas Gladden and singers from archives who we don’t know that much about. My ballad “True Thomas” comes from a woman named Becky Gordon from Catshead, Sugarloaf, North Carolina, and I don’t know much of anything about her, but she had this beautiful song that wasn’t collected anywhere else.

Speaking of your collecting and how you learn from mentors in North Carolina … why do you think it’s important to learn these songs in person, in addition to studying recordings, but also building these relationships with singers?

Something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently is the broader oral tradition around ballad singing, which is what we say about those ballads, what we know and what we share about them, the stories we connect to them. Learning face-to-face with someone, you get to understand so much about them and empathize with them when they tell you how they connect to that ballad and what they have learned from that ballad.

Ballads are intensely personal and intensely public at the same time, and one song can carry so many different stories, depending on who you ask and how they’ve interpreted the song. And so, I think largely learning in what is sometimes called the knee-to-knee style is a practice in empathy and in deep listening to someone else.

I agree, for sure. Can you talk about how ballads, in part, have lead you to North Carolina and how you identify your home there with singing, and also the role of place in this ballad-singing tradition that you’re part of?

I was raised in Middle Tennessee, and a lot of my mother’s family is from East Tennessee and has been in East Tennessee for several hundred years. So I was raised with a big connection to the Blue Ridge Mountains and being in those mountains a lot. I decided to move to North Carolina after college to connect to what I had heard was a vibrant singing community in Western North Carolina, which turned out to be true.

Talking about place in these songs … even though a lot of these songs go back hundreds and hundreds of years, people’s experiences — and, I believe, their physical landscape — changes how they interpret a song and what the song is for. I think there is a way that you can hear the landscape in these songs and, of course, the topic matter of the songs themselves is often about the experiences in the mountains and that connects to experiences that my own family has had and contemporary experiences, too — anything from out-migration from Appalachia to digging ginseng to opposing mountaintop removal. This is a contemporary tradition, and what I’m compelled by is when that sense of place and attachment to this region becomes expressed in these songs in a way that other people can empathize with and understand.

That’s really well said. Tell me about your identity as an activist and how this kind of cultural preservation and singing that you do is tied to your work in social justice movements?

A big connection point for me, coming to Appalachia, was learning, really in college, about social struggles in Appalachia and about mountaintop removal mining. I started to learn in college about the West Virginia coal mine wars and fights for union rights and safety rights for coal miners and that really intrigued me, especially because I was raised in a social justice-oriented household. So I became interested in how people in this region had fought for their rights and how they had used music as a part of that.

Part of what’s intriguing about Appalachia, as a place and how it is viewed by the rest of the country and the world, is that it's a very historicized place — it’s a place that is put in the past. What I love about ballad singing and traditional music from the region is that it can educate so much about Appalachia’s rich and diverse history and it is used as a contemporary tool to express Appalachia’s current situation and its people. Something that I really enjoy doing as an educator and as a ballad singer is doing workshops specifically on Appalachian movement songs, mostly for the reason that it brings people up to date on Appalachia!

Yes, I struggle with some of those same things out on the road and I think it’s important work you are doing. What about your teaching, workshops, and also the Asheville Community Sing that you lead?

I mentioned a little earlier that, as a kid, I was raising myself to be an artist and through whatever I’ve done, it’s always been about stories to me, whatever media I’ve been working in. I like to lead workshops and performances that focus on a theme, like Appalachian movement songs or women’s stories in ballads. My goal is often to give people a sense of history, a sense of our heritage through song, but also to give people confidence about these traditions being a part of their lives and being a way for them to express their stories and to not feel stuck with the stories they’re given, but to feel that they can change them and keep on the oral tradition that way.

The Asheville Community Sing … that’s a monthly event that I’ve been running since 2010. I started the Sing when I moved to Asheville because I wanted to build a traditional singing community around me — kind of a selfish thing! What I wanted to do was build an environment where anyone was welcome, where everyone felt like they could sing as much or as little as they wanted, and share these fantastic traditional songs, most of which were designed for group singing.

So much singing in our contemporary culture is focused on work by singer/songwriters that is not designed to be sung in groups. I wanted to create a space where people felt empowered to sing and, in order to do that, you need to provide songs that are easy for people to sing together. We sing work songs and sea shanties and hymn songs and union anthems and all sorts of songs that people can feel confident doing together.

You talk about how the ballads still have this contemporary relevance, and I know you sing some recently composed ballads. Also, you compose tunes — I know you wrote a beautiful melody to that text of “True Thomas.” So you’re both performing old material and bringing new material into the present?

Different folklorists and singers have different ethics around how much to change a song or not change a song, and I’m basically of the opinion that, if it’s a good story, it should be sung! I think that the most important work that these songs do is to help people connect to their own emotions and their own narratives and to affirm their own experiences. If I connect to a song, but it’s not quite saying what I want to say, I’m all right with changing it … as long as its history is acknowledged in the process.

I found this text of “True Thomas,” which is the only American variant of this particular ballad that I’m aware of, and I just thought it was too precious to not bring back, so I put a melody to it that felt appropriate. There are other times when I have taken a song and politicized it or taken a song and made it much more personal.

A song I like to sing a lot is called “I’m So Glad Today I’m Ready,” which came out of the archives at Berea College when I was studying some there. This song was originally from the perspective of a woman who is going to Heaven and how glad and ready she is to go, and I changed the song to be, instead, about going back to the Blue Ridge Mountains and going back to the New River, which flows through Asheville and has sustained me and given me water. Those are the places I want my body to return to when I pass on. I wanted to keep the spirit of the song, but make it about where I feel rooted and what my story is in Appalachia now.

I think both those stories are important. It’s odd to think about, but perhaps 200 years from now, some folks are going to be referring to singers like you and me as the ancestors who were singing these songs. So we’re constructing these stories and other people can take them or leave them and whatever is relevant will stick.

Ballads are so functional. People sang them in their homes while they worked or were rocking their children or passing the time on long journeys. People really held dear that history and that singing of the ballads. What role do ballads and singing play in your life — what function do they serve for you?

I think, at my core, these songs, what they help me do is emotionally process my experiences. I was teaching a workshop recently on women’s stories in ballads, and something that came up from a lot of people is that there are songs on pretty hard topics for women that many of us enjoy singing by ourselves, but would not share in a group because the content can be disturbing. And, yet, we sing these songs all the time by ourselves because they help us process our experiences. I think that’s a big resource that these songs can provide.

They also help me connect to my fellow humans in that magic way that, when a group of people are sharing vibrations in a room — making vibrations together with their voices — we learn to immediately connect with each other no matter how different we are or how much we might agree or disagree politically, et cetera. When we share our voices, we learn to connect so quickly … and you can think about that from a practical perspective or a spiritual perspective, but that’s another way that these songs help me in my daily life.

Sam Gleaves is a folk singer and songwriter from Southwest Virginia. His latest record, Ain’t We Brothers, is made up of stories in song from contemporary Appalachia, produced by Cathy Fink.

Photo credit: Sarah Morgan

The Virginia Songbird Takes Flight: A Conversation with Dori Freeman

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Armed with a guitar and a voice that harkens backs to traditional country greats, Dori Freeman may seem like just another singer/songwriter. But she’s far from it. The 24-year-old from southwest Virginia has been singing since she was young, a fact that comes across in her vocal control, ability, and depth. Her voice doesn’t have any pretense about it. Instead, it produces honest, straightforward melodies that complement her honest, straightforward lyrics. Her music unabashedly bridges the gap between then and now, integrating musical phrasing, cadences, and more passed down over generations throughout Appalachia’s storied region, but with a sensibility and perspective that deals largely in contemporary matters of the heart.

Freeman’s self-titled debut album will be available on February 5 through Free Dirt Records. Considering it’s already gathered buzz from the BGS, NPR, and Rolling Stone, it’s safe to say we’re catching the songbird before she soars away on quite the journey.

There’s already some significant buzz about your upcoming debut. How are you managing any excitement or anxiety you might feel about people finally getting to hear a fully realized album?

Well, I’m really excited, but it is a little bit overwhelming. I do have some nerves and anxiety over it but, for the most part, I’m really excited that everyone is getting to hear it and I’m really proud of it.

Do you have a favorite song on the album that you can’t wait for people to hear?

I really like the first track, “You Say,” and probably the country-sounding track, called “Go On Lovin’.” Those are my two favorites.

Speaking about “You Say,” I’m particularly struck by the lyrics to that song, especially the opening lines: “You say you can’t save me, but I never asked you to. Can’t you just believe that I only wanted to lie there with you?” There’s this modern-day feminist oscillation between being strong enough to stand alone, but still wanting company for the ride. Would you say there’s a particularly feminist approach to your songwriting?

Yeah, I mean, probably on a more subconscious level, but yeah that’s accurately an underlying theme in my songwriting: Dealing with relationships and breakups, and wanting to be strong and independent, but also wanting to have a partner through things.

How has Virginia and its storied musical region influenced you?

Oh, it’s had a huge influence. I grew up in a really musical, artistic family in southwest Virginia. My father and grandfather are both traditional musicians, and played bluegrass, old-time, and swing. I was surrounded by that music from birth on, and it’s had a huge impact on my songwriting and my influences, music-wise. Yeah, I feel like I owe a lot to my upbringing, to that area, and to that music.

What’s your family’s response been to your music?

I think they’re really proud, or at least … they seem to be really proud. I hope they are.
It seemed as though 2015 brought out some sharp, original female voices; I’m thinking of Natalie Prass and Courtney Barnett, especially. Each challenged their respective musical genres. How do you see yourself doing that with Americana?

I don’t really know if I have a specific intention. I just try to write from experience; I think that’s the most honest way you can write songs … or write anything for that matter. I draw on things that I’ve been through and things I know from growing up and influences that I’ve been surrounded by as a child and as an adult.

Your biography cites Rufus Wainwright as a writing influence, and there’s a mournful, honest quality to your music that certainly parallels what he’s done. What about his songwriting do you admire?

Yeah, Rufus is probably my favorite songwriter. I actually first heard him when I was 13 or 14; he was on a soundtrack to a play that I saw. It took me a few years to find out what it was, but when I heard his voice again, I made sure to figure out who it was, because it’s such an instantly recognizable voice. I’ve been a huge fan of his ever since. I really admire the honesty in his songwriting, and the originality of his music and lyrics, and how he sort of encompasses a lot of different genres and influences. He’s definitely my favorite musician and favorite songwriter.

Do you have a favorite song by him?

“Poses” is probably my favorite song.

That’s such a good one.

It’s such a good one, yeah.

Yeah, he almost has that confessional air to his writing, as if he’s sitting next to you talking, rather than putting on a performance onstage.

Absolutely. He’s not afraid to say anything. He doesn’t hide anything in his lyrics. He’s really honest, and I really admire that.

Not to get too gender-heavy here, but it seems as though male musicians can get away with that to a degree that female musicians sometimes can’t. If you even do this, how do you try to push back against being honest and having your opinion without anyone giving you any guff about it?

I totally agree with that. I think it’s much easier for male singers and songwriters to write really honest lyrics, whether it’s going through breakups or anything that has to do with relationships. I think it’s a lot easier as a male to get away with those songs. I think now we’re at a point where there are women who are writing songs now that aren’t afraid of that anymore. I just try to do the same thing, and be as honest as I can, and write what I’m feeling and what I’ve been through. It’s funny — it’s a lot easier for me to talk about those things in songs than it is for me to talk about those things, whether it be with friends or family or just in general. It’s a lot easier for me to get them out through songwriting than it is just talking.

Why do you think that is?

I don’t know. I’m not sure what that is. It just seems to be the easiest way for me to open up about things. For some reason, it’s a lot easier for me to open up about past experiences through writing songs than it would be if I were to try and sit down and talk about something with someone. It’s a lot easier for me to just put it into a song, maybe because singing and songwriting are the things I’m more confident in in my life. I think that’s why it’s a little bit easier for me.

Not to label everybody, but so many creative individuals seem to have a more introverted personality. It’s hard for them to have a one-on-one, but if you give them a creative medium, they’re able to express themselves quite freely.

Yeah, absolutely. Going back to your initial question about it being easier for males to get away with things in songwriting … I definitely think we’re at a time now where there are a lot of female singer/songwriters coming out writing really great stuff that you wouldn’t have necessarily heard, you know, 20 or 30 years ago.

Absolutely. And I long for the day when music doesn’t have such gender divides. Even if they seem to be fading to an extent, they certainly still exist.

I think it’s sort of the same thing as, you know, girls will get labeled a slut, rather than a guy who dates a bunch of girls. No one is going to say anything about him. I think it’s very similar in songwriting. Girls are going to be judged more if they write really personal, honest lyrics about something they’ve experienced versus if a guy were to write about the exact same thing.

True. I’m curious about recording in New York when what you’re doing sounds so antithetical to that city. Was that a weird juxtaposition for you?

It’s a totally weird juxtaposition, but I’ve always been really drawn to that — drawn to writing from a place of my background, where I come from in rural Virginia, and then pairing that with recording the album in New York. It’s the antithesis of the songs. I think it really brought something to the album. I like that it wound up just more modern-sounding, like backing instrumentation to pair with the lyrics. I think they really complemented each other and worked out very well.
What was it like working with your producer Teddy Thompson?

Oh, it was wonderful. I’ve been a huge fan of his for a long time, too, and discovered him through listening to Rufus. Of course, they’ve done quite a bit together, and they’re good friends. I’ve been listening to him for 10 years now, and never thought I’d get a response from him when I reached out, but he actually listened to my music. We talked some and exchanged some emails, and spoke on the phone, met in person, and then it just sort of seemed to snowball from there. Before I knew it, we were in the studio making the record. I still can’t believe it actually happened.

It seems so serendipitous to contact a producer and have them actually pay attention.

Yeah, I couldn’t believe that he actually responded. I think I got really lucky and caught him on a good day. He was wonderful to work with, really observant and specific about wanting to keep the record centered around my voice and the songwriting, and really careful to keep that the center of things.

I know your debut album has not yet dropped, but let’s have some fun and look ahead to the future. Who would you like to collaborate with down the road?

Well, Rufus will always be my first choice for that. I love the early — I mean all of it’s good — but I’m a big fan of the early Father John Misty stuff. He’d be another one that I’d love to collaborate with. My favorite female singer and songwriter is Kacey Musgraves.

You two would be killer together.

I love her; I’m such a big fan of hers. I think she’s really great and I’m so glad to see someone like her in a really male-dominated genre like country.

Going back to being honest, she’s someone who’s genuinely unafraid to say what’s on her mind.

I really admire that about her songwriting. She’s got a great voice, just the whole aesthetic of what she’s doing. I think it’s really great.

Photos courtesy of Kristin Horton and HearthPR

Marked by Places: An Interview with Sam Gleaves

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Whether you grow up in the mountains or the city, the geography of your youth never really leaves you. It informs and influences you, even when you might not think so. Sam Gleaves certainly knows this to be true. His southwest Virginia upbringing defines almost everything he is and wants to be. As a songwriter, he's dead-set on sharing those stories, those values, that music with the rest of the world. And his new Ain't We Brothers release does just that.

I have a hypothesis about the different lenses that we all look at the world through: spiritual, intellectual, emotional, sexual. I feel like, though we're informed by all of them, we each have a primary lens that colors our vision and blazes our trail. Which do you think is your primary filter?

I was born and raised in southwest Virginia, so my family and the way they speak and the tradition of storytelling and the traditional music I grew up with is my first lens.

So maybe a social or cultural lens?

Yeah. In a way, I think we're all marked by the places we connect with and identify with. So, for me, home is Wythe County, Virginia. Country music … I like it best when it speaks plainly, like the people I knew do. That's my first lens, I would say. Then, being an openly gay singer/songwriter is another. I always feel like I'm traversing the line between the traditional music that I love — which has been handed down and many voices have shaped it — and the new music that I want to write about contemporary stories and what's happening now in the mountains. That has a newer feel, but it uses old language and old sounds and old ways of speaking.

For all of us who are queer, it's a part of who we are, but certainly not all of who we are. So how important is it for you to strike a balance between the visibility of being out and the striving toward anonymity — as in, “We're just living our little queer lives … nothing to see here”?

I'm really fortunate to have had a family that loved me unconditionally and that never burdened me with any kind of shame. That is the number one thing. If you're a writer, you have to reflect on your own experience. You have to look at painful things. You have to be honest about what you're feeling, which is a real challenge. I try to do that, as a writer. Lee Smith, one of my favorite novelists, said, “I refuse to lead an unexamined life.” I believe that.

My family loving me for who I am and raising me to … it was okay to be an artist. My mom's a writer. My dad's a writer. My grandmother's a singer. My dad's a great storyteller, also, and my grandparents all told stories. It gave me permission to be who I am. So, when I sit down to write, I don't think, “I'm going to write a gay love song or a gay country song. Isn't that edgy?” [Laughs] I don't think of it that way. I think of it as writing about my own life and I don't have to be ashamed. I can be honest because that's how I look at every day of my life — not only in my writing and my music, but each and every moment. That's a gift from my family.

It's also the gift that music gives all of us. It's a medium that both transcends and transforms, if we let it. You can sing your truth and it's about whatever it's about to you, but somebody else can hear it and it relates to their truth, as well … even if it's, as it always is, a completely different experience.

Yeah. I think so. I think that people are hungry to hear stories about working class people. Real stories. Songs that are absorbed in community and not in self. I think people are really hungry to hear that kind of music. And that's what traditional music does because it has to serve a people. Of course it's an emotional outlet for the singer, but it's also serving a community. That's what I love best about old songs and that way of … there's a long tradition of protest singing using old hymns and stuff that people were familiar with because you can latch on to it, somehow. I hope that people will listen to the music first and leave their preconceived notions at the door — listen to the music and the stories and then evaluate how it relates to what they believe and where they're from.

Let them get into how they feel about it rather than what they think about it.

Yeah. Which is why I have to be kind of cautious. Like, I was saying, “I'm a gay, traditional musician.” But I don't want people to think that's what I'm putting out front. I'm putting it out front as an activist, because I believe that you have to. It's not a dirty word. But, then, I've been a musician longer than I've known about my sexuality. [Laughs] My first identity really is as an Appalachian musician. So I hope people will look at it all inclusively.

Well, “Ain't We Brothers” is a great example. You simultaneously draw and challenge the traditional idea of manhood in, showing that the singular difference between Sam Williams and his co-workers in the mine is who's waiting at home at the end of the day. Interestingly, it reminds me of a Marge Simpson quote: "Our differences are only skin deep, but our sames go down to the bone."

Yeah. That's the truth. Wow. I've never heard that before. That's powerful.

It has stuck with me. I have it written down somewhere because, hey, Marge Simpson is a prophet. [Laughs]

[Laughs] Thanks for saying that. I wrote “Ain't We Brothers” in 2011, not long after Sam Williams' story had come to attention. My friend Jason Howard wrote a great article about Sam — then, his name was Sam Hall. I just thought he does have more in common with the fellow miners he's working with than he does differences. And what gives them the right to say he's less of a man when he's being brave, living with his partner and not hiding, making difficult decisions that impact every single moment of his waking life.

People say, a lot of times, that LGBTQ people endure micro-aggressions. Every day, you have to make your decisions differently. He was being brave and open. And he was more of a man. That's how I felt. Integrity, to me, is what defines a person, regardless of gender. That's what I was trying to say in the song. I was really pleased, when I met Sam a few months ago — he and his partner Burly at their home in West Virginia — that they identified with the song and they liked it. That meant a lot to me.

The other fascinating thing about what you're doing is that you're coaxing out the similarities of struggle between LGBTQ folks and other communities that have been oppressed throughout history. And what's always been so surprising and hurtful to me is that those oppressed communities are rather often the ones turning around to oppress us.

Yeah.

So I love that you're drawing those parallels. It's the same struggle.

Thank you. I believe very much in the philosophy that's taught at the Highlander Center in New Market, Tennessee, that all oppressions do intersect somewhere. You can't go far without finding a commonality with somebody who's up against it. I do believe that. That's another thing that intuitively comes out in your writing because it's what you believe. So that's been an intuitive part of the process for me.

I'm not from the coal mining community, but I learned that history in my Appalachian studies background at Berea College. And I realized that my daddy working for the railroad was hauling the coal and, every time I turned a light on, I was part of the system. You can't escape the working class, especially because I was brought up to value hard-working, blue collar people like my dad.

Of course. You talk a lot about your heroes, and rightfully so — Joan Baez and Cathy Fink and lots of folks. But who are the contemporaries you look to — the other artists who are helping shoulder the present and future of this music you're working with?

I just did a double-bill with Amythyst Kiah. She's incredible. She's from Chattanooga and she calls herself a Southern Gothic musician. I love what she does. She knows country-blues. She knows country music. And she applies that to a modern, kind of alternative sound. She's making great progress, and it's great to see her representing a lot of communities.

My friend Saro Lynch-Thomason is a great ballad singer, originally from Nashville but now living in Asheville, North Carolina. She's incredible. She knows the history of music and labor, inside and out. And she sings ballads with all the heart and knowledge of the old singers.

And my partner, Tyler Hughes. I love his music greatly. He's a wonderful, old-time banjo player. Plays autoharp and guitar, kind of in the style of the Carter Family. He grew up in Wise County, in southwest Virginia. I love his music because he's so in touch with the older way of life, and humor in music, and dancing … the aspects of it that bring so much joy to it that kind of get swept under the rug sometimes, I feel like. [Laughs]

[Laughs] Yeah, a lot of stuff gets swept under the rug. But that's why we're here. Like you said, activism through art. It's all one thing, in the end.

Yeah. I think so, too. I sure do.

Photo credit: Susi Lawson

LISTEN: Jesse Milnes and Emily Miller, ‘Fun’s All Over’

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The Deep End Ranch in Southern California's Santa Clara River Valley is an unexpected roots music haven that exists just north of Los Angeles. The homestead, which was built in 1908 and sits amidst a grove of lemon trees, plays host to the Deep End Sessions — a series of unplugged, unadvertised house concerts curated by David Bunn and Ellen Birrell. In January of this year, Jesse Milnes and Emily Miller settled into the Deep End for a residency. When they left, they had one of the best souvenirs imaginable — a record.

Milnes and Miller both grew up steeped in the Appalachian musical tradition, forming the Sweetback Sisters in 2006 and signing to Signature Sounds. After three albums and two EPs, they scaled it back to a duo with Milnes on fiddle and Miller on guitar. Their Deep End Sessions recording serves as their official duo debut, although one track, “Fun's All Over,” is reprised from their Sweetback Sisters days, where they rocked it out with drums and Telecaster.

"I've been playing 'Fun's All Over' forever,” Milnes says. “A fast fiddle tune that's fun to sing is a handy thing to have in your back pocket. I've played it at squaredances, fiddle contests, and on a ton of street corners and subway stops. I think I learned this from a recording of the Williamson Brothers and Curry. I've been playing it so long that I wouldn't guarantee that it's anything like their version. My dad, Gerry, plays it, too, and I probably got a lot of it from him."