Tag: HIV

Appalachian Bluegrasser Missy Raines Explains The West Virginia Thing

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Acclaimed bluegrass musician Missy Raines is also a very cool and funny lady, originally from West Virginia – not far from the Maryland border and the city of Cumberland. First of all, I had questions for her about why people from West Virginia are so into their state. She gets into that and also explores the influence of the vast and varied bluegrass music scene she found there, as well as the scene in nearby Washington, D.C..

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Raines has made a significant impact on the genre, earning 14 International Bluegrass Music Association awards, including 10 for Bass Player of the Year. Her latest album, Highlander, showcases Raines’ mastery of the bass alongside an ensemble of top-tier musicians from Nashville – her home base for the last 34 years – and plenty of special guests, too, blending traditional bluegrass with innovative twists.

Throughout our conversation, Raines reflects on her deep connection to Appalachian culture and the Appalachian Mountains, which have profoundly influenced her music. We explore her experiences performing live at music festivals and the evolution of bluegrass music as a genre and community. We recount the passion her family felt for music, touching on the story of her mom and aunt crying their eyes out over John Duffey leaving their favorite bluegrass band, The Country Gentlemen.

Raines also talks about taking care of her late brother Rick, who died of HIV-AIDS in 1994 at the age of 39. Through that experience, she was empowered to help others whose loved ones were also dying and suffering from HIV and AIDS. With her unique blend of banjo and fiddle music, and her activism in a normally conservative genre, Raines continues to push the boundaries of the genre while staying true to its roots, making her a trailblazer in the world of Americana and folk music. Our conversation was in depth, fun and enlightening – I had high hopes for this one and I was not disappointed!

Photo Credit: Stacie Huckeba

LISTEN: Justin Hiltner, “1992”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Justin Hiltner
Hometown: Newark, Ohio; now, Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “1992”
Album: 1992
Release Date: December 9, 2022

In Their Words: “The title track for 1992 was inspired by survivor’s guilt. At the time I began writing it, I was reading And the Band Played On and spending a good amount of time studying the movement for queer rights in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s. It dawned on me that I wasn’t born after the HIV/AIDS epidemic, I was born into it. And almost certainly there were gay men and queer folks dying of HIV in the very same hospital where I was born. If I had been born a mere ten or fifteen years earlier, there’s a good chance I would have died, too. We lost so much, an entire generation; we lost so many precious, incomparable, irreplaceable souls to HIV.

“When I was diagnosed with cancer and when the COVID pandemic hit, the meaning in ‘1992’ was further unspooled and complicated. While public officials touted HIV as a learning experience that would help fight COVID, I couldn’t help but feel immense anger and pain. HIV, like COVID, is not over. HIV infection rates are on the rise in many parts of the world and in the U.S., especially the South, my home for the past decade. While society races to leave COVID in our rearview — prematurely — endangering so many folks, we forget that we did the same thing with HIV, except with an even greater degree of cruelty, inhumanity, and callousness. We haven’t learned a single lesson. That’s what ‘1992’ is about.” — Justin Hiltner

Justin Hiltner · 5 – 1992

Photo Credit: Laura E. Partain