Singer-songwriter Lilly Hiatt has an interesting way of working melodies and a down-to-earth way of telling stories about her life and about how she sees the world. All of her albums have cool, crunchy guitar parts that take folk songwriting to a rockin’ level. On her new album, Forever, her diverse influences are woven into songs that touch on everything from relationships to anxiety and mental health to good old-fashioned rock and roll.
In our Basic Folk conversation, we talked about the lessons that Lilly learned growing up the daughter of legendary songwriter John Hiatt and what it meant to her to see her dad go through the ups and downs of the music business while having the humility and self-belief to keep going. She also talks about how she thinks about herself as a performer – and how that’s changed since the pandemic. Before the pandemic Hiatt had a couple of really big records (Trinity Lane, 2017 and Walking Proof, 2020) that gained a lot of hype and attention. Once coronavirus hit, she had to sit in the house and ask the big questions like a lot of us did. She sat with the loneliness, alienation, and uncertainty.
You can hear in our interview just how much mutual respect and admiration we have for each other and how much belief we have in one another, not only as songwriters, but as women and as people who are in recovery. Very LYLAS vibes, lots of laughs.
Artist:Kasey Anderson Hometown: Portland, Oregon Latest Album:To the Places We Lived Personal Nicknames (or rejected band names): For a brief while in my early 30s I was convincing people to call me “T-Bone,” but it died out pretty quick.
Which artist has influenced you the most – and how?
I’m extremely fortunate in that the artists who influence me most are, by and large, my friends. I’ve been doing this a long time and had the opportunity to meet a lot of people, many of whom were heroes to me before I met them and remain so. Others have become heroes to me over time, through their work and friendship and their orientation to the world.
Hanif Abdurraqib, Kaveh Akbar, Melissa Febos, Brandon Shimoda, Lizzie No, Adeem the Artist… those are all friends whose creative work inspires and influences me – and whose orientation to the world, to their communities, and to their places within the world/their communities inspires and influences me.
One of my dearest friends, Ellen, runs a harm reduction program here in Portland and her approach to community and care has been an enormous influence on how I experience the world, and in turn, I see that influence in what I write. My family informs and influences me every day, in ways I sometimes don’t even realize until I hear them come back to me in my songs. I think when I was younger it would have been easier to say, “Bob Dylan, Steve Earle, Joan Armatrading,” whatever – Mike Watt, who I just spoke to last week. The list is long, you get the point – and of course that’s still true; there’s a long list of artists whose work influenced mine but, again, I’ve been doing this a while. The people who have a significant impact on my life, the people I love, they find their way into the work as much as anyone or anything else.
What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?
Eric Ambel taught me about the importance of lunch during a recording session. I’m not really a lunch eater – I never have been – but getting that break, that time to just be together, is important. My inclination is always to work from the second mics are set up until the second they come down. I’m glad I’ve been surrounded by people smarter than me who know when to take a break. It doesn’t matter as much when lunch happens, just that it happens. Just that people get a chance to extract themselves from the process for an hour or so.
How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me”?
I didn’t realize this until much later on, but I hid behind most of the characters I wrote on Heart of a Dog and Let the Bloody Moon Rise. At the time, and for years after, I talked about those songs as if they were all works of fiction – or at least about people other than myself – but once I had some distance from those records and had been in recovery for a while, I recognized myself in all those songs. I had been writing to myself, about myself.
What is a genre, album, artist, musician, or song that you adore that would surprise people?
I think what might surprise people more than anything I do listen to is the fact that I don’t really listen to Americana or country music much. I listen to my friends’ records, if something comes out that a lot of folks are talking about or someone recommends I’ll check that out, but I don’t really listen to the kinds of songs I write, at least not much anymore.
If you didn’t work in music, what would you do instead?
Well, I am currently the Deputy Executive Director at a nonprofit in Portland, so I’m not sure how much more of a “second job” I could possibly have.
Hurricane Helene tore through Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Virginia, and beyond in late September, 2024, leaving a wide wake of devastation and destruction from her high winds, record rainfall, and historic flooding. Central and Southern Appalachia and the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina, Southwest Virginia, and East Tennessee were hit especially hard, experiencing what some experts have called a 1,000-year weather event. Due to the particular nature of the geography and topography in the mountains, communities of all sizes – from Boone and Asheville, NC to tiny Chimney Rock and Lansing, NC to Erwin, TN and Damascus, VA – were hit especially hard by flash floods, downed trees, landslides and mudslides, impassable roads, and utility outages.
Slowly but surely over the last ten days, as cell service, power, and communication are restored in a slow trickle to the hard-hit and hard-to-access area, more stories, photos and videos, and first-hand accounts have been disseminated from survivors of Helene’s fury. Their accounts are truly harrowing. The damage nearly unparalleled in recent memory.
Central and Southern Appalachia are a region rich in musical and cultural heritage, with so many of America’s quintessential roots music forms being hugely influenced by these mountains and their neighboring locales. Asheville and Boone are two gems in the American roots music scene and so many smaller towns in the tri-state area have their own bustling arts economies, as well. Musicians, songwriters, and creators from all corners of the BGS family reside in this part of the country; watching from afar as they recover their destroyed lives and livelihoods, build community, support each other, clean up the mud and debris, and act in pure solidarity has been both encouraging and heart-wrenching.
For those of us who adore the Blue Ridge, Appalachia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia but live elsewhere, it’s been a nearly constant questioning of, “What can we do to help?” since the storm hit. Especially, what can we do to aid our fellow roots musicians in Helene’s track as they rebuild their lives? Gratefully, resources, tips, donation links, volunteer oppportunities, and more have been pouring in as the mountains and neighboring areas come back online.
Below, we gather a few events, donation links, GoFundMes, resources, and more – for folks in and outside of the region – to lend their support to our friends and neighbors whose lives have been forever altered. While we hasten to rebuild and recover, we also hold immense love, care, and grief for all of those who are still missing, unaccounted for, and presumed deceased in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
The road to a “new normal” across the southeast, from Florida’s Big Bend to Virginia’s Crooked Trail, will span months and years, if not decades. The only way we’ll get there is by supporting and caring for each other – and that support starts now.
Sturgill Simpson’s North Carolina Benefit Show
Mainstream country outlaw Sturgill Simpson has just announced his Why Not? tour – featuring his new project and persona, Johnny Blue Skies – will hold a special North Carolina Benefit Show on October 21 in Cary, North Carolina at the Booth Amphitheatre with all proceeds benefitting the North Carolina Disaster Relief Fund. Tickets go on sale this Friday, October 11 at this link. As explained in a press release announcing the event, Simpson was originally scheduled to perform at Asheville’s ExploreAsheville.com Arena on the same date, but due to the devastating impact of the storm, that show has been canceled. This quick-pivot rescheduled benefit show is just another indicator of how important North Carolina is to country and roots musicians.
Help Musicians Hasee Ciaccio and Abby Huggins Rebuild
Hasee Ciaccio is a bluegrass bassist who has toured and performed with Molly Tuttle, Sister Sadie, Laurie Lewis, Alice Gerrard, AJ Lee & Blue Summit, and many, many more bands and acts in bluegrass, old-time, and string band music. She and her spouse Abby Huggins, a community builder, dancer, and artist, lost their home to Hurricane Helene-caused tree falls and mudslides.
The California Bluegrass Association has begun a fundraiser to help Hasee and Abby rebuild, as they must continue paying a mortgage on a home that became unlivable in an instant. The outpouring of generosity has been overwhelming, with 60% of their goal already being reached in the short time since the hurricane struck on September 27. Visit the CBA here in order to read more and donate to support Hasee & Abby.
Mandolinist Darren Nicholson and Band Pitch In
Darren Nicholson is a mandolinist, songwriter, and Western North Carolina native who knows first hand how floods of this nature can uproot entire lives and communities. In 2021, his home turf, Haywood County, was devastated by flooding from a tropical depression. He led recovery efforts then, and he’s pitching in again now – with his entire band pulling their weight to bring GoFundMe donations, supplies, and resources to their own communities in Western NC and East TN.
“The entire band is out serving their communities at this time,” Nicholson shares in the GoFundMe description. “Avery is a first responder doing search and rescue; Aynsley is distributing supplies in Unicoi, TN; Kevin is distributing water and fuel; Darren is cutting trees and distributing supplies in Haywood County, NC.”
If you’re able, you can give directly via GoFundMe to support Darren Nicholson and his band bringing glimmers of hope to their impacted communities. They’ve already exceeded their fundraising “goal” – and the dollars raised back in 2021 – but there is still much work to be done, so consider donating if you can.
BGS Contributor and Music Journalist Garrett Woodward Reports From on the Ground
Frequent BGS contributor and freelance music journalist extraordinaire Garrett Woodward has been reporting – for RollingStone and others – from on the ground in the region about the impact on Asheville, North Carolina’s musicians and beyond. Despite dealing with power and internet outages himself, Woodward has been shining a light on the experiences of those dealing with the immense fall out of this storm.
We so appreciate Garrett keeping all of us in the loop with what’s happening on the ground, while spreading the word about relief efforts, resources, and donation pages. All of his stories above include many ways to give and to show up for North Carolina, so dig in and get involved.
Hurricane Helene hit during IBMA’s World of Bluegrass business conference and IBMA Bluegrass Live! festival held in Raleigh, North Carolina. While the disruption to the event was not insignificant, the organization immediately began messaging more broadly about the impacts to the region and the destruction just down I-40, in the western parts of the state, in Tennessee, and Virginia.
Before the festival had even concluded, IBMA began fundraising through their Trust Fund, which supports bluegrass musicians and professionals facing hardships – whether financial, medical, disasters, etc. Members of the IBMA and its staff and board even already held a benefit livestream show. You can watch that performance here, and donate to the Trust Fund at any time as it supports bluegrass community members in need.
Help Ola Belle Reed’s Hometown Rebuild
Ola Belle Reed’s hometown of Lansing, North Carolina is nestled in the mountains of Ashe County alongside Big Horse Creek. As you drive into the tiny village from the south, you’ll encounter a brightly colored mural of Reed on a local store’s brick wall, a bright barn quilt accenting a gorgeous portrait of this iconic old-time and bluegrass legend. Unfortunately, Helene took its toll on Lansing’s adorable little downtown too, flooding nearly every business and destroying homes, bridges, and livelihoods.
The Old Orchard Creek General Store, a newer business that had become an important community keystone and gathering place in its few short years of business, was almost entirely destroyed. The store is known for hosting nearby and regional musicians – like Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer, Martha Spencer, Trevor McKenzie & Jackson Cunningham, and many more – on their porch and in their cute cafe, supporting dozens of area artists with a quality local gig. You can donate to support the general store’s rebuild here.
In addition, Lansing and the Ashe County area surrounding it are criss-crossed with mountain creeks and streams, many of which burst their banks and washed out bridges, driveways, and crossings that were critical for folks’ daily lives and safety. As a result, the citizens are banding together to rebuild this critical infrastructure for their neighbors. Give to help rebuild their roads, bridges, and driveways here.
Woody Platt’s Album Release Becomes Rescue Carolina
Many folks are synonymous with the Western North Carolina music scene, but perhaps no single person epitomizes what it means to be a musical community member in Western NC like Woody Platt does. With a new album, Far Away with You, dropping this Friday, October 11, Platt has re-tooled his album release show to be a benefit for Rescue Carolina, raising money for local relief efforts in Brevard, NC and nearby. A bastion venue in the area, 185 King Street, will host the show – and they’ve been pitching in quite a bit with recovery themselves, too. Everyone is pitching in!
Announced yesterday, October 7, with tickets going on sale Thursday, October 10, Charlotte, NC’s Bank of America Stadium will be taken over on October 26 by Luke Combs, Eric Church, Billy Strings, James Taylor, Keith Urban, Sheryl Crow, and more for a star-studded benefit show. Proceeds will support relief efforts in the Carolinas. The event will be hosted by ESPN’s Marty Smith and Barstool Sports’ Caleb Pressley and will feature additional artists still to be announced. It’s sure to be a sell out – and for good reason!
“Western North Carolina is really, really hurting, y’all,” Taylor noted on Instagram. “We don’t even know the half yet, and I’m glad to be able to help.”
Safe Water for Hurricane Helene Survivors Via LifeStraw
LifeStraw is a brand all about safe, clean water for all. Their products are popular with hikers, campers, outdoors people, and folks with limited access to clean water around the world. After Helene, the company activated their Safe Water Fund and their disaster response teams to bring their filtration products to those who’ve lost access to clean water. Donating directly to the fund helps bring their large purifier systems like the LifeStraw Community and LifeStraw 8L to the region as well as their LifeStraw Home pitchers and dispensers for use in homes and personal bottle and straw filters for individual use. Get more info and donate here.
Appalachian Aid Music Festival
On October 19 in Wilkesboro, North Carolina, the Appalachian Aid Music Festival will feature performances by host Alex Key, John PayCheck (son of Johnny PayCheck), local great Wayne Henderson, and many more. The event will benefit Musicians Mission of Mercy, a non-profit embedded in rural Western North Carolina, specifically in Ashe County. Tickets are available now via Eventbrite, but first responders – nurses, doctors, firefighters, linemen, EMS, etc. – should know they’ll be admitted for free with their work IDs.
Cardinals At The Window Compilation Album
Released on October 9, Cardinals At the Window is a gargantuan compilation album of 136 tracks – yes, you read that right, 136 – submitted from various artists from across the roots music landscape. The project will benefit three non-profits based in Western North Carolina administering hurricane relief, Community Foundation of Western North Carolina, Rural Organizing and Resilience, and BeLoved Asheville. Compiled by Libby Rodenbough, David Walker, and Grayson Haver Currin, the album is available exclusively via Bandcamp and features tracks from amazing artists like Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, Hiss Golden Messenger, Watchhouse, Calexico, the Decemberists, Iron & Wine, MJ Lenderman, Mipso, Jason Isbell, Tyler Childer, Waxahatchee, Yasmin Williams, and many, many more.
On October 27 at the Bijou Theatre in Knoxville, Tennessee an impeccable lineup of roots musicians will gather to raise funds for the East Tennessee Foundation, a non-profit committed to supporting flood victims and flood relief programs in the mountains of East Tennessee. Hosted by bassist Daniel Kimbro and singer-songwriter Sam Lewis, the event will feature performances by Adeem the Artist, Darrell Scott, Jerry Douglas, Larkin Poe, Sarah Jarosz, and more. Tickets are on sale now. Make plans to support Tennesseans by showing up and showing out for Appalachian Allies on October 27.
“Hell in High Water” – Mike Thomas
Singer-songwriter Mike Thomas grew up in East Tennessee. After Helene tore through his home state, the Carolinas, and Virginia, he began writing “Hell in High Water” in early October.
“For generations, my family has called East Tennessee home, and although I have lived in Nashville for 20 years, I will always be an East Tennessean. Watching the aftermath of Helene unfold affected me deeply…” Thomas said via press release. “I couldn’t get those heartbreaking stories and images out of my mind.”
So, he wrote “Hell in High Water,” recorded it in record time, and released the track with all proceeds going to Mountain Ways, a non-profit committed to providing ongoing hurricane relief and assistance in the region. “I started writing ‘Hell in High Water’ on October 4th and finished it on October 6th,” Thomas continues. “I played it for some close friends and family who urged me to record and release it as soon as possible. I sent it to my producer, Tres Sasser, and my bandmates. Everyone dropped what they had planned to record the track on October 17th. There was a sense of urgency and purpose to get the song done and to get it done right.”
Even our co-founder himself, Ed Helms, took to social media to point out how special and important this region of the country is to all of us – BGS and beyond. Like many of us, Ed has had a lifelong relationship with the mountains of Western North Carolina and he understands personally how difficult this recovery process will be. You can find all of the links he mentions in this clip and more below.
Whatever you have to give and contribute to rebuilding after this storm, nothing is too small or insignificant. It will take all of us to rebuild Central and Southern Appalachia and the entire Southeast post-Helene.
(Editor’s Note: Have a fundraiser, link, benefit concert, or similar hurricane recovery resource you’d like us to share here? Email us at [email protected].)
Photo Credit: Courtesy of NASA Image and Video Library. Sept. 25, 2024 – Hurricane Helene is pictured from the International Space Station as it orbited 257 [miles] above the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Mississippi.
This weekend, September 21, 22, and 23, at the West Virginia State Fairgrounds in Lewisburg, West Virginia, ascendant, down home country star Tyler Childers and his cohort will gather for an event begun in 2018 called Healing Appalachia. The benefit festival, put on by West Virginia based non-profit Hope in the Hills, will include performances by some of the biggest and buzziest names in American roots music: Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit, Trey Anastasio Band, Marcus King, Umphrey’s McGee, Amythyst Kiah and many more.
Healing Appalachia is just one of many such community-led, collective efforts born from within the region in recent years that is working towards effecting positive change while offering local, ground-up solutions to big, systemic problems. Their social media and website put it elegantly and succinctly: Their vision is a prosperous Appalachia, free from addiction. The opioid crisis has hit Appalachia, especially West Virginia and Childers’ home state of Kentucky, incredibly hard. When 26 people overdosed on one day in Huntington, West Virginia, in 2016, the mission for Hope in the Hills and Healing Appalachia was born.
At the time, Childers and his hardscrabble team were still climbing the music industry ladder, building connections and community that would eventually grow and blossom into the multi-day event Healing Appalachia has become today. Childers’ friend and manager, Ian Thornton – who founded WhizzbangBAM, the booking and management company that represents Childers – together with festival program director Charlie Hatcher, Hope in the Hills board president Dave Lavender, and others took that tragic day in Huntington and turned it into an accretion point, around which they gathered and took action. Now, the festival has a local, annual economic impact approaching $3 million while raising thousands of dollars to be distributed to local, on-the-ground organizations and non-profits that specialize in addiction programs, recovery, support, and healing for this long-oppressed region of the world.
We spoke to Ian Thornton and Dave Lavender for a two-part interview preview of Healing Appalachia, that dives into the work of Hope in the Hills and explores this grassroots music event’s community-first mission, that hopes to heal these music-steeped, underestimated communities in Appalachia from the inside out. Read our conversation with Dave Lavender below, read our conversation with Ian Thornton here.
Can you talk a bit about the impetus or inspirations for Healing Appalachia?
Dave Lavender: Hope in the Hills, our non-profit, was started in 2017, and then the first Healing Appalachia was held in 2018 as it took a minute for Ian Thornton, Keebie Gilkerson and Charlie Hatcher, and the other OG board members to get the all-volunteer non-profit going.
The birth of the group is rooted in the events of 2016 – two historic things happened that year. In June 2016, central West Virginia got record flooding that killed 23 people. Shortly thereafter, the Huntington music scene, which was really getting built-up in a mighty way with touring bands, came together and raised more money in one night at the V Club than some big corporate fundraisers had in a couple weeks. I think all of us there saw a ragtag bunch of musicians could really make a difference banding together. Interestingly, Tyler Childers and the Food Stamps’ first New York City trip was that August as well, for a West Virginia flood fundraiser organized by our friend, Michael Cerveris, the two-time Tony winner from Huntington.
As that was happening in August 2016, Huntington, West Virginia, hit the world’s headline news with 26 overdose calls within four hours. It might have been a shock to the world, but we were all living around it in West Virginia so Ian, Tyler and Charlie Hatcher, Healing’s co-founder and show producer, knew how bad it was, and knew it was time to project the “bat signal” in the air, and unite their super friends in music to gather again and put on a show to help out the boots-on-the-ground folks overwhelmed and trying to assist in this opioid crisis.
One thing that struck me about the organization and the event is how y’all are from the region and building support systems, resources and pathways for folks from within the region – can you talk about the importance of mutual aid and community to the org and also the event?
DL: Everyone in the world knows the West Virginia theme song is “Country Roads,” but I would say the West Virginia and Appalachian motto is a song from Slab Fork, West Virginia-native Bill Withers. He wrote “Lean on Me” about being raised in the coal camp where you rely on your neighbors. Being from Appalachia, we know help is not on the way and that we are also better and stronger together.
For Hope in the Hills as a granting organization, we try to stay acutely aware of the ever-changing recovery ecosystem and fill the gaps where we can. For instance, I think the general public thinks of the opioid crisis as, “That’s the guy with the backpack at the recovery house.” Yes, true. But, the opioid crisis has created deep and wide fall-out – from historic numbers of kids in foster care (addressed by Barbara Kingsolver in her latest Pulitzer-Prize winning book, Demon Copperhead), to an overloaded prison system with non-violent drug offenders to many governments not wanting to fund harm reduction – even though they know through countless studies that it saves lives. Without harm reduction, communities are likely to get horrific spikes in hepatitis and HIV.
We try to put what funds we have into the gaps to provide a little help, but to also let folks know through our socials about some of these amazing programs happening across the region with things like camps for kids in trauma, and innovative recovery-work programs.
As for the event, I think that “Lean on Me” spirit is really palpable everywhere you look at Healing Appalachia. We’ve modeled ourselves in the spirit of using music to create social change, after Farm Aid. Healing is shining a light on a crisis that many choose to ignore. We’re highlighting amazing people who help daily to deal with that crisis. We’re inspiring attendees through the music, testimonials from the stage, and the dozens of service providers there, to go forth and be the change when they get home from the concert, wherever home is. And that home is widespread – last year we had folks from 38 states and 3 countries.
The message I hope the casual music fan receives in their heart and acts upon from Healing Appalachia is that the opioid crisis is not “us and them,” it’s just us. Last year, we lost more than 109,000 in the United States to overdose. Music is a powerful vehicle for conveying with love that message of empathy. Even if you haven’t lost someone personally to overdose, we lost Prince, Tom Petty, Whitney Houston, and a long list of beloved musicians to opioid overdoses. So I hope that at the very least the casual music fan who comes just to see some amazing bands, goes back home with an improved empathy muscle that allows them to lay down the proverbial stones and jokes and judgment they were set to throw at someone suffering from Substance Use Disorder and in active addiction.
For the recovery service groups coming to Healing – and this year we will have more than 40 from 13 states – I want them to know, that as Mavis Staples sings, “You’re Not Alone.”
That they hopefully will meet folks from organizations like them who are in the trenches everyday, doing the hard, tedious and often-unsung work of helping someone along their journey, and that they may pick up some best practices, some group to ally with, and some friends from across Appalachia who know their struggles and can be an encourager.
Do you have a favorite anecdote or story about a partner organization or individual or program that was particularly impactful, or a perfect representation of why you do what you do?
DL: At Healing Appalachia last year, Kenney Matthews, the ONEBox coordinator for Drug Intervention Institute was one of our main speakers. I’m typically running around taking care of a lot of back-end stuff at the fest, but I was out there with him before he went out. He was really nervous, but I hugged him and told him he was going to crush it. He did, and threw down this beautiful line about “the opposite of addiction is connection.” It really was electric, so real and so true. I was talking with my wife, Toril, after Healing and Kenney – who spent 15 years in prison – told her about running into a prison guard who knew him on the inside at the festival. The guard tells Kenney he never did think he would change and that he was really proud of him, and they both had a moment of healing at Healing. We’ve had LOTS of moments in doing this work and the fest is full of them, but I loved hearing both sides of Kenney’s story and its impact to spread hope.
How do you – either individually or as a group – see music and the arts (especially arts with regional ties, like folk and country music and folk arts) as part of these regional solutions to regional problems?
DL: In Appalachia, storytelling and music are so grapevine-wrapped in who we are, how we think, what we do, so connecting and teaming up with those artists who are using their music with intent and purpose is what we want to do.
As a group, Hope in the Hills, we’ve been building out a Music Is Healing program that has active music therapy programs in East Tennessee with Cecilia Wright (who plays cello with Senora May and who has her own band), and in Eastern Kentucky at ARC and West Virginia with Huntington-based music therapist Margaret Moore (a multi-instrumentalist folk artist who also teaches the Wernick Method bluegrass jams). She also happens to be an expert in forward facing trauma.
The inspiring thing is we are bringing folks like Cecilia and Margaret – with that intersectionality of professional musicianship and therapy – to team up with other regional artists of all genres and do sessions not only at drop-in centers and recovery houses but also at regular music festivals to spread the fact that music is therapy and can be tapped into to get on a higher spiritual plateau.
At Addiction Recovery Care (ARC) Centers in Eastern Kentucky, Margaret gets to work with world-class bluegrass artists Don and John Rigsby, long-time nationally-touring bluegrass artists who are sharing their music to inspire folks on their recovery journey. Through ARC, Don’s built out a studio in Lawrence County, Kentucky, where he is teaching some of the ARC guys the recording industry. Along those career pathway lines, at Recovery Points in West Virginia, Hope in the Hills (Dave Johnson and Charlie Hatcher) have been working with folks there who have in years past helped build Healing’s stages and do stage-hand and festival security work, get paid for additional festival work as a career pathway build-out as an employment option.
Hope in the Hills is also helping fund the WVU School of Medicine’s music therapy program at the opioid unit. We’re also contributing to the inspiring Troublesome Creek Stringed Instruments program with Doug Naselrod in Eastern Kentucky, where Doug is doing music therapy while also carving out recovery-to-work opportunities for his world-class luthier shop making traditional music instruments.
Specifically for Healing, we’ve leveraged the fact that we have a large audience to help train them on using Naloxone. Last year (the first year back after two years off because of COVID), we teamed up with the WV Drug Intervention Institute to have a Naloxone training tent that really broke down the stigmas of Naloxone with a festival spirit. Our buddy Joe Murphy got Gibson Gives involved and we loaded up swag bags with Tyler CDs, water bottles from Healing, and then additional swag from other artists.
Are there particular bands/artists/acts on the lineup this year you’re especially excited about?
DL: Gotta give crazy props to Charlie Hatcher and Ian Thornton for pulling aces and connections to reel in an insanely good lineup that includes 24 national acts. This is only our fourth Healing Appalachia, so to have Marcus King, Umphrey’s McGee, and Warren Haynes and Gov’t Mule back-to-back-to-back – would be the envy of jam band festival in the world! Truly a guitar lover’s feast on Friday. And opening act Joslyn and the Sweet Compression is one of my favorite R&B bands out there.
I’m really knocked out that 49 Winchester (who’s up for Americana Group of the Year) are throwing down for two nights in a row hosting our Late Night Jam with some killer bands and songwriters on those bills.
As far as really impactful musicians and people in that recovery space, we feel beyond blessed to have Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit on Thursday as the headliner and then Trey Anastasio and Classic TAB on Saturday headlining with festival co-founder Tyler Childers and The Food Stamps. Isbell, who was on a recovery panel at SXSW 2022 with our good friend Jan Rader, has put in the hard work to become increasingly more comfortable and sure-footed in that space and has Weather Vanes fresh out — the album to prove it. That’s been inspiring to watch.
We’re over the moon to have Trey (who is 15 years in recovery) with us and bringing Classic TAB, after a full summer of Phish shows, and with the great news that his 40-bed recovery center Divided Sky Foundation is on the way to opening in Ludlow, Vermont.
As a West Virginian, I’m super stoked to get Charles Wesley Godwin back on home turf to do something so real. I think he could grow into the biggest thing out of West Virginia since Brad Paisley. His new 19-song album, “Family Ties,” drops the day after he plays Healing on Thursday.
Margo Price performs at Healing Appalachia 2022.
What does a healed Appalachia look like to you?
DL: The problems are many, but the power of collective hope is growing and change is in the air all over Appalachia.
A healed Appalachia spends its riches and resources on mental health and particularly on children, making sure they are loved, nurtured, yet independent, and have all of the coping skills needed. We are now in an era of record kids in foster care and, as we know, childhood trauma is a thread that runs through folks who suffer with Substance Use Disorder. So first order for a healed Appalachia would be a widespread movement and budget shift to help kids in trauma now.
A healed Appalachia is one that has abundant opportunities within a clear line of sight for everyone in the community. A healed Appalachia gives everyone a seat at the table regardless of their past.
I’m a big fan of Brad Smith, who along with John Chambers and others, helping launch and rebrand West Virginia as the start-up state, where we create a really robust small business economy that allows folks here to dream big and launch those dreams here, like Ian, Tyler and the WhizzbangBAM team have done in Huntington, building out a business that builds spiderwebs of creative economy supporting regional musicians and artists.
A healed Appalachia has ample and good-paying sustainable green-energy jobs that pay a living wage and that brings wealth and health and that are not destructive to our beautiful Appalachian Mountains and to the workers.
A healed Appalachia is one with nature, gardening, exercise and healthy lifestyles that bind us to our beloved mountains and valleys.
A healed Appalachia talks less about politics and more about community and being a good neighbor – as the wonderful new Tim O’Brien song, “Cup of Sugar,” suggests we should do.
A healed Appalachia is full of true forgiveness, grace and second chances for folks, making forgiveness not just an often-trotted out word in a book but something real and necessary to heal our communities.
I think that’s probably enough healing or I’ll have to send you a doctor’s bill… [Laughs]
(Editor’s Note: Read part one, our conversation with Hope in the Hills board vice president and WhizzbangBAM founder Ian Thornton, here.)
Artist:The Grascals Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Song: “I Go” Release Date: July 28, 2023 Label: Mountain Home Music Company
In Their Words: “I sat down at the dinner table with one of my best friends, Darren Nicholson, (I work at a recovery treatment center in Asheville, North Carolina, often and I stay with Darren and his wife while in town) back in February of this year with the intention of writing our first song together. ‘I Go’ is the result of that writing session. The song ‘I Go’ comes from a previous vantage point and paints a picture of a darker time in both of our lives. Since Darren and I are now both in recovery together, we bounced some ideas off of each other from our personal journeys… combined with a little fiction that was easy to create from our past intoxicated minds. I feel like the story we came up with is one of my favorite songs I’ve written to date and I’m really glad that it was with Darren.
“‘I Go’ is a catchy melodic, up-tempo tune with an edgy, dark, true-life subject that many choose to avoid. However, we decided to face it head on and The Grascals took it and made it their own – OUR own. I am so excited to be back in this band and creating music with my friends again, and I’m thankful that we are the ones telling this story.” – Jamie Johnson
Artist:Jaimee Harris Hometown: Hewitt, Texas Latest Album:Boomerang Town (out February 17, 2023)
Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?
Emmylou Harris. I got my first guitar on Christmas Day. That holiday season, every moment I wasn’t at school or at church I was sitting by the stereo putting “Light of the Stable” on repeat. I was mesmerized by Emmylou’s voice, the production, the melody, and the harmonies. I learned later in life the backing vocals are Dolly Parton, Neil Young, and Linda Ronstadt. Not only have I been tremendously influenced by Emmylou’s voice as a lead singer and a harmony singer, but also by the songs she cut. They opened me up to songwriters who laid out the road map of my own songwriting journey.
What has been the best advice you’ve received in your career so far?
It’s a tie for these two golden bits of wisdom that have been passed down to me by my partner, Mary Gauthier, who is much farther along in her career than I am.
1. Do not sign anything unless they’re writing you a check. 2. Don’t take the Ambien until the plane takes off. (I think this one came from Ralph Murphy)
What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?
The most powerful experience I’ve had sharing my music wasn’t on stage. It was sharing my songs in a circle at an incredible place in Tulsa called Women in Recovery. WIR is an alternative to prison for women facing convictions for non-violent crimes related to substance abuse. Oklahoma incarcerates more women per capita than any state in the country and this place is trying change that brutal statistic by offering twelve step recovery meetings, educational resources, therapeutic resources, and housing solutions. I had no idea that a song I wrote in early sobriety, “Snow White Knuckles,” would go out into the world and be of service in such a powerful way. It’s opened doors for me to play in prisons and recovery centers all over the world. That song has a power so far beyond me. I’m deeply grateful to continue to have the opportunity to share it and follow it into spaces where it can be of service.
Since food and music go so well together, what is your dream pairing of a meal and a musician?
I’m a huge fan of Michael Fracasso. In addition to being a tremendously gifted songwriter, Fracasso is a fabulous chef. I’ve been extremely fortunate to receive a return invitation to a holiday party in Austin where tons of great songwriters (like my friend Darden Smith) and musicians (David Pulkingham is always a highlight for me) come together to swap songs campfire-style. Michael always puts together a beautiful meal for everyone and sings with us. It’s extraordinary.
How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me”?
After being a songwriter for 13 years, I went to my very first songwriting workshop in 2017. I couldn’t possibly recommend it more. I wish I’d done it sooner! It helped me to consciously access methods I’d previously been using subconsciously and taught me a lot about where to laser beam my focus in the editing/rewriting process. I co-teach with my partner, Mary Gauthier, often now. This topic comes up often. When we’re working with a student’s song, Gauthier points out that when a listener hears “I” in a song, they’re not thinking about the voice delivering the song. They’re thinking about themselves. I believe this is one of the most powerful tools of songwriting – singing “I,” brings the listener into the experience of the narrator, which creates an opening for empathy to glide through.
Photo Credit: Brandon Aguilar
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