“King Jesus” done by Dootsie Rose---One of my favorites

 

"The Post-Holiday Happy Sads," music, and Seasonal Affective Disorder

I have not thought much about the post-holiday period as a time for sadness. I mean, I live in an area of the country where the rain comes down, the sky is gray and a certain kind of cold gets in my bones and won't leave no matter how high the thermostat gets set or how much wood gets burned in the fireplace for what seems like six months in a row. I have come to accept that and just try to power through. I welcomed the recent snow just for the break in routine and I was rewarded with a couple of blue sky days with snow on the ground and some blessed quiet. But here you can see and feel people getting depressed and short on joy and compassion and thankfulness as the rain and cold go on. It's called Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and it's real.

The great folks over at The Bluegrass Situation have a somewhat different take on things than I do, and I'm glad that they do. They're keyed into helping with our post-holiday "Winter happy-'sads'" and they have at least a partial cure for what some of us are going through, whether it be SAD or feeling kind of down because the holidays are past, time is passing, we're kind of cooped up, and the dopamine rushes of giving and receiving and feasting and drinking are wearing off. 

Their cure for it all is music, of course. They have six great special music videos that get right to the business of cheering you up or cheering you along or just helping you get through. I can't say that I have a favorite of the six, but Etta Baker's "Railroad Bill" is just so cleanly played that I want to share it from their post.

 

I had not heard of Pharis and Jason Romero before, but that's my kind of music, too. I'll say the same about the Earl White Stringband.

There is just something about finding new music and new food and getting some new clothes to help me through the dark days. I hope that that is true for you also and that you're able to pull through. I made this dish the other day:

Now, I based that dish on two recipes that I found at Camellia Beans but I messed around and added some ingredients and didn't do some of the other things that they suggested and that dish above has 21 ingredients in it and I'm eating it with yellow rice and Texas Pete pepper sauce. I promise you that no one is paying me for product placement. Camelia Beans does have some great recipes up and you could probably spend all winter and spring eating your way through and enjoying most every meal.

For some brand new clothes I went to Red Kap and got myself some coveralls and to the Belk on-line store for some shoes. The Belk stores are an old favorite of mine.

 

Don't worry--I only bought myself two pair, but...

The only big mistake that I have made in all of this is that I wasn't watching what I was doing and I ordered a case of Dixie Lily corn meal when I meant to order just a few bags. Thank goodness that I can always use corn meal for something and that I can give my extra as gifts. 

The other tried and true things for me to do are to keep some Christmas lights up, to pray, and to read. I need to hang out some with friends and to do things that connect me with others, like going to protest and union rallies, poetry readings, and on-line learning sessions. It helps me to know before I go to sleep each night that I am helping someone or somebodies. 

All of that said and done, I don't want to give the impression that anyone should try to purchase their way out of the blues and hard times that hit in these months. Buying stuff gives folks that dopamine rush that I referred to above, but it won't solve your problems at hand, and it may create another problem by running up your credit card.

Make sure that you're sleeping and getting up on a regular schedule that works and keeps you going and happy. This is a tough one, I know. Take your vitamins and eat.

If you still need some help here, turn to someone and talk about it. Don't hit the bottle or the pipe if you can help it. Call 988 if you think that you need to or if someone tells you that they think that hat is what you should do.

"Humble"---A new testimony song from Steve Cline

We have had the good fortune to have posted music and some quotes from Steve Cline on this blog previously. Steve is a pretty deep thinker. He lives in West Virginia and has a powerful story to tell us, and I think that we should hear what he's saying and sit with that for awhile and take what works for us with us. If you read this blog regularly you know that some of our constant themes are recovery, religion and spirituality, and the creativity and beauty that is around us and within us. We hit all of these themes in Steve's music and in much of what he has to say. Do I always agree with Steve? No. But his testimony and his music get and hold my attention, and I know that there are many people out there who will benefit greatly from hearing Steve and knowing that there is someone out there who knows their road and can put it into music and share much-needed hope.

The words are as follows:

I was raised to be a prideful sinner

always to stand up for myself

was how to be a winner

but then I found out that road is just full of glimmer

it'll take u to hell a whole lot quicker 

we all need to forgive and be humble

give the shirt off of our back and love our brother

we need to deny our flesh and stay sober

we need to walk as Jesus walked and be humble

there's a way to man that may seem right

but theres only one way that leads to life

we have to trust that Gods way is right

if we put our faith in him he will bring us through the fire

Steve says:

I'm in the process of trying to start a group meeting around McDowell county. As of right now idk of any. A friend of mine is starting one in welch in Feb. I'm trying to get one going in n the Gary area. These bigger cities have at least one everyday. with all the addiction and deaths from addiction we need a place where people who are struggling can come to talk with others who have been there and not feel ashamed. A place where no one looks down on them. I reached out to the mayor of Gary yesterday an plan on talking to a couple pastors to see if I can find a place to have these meetings. I'm trying to see how many people would be in interested in attending these meetings. The only way we will get stronger is in unity. like, comment, and share if you or someone you know would be interested.---January 27

and

there are people who think they know what recovering addicts are going through but just because you've done a couple pills or snorted a line of coke doesn't make you an addict in the same way that working at a hospital doesn't make you a Dr. no matter how much clean time we have there are days we wake up wondering if this is gonna be the day we slip. it's a constant battle of the mind especially when you have the means to do so. you may think that your actions don't have an effect on an individual and you probably don't care but they do. and I know it's another tool of the enemy to try to get me back but I'm sure that others don't know that. in the past anytime we felt anger, joy, resentment, loneliness, our escape was drugs. Now days I use the bible and prayer. but 20+ years of running to the wrong things takes time to break those cycles. I also know that there are certain people who don't want to see us succeed, but all I'm saying is just watch how you treat people,, you might be the straw that breaks the camel's back.---January 26

Those are powerful statements that come straight from the heart. I think Steve is being a realist here, and I say that with my own struggles and the struggles of many friends in mind. The January 27 statement brought a reaction from someone in McDowell County, West Virginia that I believe is entirely justified. They wrote:

I’ve said that before! Here our county was having the highest od rate in the nation at one time, and not only was there no facilities available for recovery, but there’s not even any AA type meetings! It’s proof to me how our state government thinks we don’t matter in McDowell, and why it’s SOOO very harmful for residents and former residents to think it’s ok for them to leave here and talk like we’re nothing but addicts and low life’s with no redeemable qualities.

Why do I think that this statement is totally justified? Because I believe that the person who wrote this knows from first-hand experience what they're talking about and because it is certainly true that West Virginia and most of Appalachia do not receive the levels of social services and care that are needed. Most of the region lives in a semi-colonial state, producing wealth for export and exporting workers to other states and providing large numbers of people to the military but getting almost nothing back that reaches the grassroots. Most of the politicians act as if they're serving colonial masters. I cannot think of a nicer way to say it. People who want to get sober may have to go elsewhere, as the writer says. But why can't home be part of the care and medicine we need?

Women, Music, And Possums With A Message

The photograph and the music don't quite go together except that I do like them both. I think that that's Patsy Montana in the photograph, but I may be wrong.

Possum Kingdom---The New Coon Creek Girls

Hammie Nixon was born on January 21, 1908. Here is a favorite clip of him and Sleepy John Estes

From Ward Weems

Hammie Nixon & Sleepy John Estes---Down South Blues/Clean Up At Home---

1964---RITY Archive

 

Rhiannon Giddens - Build a House (Official Video)

The other day a white woman---a church-going white woman at that---told me that slavery is all in the past and that we have to forget and just go on. I disagree. We're still living with the legacies of slavery, and I encounter many folks who are starting up to fight the Civil War over again.

A company that handles some of my pension money made its foundational money in part on slavery and what slaves produced. The so-called right-to-work laws that prevent people from forming unions have their origins in the southern states and the remnants of the slave-owning aristocracy. For years the low wages and poor working conditions and lack of social services and the lack of justice in the southern states---all the legacies of slavery---formed a low point and caused a downward spiral across the entire United States and we are living with the effects of that still. I live with the memory of legal segregation---it was not so long ago.

It would indeed be great to move on, but that won't happen in the years that I have left on earth. Much water will flow under our bridges before the line moves in the right direction and we have justice here. My worry is that that water will flow mixed with blood.

If you can do some justice and make some peace today, please do it. If you don't have that opportunity, then just please use your time to do some studying and reflect. Think a little about the "house" referred to in the song above. Could that be our country? Do you really want to burn it down rather than share it with others?  

More on Ashley McBryde

I posted a reflection on Ashley McBryde the other day that some folks think was unfair to her. The intent of that post was to support her and make others aware of her who don't know her and her music and to ask people who criticize her to take a minute and reconsider. Perhaps this clip will set our critics at ease a bit.

Hazel Dickens

 

The Hazel Dickens Memorial Bridge is on County Route 11 running over the Bluestone River near Montcalm, West Virginia.

She is buried in Princeton, West Virginia.

She lit up my life and the lives of so many others. I really do miss her.

West Virginia My Home

Beautiful Hills Of Galilee

They'll Never Keep Us Down

"Solidarity Forever"

History records that the labor anthem "Solidarity Forever" was first published on today's date in 1915. Ralph Chaplin began writing what became "Solidarity Forever" in 1913 while covering the Paint Creek–Cabin Creek Strike, or the Paint Creek Mine War, in West Virginia for a publication issued by the revolutionary Industrial Workers of the World. It was completed two years later in Chicago at the time of a hunger demonstration there and gained its early popularity during a lumber workers' strike in Washington State.

There are many versions of the song, and I think that these different versions most often reflect the divergent opinions of who is singing and who is leading a crowd. The verses that promise a hopeful future in which the working-class takes power and establishes some form of socialism are left out when labor leaders and Democrats are rallying workers for immediate objectives. Leftists might sing one version of the song that is closer to their politics and leave it to another group to sing another version. Workers who join rallies and picketlines today hear the words and often grasp their meaning immediately. But there is more to be said about the song and what it means.

The poem that became "Solidarity Forever" was written at a moment when mine workers and their families in West Virginia were experiencing defeat during a period of prolonged armed struggle that we know today as the West Virginia Mine Wars. One would have had to be outrageously optimistic to have believed at that point that the mine workers' struggles would continue and that eventually something like justice would prevail even for a short time. The song has a healing power to it when all of its verses are sung with honesty, and I have wondered if this healing power and the positive message of what can be attempted comes from the very origins of the song.

I first heard "Solidarity Forever" as a kid when it was played on a mandolin by an old man during a house party. I purchased the album of labor songs done by The Almanac Singers and learned the words to every song on that album as a teenager. I have probably sung the song, in one version or another, hundreds of times on picketlines and at meetings over the years. "Solidarity Forever" has never grown old for me. I especially enjoy watching young people taking in the song and joining in singing it with others. I pray that they don't lose that light and fire in their eyes and in their hearts.

Here is the version by The Almanac Singers that I learned:

Singing Solidarity Forever, Passaic County, 1926

Description
Strikers raise their fists and sing as they march down a street during the Passaic Textile Strike, 1926. One striker wears a military uniform.

American Labor Museum / Botto House National Landmark

Persistent URL: https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/T3GH9K76

Oh Happy Day - The Edwin Hawkins Singers

 Oh Happy Day - The Edwin Hawkins Singers

Ashley McBryde and our collective faith journeys

There is no way that this post won't offend someone.

You have been warned.

When I started this blog a long time ago I made it a rule to not have anything posted that contained profanity. It's not that I'm a prude or that I never use profanity myself in speaking. It's more to the point that many good old people who live in the same social movements that I do say truthfully that cursing, or cussing, shows a lack of discipline and makes you untrustworthy. Cursing or cussing in excess is almost always done by men and is used, mostly unconsciously, to create and maintain spaces that exclude women. And if I go around talking about my religion or my politics or trying to make things better for working-class people or women or LGBTQIA+ people and I'm cussing, then folks will surely call me a hypocrite and shut down---and they would be right.

But here I am making an exception. Ashley McBryde is famous, but I know many people who do not know who she is or who don't appreciate her great talents. She does some cussing, though, and I guess that she does some hard drinking if one of the clips below is to be believed.

Put that to one side for a minute. Ashley McBryde is the daughter of a preacher and she comes from the southern white working-class. She has the right to react to where she comes from and to deal with the ambiguities we all live with but that we may not grasp or acknowledge. Many of her songs and her videos show particular sympathies for women in bad situations. There is despair and cynicism and tragedy in some of her music, but love isn't far away. And this is genuine, as you will hear if you listen to the interview clip below.

When I first heard some of Kelsey Waldon's edgier music a few years ago I stepped back a bit because I wasn't ready for it, despite her great politics and her roots in Kentucky. I stepped back up to her music, but it took a while. Ashley McBryde pushes things quite bit a further.

Here is why I like and respect McBryde's music and why I'm doing this post. Her music does come from the heart, I believe, but it also takes us in unexpected directions. The songs Jesus Jenny and Shut Up Sheila have pleas in them that ultimately creates roads that carry us on faith journeys if we let them and if we're honest with ourselves. Put your false piety away and listen. If you're living in a working-class world you will feel at least some of these lyrics, and the sound of that guitar may touch your heart as it touches mine. By the time we get to Bible and A .44 and Stone we're reaching into our pasts and into our inner lives and the lives of those around us who are suffering. I have not included her song Gospel Night At The Strip Club, but I think that that song helps make my case here. I'm much more offended by the social conditions and loss of connection that we all live with that McBryde describes so well than I am by her language.

Sometimes someone comes along who throws away pretensions and, intentionally or not, says or writes or paints or sings something that regrounds us. Some of those people become saints despite our shunning and censorship, or perhaps because of our shunning and censorship and hypocrisy. Many of McBryde's songs help me reground. Her cussing makes a point, but listen to what follows and how feelings change in her songs and the hard reality that we live in is acknowledged and regretted.

Ashley McBryde's brother Clay died by suicide in June 2018. A song called "Stone" from her new 'Never Will' album pays tribute to him but also dives into her own emotions. This interview appeared on Taste of Country.

Jesus Jenny (Acoustic)

Shut Up Sheila (Interview + Performance)

Bible and A .44

Stone (Acoustic) // Fireside Sessions

If you were out driving and it was 7:00 PM...

If that was you right now what music would you be playing?

I would be playing

There might be a couple of tears in my eyes, but that's just what I would be playing.

 

The Carter Family

I am a fan of the Carter family's music. Ward Weems provided the following photograph and caption from LIFE Magazine.

The Carter Family at their Poor Valley, Virginia home, 1941. A. P., Ezra, with his wife Maybelle and young daughters, Anita, June and Helen with A.P's wife Sara next to grand-daughter Flo Millard and Gladys Carter Millard, with Maybelle's mom Margaret Addington and A.P.'s son Joe. Photographed by Eric Schaal for LIFE Magazine.

That is June Carter, as in June Carter Cash later on.

These are two of my favorite Carter Family songs:

The Carter Family Wabash Cannon Ball

Carter Family-East Virginia Blues No.1

Some music for today

She didn't know she could sing

Dom Flemons - "Slow Dance With You" (Official Audio)

Rhiannon Giddens: "Julie" (original)

Amy Grant and Vince Gill push back against bigotry and get attacked. Let's support them.

It's hard to live in my world and not hear about how the contemporary Christian music icon Amy Grant and her husband country singer Vince Gill have unintentionally stepped into a controversy by hosting their niece's same-sex wedding on their Tennessee farm. This wedding could go on as a more-or-less simple family event or it could be taken as "a beautiful act of pro-LGBTQ affirmation," as the good folks at Faithful America see it, but the word is that the evangelist Franklin Graham is denouncing Grant on social media, threatening her niece with an eternity in hell and accusing Grant of crossing some theological lines.

I have good friends on both sides of this, and since I'm opposed to bigotry and anti-LGBTQIA+ prejudices I'm going to side with Grant and Gill and the soon-to-be-married couple. Faithful America says that Grant has shown support for the LGBTQIA+ community in the past, and they see this as her most straightforward step in that direction to date. The conservative Christian leadership has good reason to worry when people like Grant and Gill step up and out on issues that these leaders don't own. Country singers probably carry more weight than these businessmen-preachers do at this point.

Grant has stated her views pretty clearly. She told the Washington Post, "Honestly, from a faith perspective, I do always say, 'Jesus, you just narrowed it down to two things: love God and love each other.' I mean, hey -- that's pretty simple."

It's a strange thing being on the same team with Grant and Gill, though. I have never been a fan of either of them, but their music is not the point here. When people in their positions step out on the right issues we have to stand with them. I have not seen a story on this in Country Queer yet, but I'm sure that they will post one. And I may be buying a ticket to an upcoming Amy Grant concert if that will help things out.

Please get over to Faithful America and join their efforts to support Grant and Gill and the lucky couple.

Here is my favorite Amy Grant video:

Amy Grant - Better Than A Hallelujah (Official Music Video)

     

Dave Zupkovich And Tamburitza Music

Photograph of Dave Zupkovich taken from the Dave Zupkovich

Taburitza King Facebook page

Dave Zupkovich was one of the great tamburitza musicians in the United States. I believe that his birthday was on January 3 and that he would be 103 years old were he alive today. 

Tamburitza music is most often taken as Croatian, but its history and development are complex. It is a beautiful music that requires specially made instruments, skilled musicians, well-timed vocals, and concentration at its best. The music takes as its themes affairs of the heart, loneliness, and stories from history that sometimes become commentaries on present-day events. Tamburitza became the music of immigrant coal miners, steel workers, and auto workers and their communities in the United States and has perhaps come to be adopted by many communities with their roots in the Balkans over time. 

Here is one of my favorite compositions:

Hank Williams

January 1,1953: Hank Williams is pronounced dead in Oak Hill, West Virginia.

He died en route from Knoxville, Tennessee to Canton, Ohio, where he was to

perform a New Year's Day concert.

Lost Highway

REALBILLY: On Tennessee Brando, Tyler Childs, and Authenticity

I did a short post on Tyler Childers the other day. I probably paid more attention to the controversies he's involved in than I should have, and I certainly should have explained that many of these controversies go back two years or longer. 

Here to help set the record straighter is country singer and songwriter Tennessee Brando. I'm a big fan of his, and I hope that you will be, too. Look for him on Youtube to start with.

 

Neil Young Can Hang Around

Now please listen to the next two together:

Brando’s Realbilly Revue- “Twisted Rhymes”

Scotty Moore

Scotty Moore's birthday fell on December 27. I believe that he would have been in his early 90s had he lived. Moore was one of the great postwar guitar players and had much to do with the creation of rockabilly as a musical genre. He has been overshadowed in the public mind by Elvis Presley, Chet Atkins, Carl Perkins, and Roy Orbison. He taught all of them a thing or two, but he never grabbed and held onto the spotlight as he could have. He was a working guy.
 

Scotty Moore - Mystery Train

Tyler Childers

Are you familiar with the country musician and singer Tyler Childers? This is an introduction if you are not familiar with him. I don't agree with everything that he has to say, but I think that he represents something good within country music, and hopefully among the people who listen most to country music. He is certainly controversial. The first video is Tyler Childers addressing some of what makes him controversial. I'm including a Black man's reaction to the music because of the controversies, although most of the criticism comes from other sources. I fully appreciate what he has on the line and how he keeps going and keeps giving back. It is no small matter that he is in recovery and is open about that because this sets such a good example for all of us. Beyond that, this is just good music.

"Long Violent History" with lyrics

The Old Country Church / Take My Hounds to Heaven (Live at Farm Aid 2021)

TALE OF THE TIMES! TYLER CHILDERS-LONG VIOLENT

HISTORY! REACTION!!

White House Road