No matter where I roam, Appalachia will always be home. Been an expat living amidst the flatlanders for half my life now but taking the hillbilly out of the holler does nothing to take the holler out of the hillbilly. I can camouflage it a bit better now, at least til I open my mouth. Been doing a project on Red River Gorge, but photos are only half the picture, to get a good sense of place you need music.
Best place to start is with what is basically the unofficial anthem of eastern Kentucky, You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive In a place where just about everyone is high on either drugs or Jesus, decent jobs are few and far between, and money and hope are scarce and not expected to return you tend to wind up with something of a fatalistic outlook, which the song captures nicely. Come to think of it, all of these songs do.
All these photos are from Red River Gorge, which is only 20 miles from where I and these next two artists grew up. Parts of the video (particularly the tunnel) for Between the Country is from the gorge and the singer, Ian Noe, was just a few years behind me in school. The rugged beauty of the area helps to conceal the enduring poverty of the area but we grew up watching things slowly decay and crumble and the song gives you a good sense of the mood that goes with that.
You can hardly talk about eastern Kentucky without mentioning coal. It was never good for the area and it's slow, agonizing death has been even worse. The L&N Don't Stop Here Anymore is a tune from the 60s that speaks to that, although this cover is by a classmate of my little brother and her band, The Local Honeys. Growing up coal trains were the only trains I ever saw, but in the years since I moved to Louisville they've stopped running entirely back home.
Wandering in Red River Gorge it's easy to get lost in the beauty of the landscape but I can never quite forget what all else goes with it. Hopefully this has given you a little better sense of that as well. Drop me a comment and let me know what you think.
