When you think of “Appalachian cooking,” what comes to mind? For a lot of folks, it’s savory comfort foods like biscuits with sausage gravy, crispy fried chicken and mashed potatoes loaded with butter. But, what about folks who want that comfort food, without involving animals? Jan Brandenburg is a pharmacist and poet in Eastern Kentucky. Over the last 30 years, she’s collected and perfected recipes that take a plant-based approach to the Appalachian table. Producer Bill Lynch spoke with Brandenburg about her new book The Modern Mountain Cookbook.
Amythyst Kiah hails from East Tennessee, and the mountains around her home have shaped her music from the start.
They play an even more important role in Kiah’s new album, Still + Bright. The album follows on the success of 2021’s Wary + Strange, and features guest spots by S.G. Goodman, Billy Strings and others.
Amythyst Kiah spoke with Inside Appalachia host Mason Adams from her home in Johnson City, Tennessee.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Adams: We’re talking in late December, during the darkest time of the year, just a few days after the winter solstice, and I’m struck by the contrast to the cover of your album, Still + Bright, which depicts the brightness of day. The album feels that way, too. It feels really bold and joyful, like a new day. What did you have in mind when you started making this new album?
Amythyst Kiah, whose new album is Still + Bright.
Courtesy of Rounder Records
Kiah: I was moving into a new headspace where I really wanted to really expand on my songwriting, and one big step toward that was to get back in touch with a more spiritual or faith-based side to my life, because that was something that I felt wasn’t really as present. It’s hard to cultivate that when you’re running around in the rat race, trying to keep up appearances and keep up with everybody. To me, it was important to embrace silence and stillness. A lot of that is inspired by Taoism and Zen Buddhism — those sort of teachings I try to incorporate in my own life. That includes things like meditation and trying to do things where I’m more present. Really, Still + Bright, is about coming back into the real world and trying to find that balance. The yin-yang is something that I have incorporated in my life, because it represents that everything on this planet is in this sort of symbiotic relationship. We have a tendency in Western thinking to separate everything into these boxes, and we fail to see the whole big picture — that everything’s connected.
So, Still + Bright is about exploring those ideas in various ways, whether it be through TV shows or video games that have inspired me, that tell a similar story, or meditation or the Tao Te Ching. This is about exploring my interests and the things that really resonate with me and have helped shape the way that I interact and see the world.
Adams: This album is really powerful. There’s this Madeleine L’Engle (author of A Wrinkle in Time) quote that I always think about: “Stories are able to help us to become more whole, to become Named. And Naming is one of the impulses behind all art; to give a name to the cosmos we see despite all the chaos.” I love this idea about artists making cosmos from the chaos, and it feels like that’s what happens in Still + Bright repeatedly. Can you share a little of the process behind your songwriting?
Kiah: The cosmos undoubtedly plays a foundational role not only in my music, but in everything that I do. It’s because of whatever thing happened billions of years ago. It’s the fact that being a human being on this planet, the odds and chances of me being here are so small. It’s kind of a miracle that we even exist, given the vastness of the universe. I’m also really into Cosmos documentaries and stuff like that too. Because to me, all of the religions that are on this planet, they stem from human beings looking up at the sky and trying to figure out, what is that, and why are we down here? To me, like that’s part of that spiritual aspect. It’s this idea of, they think that the universe is potentially just a larger version of the human brain. We see all of these different plants and different things that have veins and branches and leaves, and we see there’s an order to things that is undeniable.
One other thing I really think a lot about, too, is we’re all part of this and having differing cultural beliefs or different narratives about how we’re here. If we’re all looking up at the same sky and coming up with different stories of how we think the universe is, why can’t we just enjoy these stories and pick the one that we like the best, instead of having to force that on other people. That’s another thing that I think about a lot and talk about on the record. This idea that, which narrative is true — as if any of us will ever fully know — has always been very disconcerting to me. I feel spirituality and religion should be a time to share stories and try to understand one another, as opposed to trying to dictate which story is the most valid.
Adams: Your connection to Appalachia is apparent across the album, and maybe nowhere more than on Empire of Love. The lyric I wanted to ask you about is, “Johnson, City, Tennessee, my home in Appalachia is still calling me. Give me a mountain, something divine, a river that can carve its way through stone and time.” I love that line. How does the region and the ancient mountains here play into your songs and maybe even your worldview?
Kiah: With “Empire of Love,” I co-wrote this song with Sean McConnell at his studio just outside of Nashville. He’s one of the first people outside of my immediate friend group where I could actually have a discussion about the Dao with him. He was also a fan of the Tao Te Ching, and so we talked about Eastern philosophy and stuff before we started writing. The song was an homage to where I live, and also homage to having the freedom to decide how to live my life. With that particular line, it was funny, because initially I had the idea to mention Johnson City, Tennessee, because there’s the song “Wagon Wheel,” and most people know what Johnson City is now because of that song. So, at first I thought, well, how would this seem, mentioning that in the song? And I thought, “Well, I live here, and this is an opportunity to, why not sing it in the song?” When I was talking with Sean about it, I was like, “I don’t know, what do you think, that would be too much?” And he was like, “Nah, you should just just go for it, leave it in there.” And I was like, okay. So, then after mentioning that, I was like, well, I want to take that time to find a way to encapsulate how I feel about Johnson City in two lines.
When we started talking about the Dao, water is a symbol that’s used a lot in the Dao. Water represents yin, which is the yin part of the yinyang. Basically, yin represents feminine energy, I guess what you could also call negative energy, which “negative” doesn’t mean bad, it just a different power from positive. Both things have to exist. The idea of water being more of a feminine energy, or more of a yin energy, is that it has the ability to be adaptable, and it can flow through tight crevices and go down to lower places. It’s also incredibly strong because it carves pathways and mountains, and it erodes earth. It takes time to do it. It represents this life force, where you can be gentle, but you can still have power, but the power is in the ability to have patience. That’s how I interpret it, or think of it, and that’s how I try to think about it in my own life.
Specifically, the idea of water carving through space and time, and also thinking about the fact that the Appalachian Mountains are the oldest mountains in the United States. They’re ancient. There’s this energy and presence that I feel when I’m able to be out in the woods or be out in the mountains. That sort of quiet, still energy is something that gives me great strength, and great strength from the standpoint of feeling present and connected and grounded in a society where there is so much emphasis on positive energy and constantly going, going, going. Even waking up and picking up your phone and looking at videos, that’s positive energy, and I’ve been guilty of that, so I’m not better than anybody else. We’ve all been there, because it’s such an addictive form of entertainment. This idea of this positivity, always having to be thinking about something, doing something. Not being able to sit still those moments in the mountains, or those moments, being around water, being in those spaces, it’s just such a regenerative experience and that to me is so important and integral in my life. It felt good to be able to get these thoughts out in song.
Amythyst Kiah’s new album is Still + Bright. It’s available on Rounder Records.
When you think of “Appalachian cooking,” what comes to mind? For a lot of folks, it’s savory comfort foods like biscuits with sausage gravy, crispy fried chicken and mashed potatoes loaded with butter. But, what about folks who want that comfort food, without involving animals? Jan Brandenburg is a pharmacist and poet in Eastern Kentucky. Over the last 30 years, she’s collected and perfected recipes that take a plant-based approach to the Appalachian table. Producer Bill Lynch spoke with Brandenburg about her new book The Modern Mountain Cookbook.
On this West Virginia Morning, in honor of Earth Day West Virginia University has announced a comprehensive set of more than 20 sustainability goals. And from Inside Appalachia, perfecting recipes that take a plant-based approach to the Appalachian table.
On this West Virginia Morning, a new book examines the Kingston Fossil Plant Spill, coal - fired power plants are granted regulatory exemptions and our Song of the Week.
Just before Christmas 2008, Appalachia became the site of the largest industrial spill in U.S. history. A dam holding back coal ash at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston Fossil Plant ruptured. The break released over a billion gallons of toxic coal ash slurry. The spill — and what came after — are the subject of a recent book, Valley So Low: One Lawyer’s Fight for Justice in the Wake of America’s Great Coal Catastrophe. Inside Appalachia Host Mason Adams spoke with its author, Jared Sullivan.
