Appalachian Story Archives - Page 2 of 2 - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Young and Old: Traditional Music Inspires a New Generation

There’s a culture of music that’s been passed down orally through the hills of West Virginia for many generations.

Old time music has roots in Celtic and Native American cultures, as well as American ballads and popular music and poems that passed on through oral tradition. The practice of learning young the tunes of their ancestors is alive and well in Sophia, in Raleigh County.

“There’s a lot of good words in an old country song,” Carl Hensly of Beckley said. “A lot of times it’s something that they go through.”

Hensly is part of a small group of old time country, folks, bluegrass and gospel lovers that meet once a week at Sophia Fire Department in Raleigh County. The door is open to anyone that wants to join on Tuesday nights.

The group has been meeting for more than 20 years.

“Different people’s been in charge of it for a period of years and one dies off and the other one takes over,” Hensley said.

That’s the idea, to keep playing with an open invitation hoping that someone will always be there to take over. If not, Hensley says, Appalachians lose a part of their heritage.

“We lose that we lost part of it,” Hensley said. “The younger generation is just not going to pick it up and continue. However, we have talked two or three young ones in here and they’ve turned out to be excellent.”

Picking Up the Melody

One of those youngsters is Sophia resident, Jordan Young.

Jordan Young is passionate about Bluegrass Music. He plays mandolin, guitar, banjo upright bass and sings.

“In a way I think it was something I was doing to get closer to him because I stayed at his house all the time,” Young said.

Young says it was his grandfather that took him to the jam sessions in Sophia. For Young it was time spent with his family, and a place to learn.

“That’s where I learned to play honestly,” Young said. “I knew maybe four chords and he said, ‘well I’ll take ya some place where you can kind of just play around with people and through time I got to playing solos with them and it just helped me so much.”

His grandfather passed away about a year ago. And now it’s more important than ever for Young to carry on the traditions.

Young is now a student at Glenville State College, getting a degree in Bluegrass. The website boasts it as the world’s first four year bachelor of arts degree in Bluegrass Music.

Young says studying Bluegrass and old-time music offers a window into Appalachia’s past and he hopes to help carry it on, into the future.

Close Your Eyes and Imagine Christmases Past

Here’s a glimpse into Christmases past –

Fayetteville actress, playwright, and historian Karen Vuranch brings us a lovely passage from a piece written by Richard Matteson called Christmas in the Appalachian Mountains.

It’s a time when snow glistened across the roof of a small log cabin perched on a rocky slope, and smoke swirled out of a chimney from the old pot-bellied stove.

Inside the caroling has begun with Grandpa on banjo and Aunt Mary on fiddle. The toys are homemade, whittled from oak and decorated with corn silk and hickory stain.

It’s Christmas in the Appalachian Mountains!

The Last Forest Collection on West Virginia Public Radio Presents

West Virginia Public Radio Presents is broadcast Thursdays at 9 p.m. and features a variety of insightful programs that explore life, politics, and culture in and around the Mountain State.

Produced by Larry Groce (host of Mountain Stage) these three one-hour programs dramatize five of the short stories from G.D. McNeill’s book, “The Last Forest.”

October 17 The First Campfire Back in the 1880’s when this story takes place, the author was a 10-year-old boy living on a mountain farm nestled up against one of the last virgin forests in the eastern United States. It was a life bounded by the seasons and the sun, a life enriched by the tall tales, legends, and family memories recounted over long winter nights by the fireplace. This story tell of his first fishing trip across the mountains to the Cranberry River wilderness.

October 24 The Battle at the Whirlpool & The Last Campfire This is a fish story told at a time when the native Brook trout streams of the Gauley country were struggling to survive. Logging and waste during the first two decades of the twentieth century killed off many good trout fisheries. The Battle at the Whirlpool is a quest-story about a young boy seeking to catch the last great brook trout in the Gauley country. In The Last Campfire, 50 years after The First Campfire, a group of old friends reunite to travel to the old wilderness where they spent their youth. It’s a story of loss and renewal, as the group of friends faces the reality of the destructive hand of man, and the ability of nature to be restored.

October 31 The Mystery at Gauley Marsh & The Duke of Possum Ridge In these stories, G.D. McNeill tells the story of the Gauley Marsh, based on the real-life Cranberry Glades, a sub-arctic wetlands environment that was left behind when the last Ice Age receded from the Allegheny Mountains. In the spirit of Halloween, this is a murder mystery inspired by a real story from McNeill’s day. The Duke of Possum Ridge is a tale of greed about neighbors who took advantage of those around them during the boom times when the railroads, timbering and mining began to exploit the cheap land and resources of the state.

A curriculum guide is available at The Last Forest Website from the Pocahontas Communications Cooperative. Made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the West Virginia Humanities Council.