Red Terry’s property in Bent Mountain, Virginia, is in the path of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. She says the place was beautiful, but she’s worried about the dangers of the pipeline not far from her home. Plus, almost everybody has a favorite cup or coffee mug, but how far would you go to replace it? One woman would go pretty far. And… we explore an effort in western Virginia to make old-time music more available to Black musicians.
Red Terry’s property in Bent Mountain, Virginia, is in the path of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. She says the place was beautiful, but she’s worried about the dangers of the pipeline not far from her home.
Plus, almost everybody has a favorite cup or coffee mug, but how far would you go to replace it? One woman would go pretty far.
And… we explore an effort in western Virginia to make old-time music more available to Black musicians.
You’ll hear these stories and more this week, Inside Appalachia.
Coles and Red Terry at their home in Virginia in 2024.
Photo Credit: Mason Adams/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
People have been fighting the Mountain Valley Pipeline since it was first announced. The project runs through West Virginia and Virginia, connecting natural gas terminals with a 303-mile pipeline stretching across some of Appalachia’s most rugged terrain. Almost immediately after construction began, protestors tried to block it by setting up platforms in trees along the route and living in them.
In 2018, host Mason Adams interviewed activist and tree sitter Theresa “Red” Terry, as she protested against the pipeline on her own property.
Six years later, with the pipeline nearly finished, Adams went back to Bent Mountain to talk with Red Terry and her husband Coles to hear what’s happened since Red came down from her tree sit.
The Last Unicorn (Mug)
The magic is in the mug.
Photo Credit: Wendy Welch/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Folkways stories come in all shapes and sizes. And sometimes, they bring a little magic – like a story about how losing a very special mug can lead to finding something greater.
Folkways Reporter Wendy Welch brings us this tale of a potter who lost her mojo and a woman who helped her get it back.
Earl White’s Old-Time Music
Earl White (right) with wife and bandmate, Adrienne Davis, in their home in Floyd County, Virginia. White and Davis are both old-time musicians, and they host a music camp on their farm called Big Indian Music Camp.
Photo Credit: Nicole Musgrave/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Appalachian old-time music brings together traditions from man cultures: African and African American, Native American and Scots-Irish. And yet, the contributions of Black and Indigenous musicians have often been erased or overlooked. In Floyd County, Virginia, one man has spent years working to make old-time music more available to Black musicians.
Folkways Reporter Nicole Musgrave has this story.
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Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert. Other music this week was provided by Jeff Ellis, June Carter Cash, Joe Dobbs and the 1937 Flood, Earl White, Amethyst Kiah, Tyler Childers and Dinosaur Burps.
Bill Lynch is our producer. Zander Aloi is our associate producer. Our executive producer is Eric Douglas. Kelley Libby is our editor. Our audio mixer is Patrick Stephens.
You can send us an email: InsideAppalachia@wvpublic.org.
In a classroom in Fairmont, West Virginia, a diverse group of students has gathered to learn how to play an unlikely instrument: the spoons.
This story originally aired in the Nov. 26, 2023 episode of Inside Appalachia.
In a classroom in Fairmont, West Virginia, a diverse group of students has gathered to learn how to play an unlikely instrument: the spoons.
Looking relaxed in a Hawaiian shirt at the center of the circle is their teacher Jeff Fedan. The seniors, kids and young adults who showed up for Fedan’s lesson are playing along to a dulcimer-version of Golden Slippers with spoons of different shapes and styles. As they clack along, Fedan encourages them to try out new rhythmic patterns.
Jeff Fedan has been teaching aspiring spoons players how to play for years. He is also one of the co-founders and organizers of the yearly Pattyfest.
Credit: Lauren Griffin/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
As a recent retiree, Fedan now has more time to dedicate to his musical passion. He’s primarily a drummer, but he also plays the dulcimer.
When Fedan moved to West Virginia decades ago, he started attending music festivals. As a percussionist, he was intrigued when he came across the spoons at a festival once. He picked up the skill and has been teaching other folks how to play for about 10 years. Over that time, he’s noticed increasing interest in the spoons.
Fedan is teaching this free spoons workshops at Pattyfest. It’s a yearly festival held in honor of Patty Loomen. Loomen was a mountain dulcimer player who taught Fedan, along with many others.
Throughout Appalachia, old-time and bluegrass jams are a beloved pastime. For those who want to join, the spoons are an accessible way to dip your toe in. For Fedan, spoons are both affordable and approachable.
“Not everybody can afford an instrument like a guitar, which is several hundred dollars. But if they are inspired by the sound of spoons, for just a few bucks, you can get something that you can use to participate in a jam session,” says Fedan.
Spoons have been played for centuries in Europe, Asia and the Americas. In ancient history, people used bones to play. You can still find bones players today, but more often people use a wooden set.
The spoons became popular in American folk music, particularly in African American jug bands. You might find the spoons accompanied by a washboard or a jug. Simple, household items that can easily be picked up to carry a tune.
The Bone Player, William Sidney Mount (American, 1807–1868)1856
Credit: Bequest of Martha C. Karolik for the M. and M. Karolik Collection of American Paintings, 1815–1865
Aspiring spoons players have a couple different options. You could play with metal spoons. Or you could opt for a pair of carved wooden ones.
Like their players, each set of spoons has its own personality. Bob Snyder, an old-time musician from Clarksburg, West Virginia, is also a woodworker. After seeing spoons around at festivals, he tried making them himself, creating his own design in the process. He makes his spoons from sassafras, walnut, oak and other hardwoods.
Bob Snyder sells all kinds of different spoons at the festivals he attends. There are metal ones with wooden handles and carved wooden sets of different woods and styles.
Credit: Lauren Griffin/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
“Even two of the same woods, they’re gonna sound different because of the grain in them. I like the walnuts. Everybody’s different,” says Snyder.
Snyder starts out with a square block of wood. He carves out his shapes and glues the two halves together. The final step of his process is lots and lots of sanding.
“I want them to last for people and be comfortable. If it’s uncomfortable, they’re not gonna play it,” says Snyder.
Wooden spoons mimic the shape of kitchen spoons. Cups of different sizes are carved out of the wood. The two halves can then be glued together, creating one singular instrument, rather than two metal spoons that have to be held together in a particular way.
Wooden spoons might be more comfortable, but some players still prefer metal spoons. Emily Kaniecki in Wheeling, West Virginia, is one.
Kaniecki grew up in a family of bluegrass musicians but never picked up an instrument herself. She knew she had rhythm though. So one day, she looked up how to play the spoons online and taught herself how to play.
Kaniecki’s twin brother played in an old-time group, the Marsh Wheeling String Band. After teaching herself how to play, she joined the band on stage at Oglebayfest, an annual fall festival.
Emily Kaniecki (right) performing with her friend Tim Ullom at the 19th Hole in Wheeling, West Virginia.
Credit: Emily Kaniecki
“It was always kind of a joke at first. People just thought it was funny. But after a while, I wanted it to be more of a serious thing,” says Kaniecki.
Playing the spoons isn’t always easy. Your body is part of the instrument.
“I’ve taken my jeans off and my whole entire thigh is covered in bruises from just hitting,” says Kaniecki.
Kaniecki has honed her skills and can turn a clamor into a tune. She explains that playing the spoons is not just about the sound you make, but also about the performance. When she gets on stage, she becomes the star of the show.
Kaniecki delights her audience with spoons tricks like the drag. A drag is a technique where you sweep the spoons across your fingers. Instead of hitting the spoons on your leg, you can also play off your elbow or even your head.
Along with her performance at Oglebayfest, Kaniecki has brought out her spoons at open mic nights, on stage at festivals, even at her own wedding. These days, her work as a nurse and a mother keeps her busy. But she says she’ll never retire from the spoons.
“I love it. It’s so easy if you can just have rhythm, practice. It’d be a really cool instrument to play that doesn’t really require formal musical training. And also, it’s different. It’s not something you see everyday,” says Kaniecki.
So, next time you’re putting away your silverware, give it a try. Play along with the rhythm to a song, find a local bluegrass jam, or take a free workshop next year at Pattyfest.
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This story is part of the Inside Appalachia Folkways Reporting Project, a partnership with West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Inside Appalachia and the Folklife Program of the West Virginia Humanities Council.
The Folkways Reporting Project is made possible in part with support from Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies to the West Virginia Public Broadcasting Foundation. Subscribe to the podcast to hear more stories of Appalachian folklife, arts and culture.
This week on Inside Appalachia, we head to the woods and take a master class in foraging for wild mushrooms. We also break bread and talk soul food with Xavier Oglesby. And we’ll hear about old-time music legend Aunt Jeannie Wilson.
This week, we head to the woods and take a master class in foraging for wild mushrooms.
We also break bread and talk soul food with Xavier Oglesby, who is passing on generations of kitchen wisdom to his niece, Brooklynn.
And we’ll hear about old-time music legend Aunt Jeannie Wilson. A marker has been set near the place where people used to hear her play.
These stories and more this week, Inside Appalachia.
These chanterelles are about to be turned into a tasty treat. They were harvested the day before an unsuccessful mushroom hunt, and turned into a topper for vanilla ice cream.
Credit: Wendy Welch/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Mushroom hunting has always been a part of Appalachian culture, but in recent years especially, mushrooms have been having a moment.
Folkways Reporter Wendy Welch spent time with foragers in Virginia and West Virginia to learn more.
Sharing Soul Food
Xavier Oglesby cuts onions for a macaroni salad he is cooking inside Manna House Ministries’ kitchen. A pot of boiling water is behind him, cooking the pasta for the dish.
Credit: Vanessa Peña/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Soul food is associated with Black communities in the deep south, but the cooking style is traditional to Appalachia, too. Folkways Fellow Vanessa Peña talked with Xavier Oglesby, a master artist in soul food cooking from Beckley, West Virginia.
West Virginia recently paid tribute to one of its traditional music greats. Aunt Jeanie Wilson was a clawhammer banjo player who performed for governors and presidents. She helped to keep mountain music alive through the 20th century during the rise of jazz, rock n’ roll and electric music.
WVPB’s Briana Heaney went to a ceremony honoring Wilson at Chief Logan State Park in Logan County.
Jayne Anne Phillip’s “Night Watch”
Courtesy
The career of author Jayne Anne Phillips spans nearly 50 years. Her home state of West Virginia has often figured into her books, giving a glimpse of the different decades of Appalachian life. Her latest novel is Night Watch, which takes readers to the Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in the town of Weston several years after the end of the Civil War.
Bill Lynch spoke with Phillips about her book and growing up near the old asylum.
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Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert. Other music this week was provided by Town Mountain, Noam Pikelny, Justice & Jarvis, Jesse Milnes, Mary Hott and Little Sparrow.
This week, producer Bill Lynch filled in for host Mason Adams. Zander Aloi is our associate producer. Our executive producer is Eric Douglas. Kelley Libby is our editor. Our audio mixer is Patrick Stephens.
You can send us an email: InsideAppalachia@wvpublic.org.
As part of our Inside Appalachia folkways project, we have been exploring Appalachia’s unique connection to Wales. Both regions mountainous landscapes, a history of coal extraction, folktales and it turns out, music.
There is a growing community of musicians from both Wales and Appalachia who share an interest in the culture that binds them together.
Wales And Appalachian Old-Time
Ben McManus is a musician who lives in Aberystwyth, Wales. He grew up playing instruments, but as a teenager, he was instantly captivated when he heard music, from Appalachia.
“I came back from high school one day, and the gardener’s were playing bluegrass, like really loudly out of a boombox,” McManus said. “And I was just like, ‘wow, what is this music?’”
He was hooked. McManus searched for similar music, and that led him to Appalachian old-time, which is older than bluegrass. In fact, the string music played here in Appalachia has cultural roots from all over northern Africa, Europe and the British Isles — including Wales.
Credit West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Clifftop is an old-time music festival in southern West Virginia.
McManus fell in love with Appalachian string music so much, he eventually traveled to West Virginia to learn more from the musicians here. He took fiddle classes at the Augusta Heritage Center in Elkins and played at the Clifftop Appalachian Stringband Festival, a world-renowned old-time music celebration in southern West Virginia, which has been going on for 30 years.
Two Festivals 3,665 Miles Away
In Wales, there is another music festival, called Fire in the Mountain, named after an Appalachian fiddle tune. It includes a growing group of musicians in Wales who are also interested in the music of Appalachia.
McManus said it is the closest thing to Clifftop that he has found.
“A river runs right through the middle of it, so just a lot of chilling out, and just music everywhere, folk music everywhere,” he said. “It’s just a big four day party on a beautiful farm in the middle of Wales.”
benbanjoWEB.mp3
Listen to Ben McManus play banjo.
Appalachians In Wales
And this music exchange goes both ways.
Musicians Carl Jones and Erynn Marshall live in Galax, Virginia. They travel the world teaching and performing old-time music. But their favorite place to go is Wales.
“You might hear bluegrass and old-time and then you might hear somebody sing a Welsh song, you might hear somebody do an old-time or bluegrass song and sing it in Welsh,” Marshall said.
Marshall added that she and Jones were going to attend Fire in the Mountain this year, but it was cancelled because of the pandemic.
wv_medleyweb.mp3
Listen to Erynn Marshall and Carl Jones play a medley of West Virginia old-time tunes.
Jones is from Georgia, but on one of his first music trips to Wales, he was surprised to find he shared a lot of similarities with the Welsh people he met.
“We met a lot of singing farmers and they looked a lot like me. I was kind of shocked,” he said. “I said, ‘Wow, this guy looks sort of like I look.’ They are really good singers. I’m not saying I’m a good singer, but I did really feel an affinity to the geography and the location felt very comfortable to me and I love going to Wales.”
Jones recently took a DNA test, and discovered that many of his ancestors came from Great Britain. He said he would like to believe that many of them were from Wales.
Credit Glynis Board / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
A view of the seaside in Wales in December, 2019.
Marshall is originally from Canada, but she said she fell in love with Appalachia about 25 years ago. She devoted years to learning old time music from the people in the region. She said she wants to ensure that their music lives on.
“You know, we’re all links in the rope of tradition, you know strands in that rope,” Marshall said. “And it’s really important for me to share what those musicians shared with me; they were very generous.”
The Roots Of Old-Time
Musical traditions evolve as they pass to different cultures and continents, but there are many elements of this music that have not changed, for centuries, even after traveling thousands of miles.
One of Marshall’s favorite songs is a beautiful ballad she plays on the fiddle, called “Love Nancy.” It is an Appalachian song, but it actually originated from an older song from the British Isles.
“It came to West Virginia and other people learned it like myself, as well — it’s beautiful, many of the words long forgotten, but the tune still lives,” Marshall said.
NancyWEB.mp3
Listen to Erynn Marshall play 'Love Nancy' on fiddle.
This interconnection between Welsh immigrants and Appalachian string music has long fascinated folklorist Gerry Milnes.
“I don’t know of any culture who came here who didn’t bring some music with them,” he said.
Milnes is the former folk arts coordinator at the Augusta Heritage Center.
Over the years in his interviews with people in Appalachia, he has discovered hints of Welsh influence in our culture.
“There’s a whole list of towns with really Welsh sounding names,” he said. “Certainly for one thing, there’s an awful lot of Welsh surnames that are involved currently and in the past with old-time traditional music in West Virginia.”
Many Welsh people immigrated to Appalachia in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Although there is not a lot of written history about this group of immigrants, Milnes said he has a hunch that there are more cultural connections with Wales than we realize.
Ben McManus, the Welsh musician who fell in love with Appalachian old-time, agrees.
He has been digging into the history of music that the people of Wales would have been playing in the late 1600s — just before so many of them immigrated to Appalachia. He said there is very little recorded history of the music and culture from that time, adding that is perhaps because the British invasion and oppression of the country wiped out much of that history.
A lot of the Welsh folk music of today had to be rewritten in the following centuries. McManus said he recognizes the importance of keeping traditional music alive, which includes Appalachian old-time.
“Obviously being like a Welsh guy on the other side of the world, like, it’s kind of not wanting to take someone else’s tradition, but it’s like, learning their style,” he said”
The modern day cross cultural exchange of Appalachian old-time music is on hold this year, at least in person. Virginia-based musicians Erynn Marshall and Carl Jones have their sights set on Fire in the Mountain next year. So does McManus. In fact, he is planning to be in West Virginia too — playing old-time music across the Mountain State when it is hopefully safe in 2021.
This story is part of the Inside Appalachia Folkways Reporting Project. Subscribe to the podcast to hear more stories of Appalachian folklife, arts, and culture.
An old-time musician from Clay County has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts’ fellowship — the first West Virginian in 20 years to receive the honor.
John Morris has been named one of nine NEA National Heritage Fellows. According to a press release, it is the highest honor in the United States for folk and traditional arts.
Morris is a lifelong West Virginian who is an acclaimed fiddler, guitarist, banjo player and songwriter. He was inducted into the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame in 2016.
“John has dedicated his life to sustaining, promoting and supporting the musical tradition of his Clay County community,” said Emily Hilliard, West Virginia Humanities Council state folklorist, “through the founding and hosting of community-based festivals, his labor and environmental activism, regular performances and his ongoing commitment to teaching younger practitioners. His playing is infused with all the sounds of Clay County — its environment, its history and its people.”
Hilliard nominated Morris for the fellowship, which is a lifetime honor that includes an award of $25,000, with the goal of passing cultural traditions to the future generations.
The last West Virginian to receive the NEA fellowship was B. Dorothy Thompson, a weaver from Davis.
On June 16, 1968, musician Henry Reed died in Glen Lyn, Virginia, at age 84. He was born and grew up in Monroe County, where he learned local tunes dating back generations.
One example is “Quince Dillion’s High-D Tune,” which Reed supposedly learned from a veteran of the Mexican War and Civil War.
Reed played the fiddle, banjo, and harmonica. His music ranged from old frontier songs, to songs of the late 19th century, to 20th-century country and bluegrass tunes. He never made commercial records but was recorded in the mid-‘60s by Duke University graduate student Alan Jabbour.
Thanks to Jabbour’s efforts, Henry Reed’s catalog of songs became popular during the old-time music revival of the late 20th century. One of his songs, “Over the Waterfall,” is now a fiddle standard.
Many of Henry Reed’s recordings are now available on the Library of Congress Web site.
