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This week, Karly Hartzman of Asheville indie rock band Wednesday, talks about songwriting, place and spending a lot of time with a band on tour.
We also meet Emily Jones Hudson, who started a workshop to try and reinvigorate quilting in her community in Kentucky.
Also, we check in with the Alabama Astronaut and learn about a uniquely Appalachian form of art – religious music heard only in snake-handling churches.
In This Episode:
The rock band Wednesday is based in Asheville, North Carolina. The band made big waves when its record, “Rat Saw God” came out in April 2023. The music site Pitchfork gave it 8.8 out of 10 and named it Best New Music.
Before Wednesday set out on a big European tour, Mason Adams caught up with singer/songwriter Karly Hartzman.
Quilts in Appalachia are often handed down from generation to generation and while some traditional arts have faded, people have never really stopped quilting. But the tradition can be patchy in some areas. Emily Jones Hudson noticed fewer quilters in her hometown of Hazard, Kentucky, especially among African Americans. So, she created a quilting workshop series to encourage people to revitalize an art and recapture some history.
Folkways Reporter Capri Cafaro brings us the story.
See more at the Southeast Kentucky African American Museum and Culture Center.
November is National Novel Writing Month. All over the country, aspiring novelists have been writing their hearts out in hopes of penning the next best seller.
But the hard part to getting a novel into a reader’s hands might not be the writing. Author Russell Johnson makes his home in North Carolina, but his debut novel, “Moonshine Messiah,” is set in the West Virginia coal fields, where his parents are from.
Bill Lynch spoke with Johnson about writing and the long road to getting published.
Usually, when you hear about snake-handling, it’s in an exploitative way, but the folks who handle snakes are more like people you might know. They also play a style of Appalachian music that’s largely gone undocumented. That music is the subject of a podcast released in 2022 called Alabama Astronaut.
Folkways Reporter Zack Harold spoke with co-host Abe Partridge about how a project intended to document this music ended up being about a whole lot more.
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Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert. Other music this week was provided by Wednesday, John Blissard, Little David and Christian Lopez.
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.
You can find us on Instagram, Threads and Twitter @InAppalachia. Or here on Facebook.
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This week, data centers are rapidly expanding into rural parts of Appalachia, and folks say they are having trouble finding information about these projects. Also, artificial intelligence is disrupting human art, including fiber arts like crochet. And folks are pushing back, like they always have — with song.
Continue Reading Take Me to More NewsThe state's latest license plate features a total of nine mysterious creatures with ties to West Virginia locations, most prominently the Mothman and the Flatwoods Monster.
Continue Reading Take Me to More NewsInside Appalachia this week explores data centers and artificial intelligence (AI). As part of this special episode, host Mason Adams spoke with Dan Parks, a journalist who writes a Substack called Country Roads News. He's been covering data center development in Tucker County. We listen to an excerpt.
Continue Reading Take Me to More NewsSouthern West Virginia has rich but often overlooked musical traditions. Chris Haddox is a WVU professor of sustainable design, but he's also spent years uncovering more information on those overlooked musicians. We spoke with him to learn more about his effort to shine a light on the musical talents of local miners, now with the help of a grant from the Mellon Foundation.
Continue Reading Take Me to More News
