Humanities Feature Bureau

When Christmas is over, the fun is just getting started for many in Southern Appalachia.

The tradition of “Breaking Up Christmas” is a week-long series of gatherings, where people get together in each other’s homes and jam until the wee hours of the morning. Many generations participate, and it’s a really wonderful way for the community to come together and wind down the holiday season.

The Spencer Family — who form the core members of the Whitetop Mountain Band — and Wayne Henderson — legendary luthier — both regularly hold “Breaking Up Christmas” jam sessions in their homes. Here’s a video of a jam session in Wayne’s home, featuring the Wilkesboro, NC-based band, the Kruger Brothers.

These celebrations are rooted in the old mumming traditions from Ireland, Scotland and the old world. These are essentially visitations – a group of men would bust into a house and perform plays and other festive performances in homes. Back then they would wear masks and do it for little bits of money and gifts. But now, they do it for what they love best, which is music.

This isn’t just for professional musicians or folks who are real virtuosos of their instruments. It’s also beginners, folks who just picked up a fiddle or guitar for the first time. That’s one of the great aspects of this tradition. It’s what keeps it strong and will into the future.

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A Virginia-based a cappella quartet earned the “gospel album of the year” award at the 2009 Independent Music Awards. The Paschall Brothers of Chesapeake sing four-part harmony in a style with a storied tradition. Virginia State Folklorist Jon Lohman has more.

See video of the Paschall Brothers performing as part of the 2009 Richmond Folklife Festival’s “Sacred Sounds, Sacred Spaces” area.

On the Right Road Now, a CD co-produced by the Virginia Folklife Program and Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, won the IMA 2009 “Gospel Album of the Year” award.

Learn about the Paschall Brothers’ first cd, Songs for our Father, produced by the Virginia Folklife Program.

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Many of the musicians who perform at fiddler’s conventions and music festivals throughout southern Appalachia are, in fact, young kids.

Late in the night, long past their bedtimes, children and teenagers can be found jamming alongside seasoned musicians at festivals.  Sometimes, it’s the youngest in the circle that is leading with a solo and pushing the pace.  In this month’s “Folklife FieldNote,” I share cuts from my archive recordings of remarkable young musicians who are keeping bluegrass and old time musical traditions vibrant.

See video of Will Jones jamming at age 14 and at age 18

Website of Will Jones’s family band – the Cana  Ramblers

Adam Larkey and Mountain Time homepage

Fiddlin’ Carson Peters on MySpace

Wondering who that was at the end of the piece singing the Beatles’ tune? That was Avery Deacons, 14, of Johnson City, TN.

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“Don’t open your mouth. Just sit and play. Keep on playing.”

Flory Jagoda (photo right) sings songs she learned from her nona (grandmother) as a child in pre-WWII Sarajevo – songs which have been passed down in her family since they fled the Spanish Inquisition in 1492.  All of her ballads are sung in Ladino, a Judeo-Spanish language dating back centuries.  Today, Flory is known as “the keeper of the flame” of the once rich Saphardic Jewish song tradition. In 2002, Flory received a National Heritage Fellowship, a remarkable honor bestowed upon only four other Virginians in the past.

I visited with Flory at her home in Northern Virginia and she told me the remarkable role her accordion played as she escaped the holocaust as a young girl.

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