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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Since the 17th century, fortifications have guarded the peninsula that juts out into the Chesapeake Bay,  where the Elizabeth, James and Nansemond Rivers converge.  Fort Monroe has stood sentry the longest, since 1819 — a six-sided stone structure that will continue to be an Army outpost until 2011. From then on, its future is subject to much debate, but its place in African-American history is not, as Sondra Woodward explains:

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Retired tobacco farmer and songster Spencer Moore performs Old Jimmy Sutton for Jon Lohman.

Get the full story.

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A masterful songster recorded by two folklorists, fifty years apart.

When the late folklorist Alan Lomax set out on his now infamous “Southern Journey” in 1959, he stopped in Chilhowie, Virginia to record a tobacco farmer named Spencer Moore.   Spencer was quite well known locally for his weekly appearances on the “Farm Fun Time” radio program out of Bristol, and for his spirited singing and guitar playing.  Spencer enthralled Lomax with his playing, and with the sheer breadth of his repertoire.  Spencer still lives in Chilhowie, and while he no longer farms tobacco, he plays regularly at weekly jams and dances throughout the region. No one can say for sure how many songs Spencer Moore knows, but suffice it to say that it is well into the thousands.

One of my greatest thrills as a folklorist was pulling up to Spencer’s house some fifty years after he was visited by Lomax. I recorded Spencer playing numerous songs from his vast repertoire, including Lomax’s favorite “Old Jimmy Sutton.”

In this tune, Spencer is essentially calling a dance. The tune is for dancing, for people enjoying each other and entertaining each other. And Spencer’s still doing that. At 88 years old, he’s going to fiddlers’ conventions and jam sessions all over southwest Virginia.

• Jon Lohman’s full recording of Old Jimmy Sutton
• Alan Lomax Collection at the Library of Congress
• Spencer Moore participated in an Alan Lomax tribute concert

Music Credits

Tracks:“Jimmy Sutton”
Artist: Spencer Moore
Album: AFC 2004/004, tape T857, tracks 3-5
Label: Alan Lomax Collection at the Library of Congress
Release: 1959

Tracks: “Jimmy Sutton”
Artist: Spencer Moore
Album: Unpublished recording
Label: Virginia Folklife Program at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities
Release: n/a

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The rebel yell. What did it sound like – that battle cry that terrorized union troops and rallied Confederates to battle?  Historians have clues from letters and diaries but still have never agreed. Recently, though, a Richmond man released a CD of what he asserts is the authentic rebel yell. Producer Peter Solomon spoke with Waite Rawls, President of the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia.

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In the Late 1970s, Almost a third of Cambodia’s people were murdered by the Khmer Rouge regime or died from starvation. A U.N.-backed court is finally trying these war crimes. But, closer to home here in Virginia, a Vietnamese-American artist and a Roanoke-based poet are exploring how to honor the victims through their art and forging a unique collaboration. Jesse Dukes has this report.

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On March 4th, bluesman John Cephas passed away at the age of 78.  Though late in life he performed around the world, Cephas learned his style of blues — called the Piedmont Blues — from family in Caroline County, Virginia.  Producer Steve Clark has more on Virginia’s Piedmont Blues.

We recommend these two resources to learn more about John Cephas:

• Library of Virginia’s 2009 African-American Trailblazers
• Virginia Folklife Program’s Master Profile of Cephas

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Matisse, Picasso, Chagall: an extensive collection of European Modern Art began a two-year tour around Virginia this month.  Sixty years ago, a private donor gave the paintings away, splitting them between the University of Virginia’s Art Museum and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond.  This touring exhibition reunites the works for the first time for display in Charlottesville, Winchester, Abingdon and Richmond.  Peter Solomon reports on “Matisse, Picasso, and Modern Art in Paris: The T. Catesby Jones Collection.”

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Monday February 16th is Presidents Day—set aside to honor Presidents Washington and Lincoln.  Washington is a recognized Virginian. And, although Illinois calls itself the Land of Lincoln, the roots of our sixteenth president actually run deep into Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, as well. Martha Woodroof reports.

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