Mountains of Music: West Virginia Traditional Music from Goldenseal (review)

This volume is a collection of articles about and interviews with West Virginia traditional musicians taken from Goldenseal, the quarterly regional magazine that has been a solid fixture on that state's folklore and folklife publishing landscape since 1975. It profiles the lives and experiences of 25 folk musicians and leaves readers with a nuanced picture of their historical and personal situations and of the overall state of affairs of traditional music around the state. Through extensive oral accounts, numerous compelling photographs, and the well-written observations of such respected folklorists as Carl Fleischhauer and Charles Wolfe, the book makes a strong case for the significance of American folk music to Appalachia and vice versa. For folklore professionals as well as those of more casual interest, Mountains of Music is a goldmine of facts and stories that discloses the musical soul of this important traditional American region.

One thing that makes the book a success is the editor's decision to divide it by instruments rather than region or genre. There is no attempt to impose a subregional scheme, to theorize articles that were originally meant for popular consumption, or to arbitrarily divide sacred from secular or popular from true folk. The common cultural context of fiddlers, banjoists, guitar players, dulcimer players, and family bands emerges organically. Often the separate articles on particular practitioners seem almost to refer to each other. The practical result of the groupings is that readers keep running into comments and ideas on style, themes, values, and even individual tunes. By the end of each section, a wealth of genuine insider knowledge has been gained about the fiddling, picking, strumming, claw hammering, and singing traditions of West Virginia and how they intertwine and relate.

Another plus for the book is its careful eye toward all genres of folklore, and not just the music. This breadth is no doubt due to Goldenseal's overall mission of documenting and celebrating folk culture. Woody Simmons, for example, in the midst of an interview about his apprenticeship as a fiddler in Randolph County, drifts into a reminiscence about shingling roofs: "They used a froe to split those shingles with, and they've been on there 65 years at least. They used to claim if the moon was ruling up, if you put them on then, they'd all turn up. So we put ours on when the moon was ruling down" (p. 14). The interviewer subsequently notes that the new moon is said to be "ruling up" when its tips point upward and that the same folk idea applies to planting; the moon will pull plants up the same way it will pull roof shingles-good for plants, bad for shingles. While this has little to do with music, it does add to the overall value of Mountains of Music for readers with a wide interest in West Virginia folklore.

Some of the artists profiled are well known, such as fiddler Clark Kessinger, fiddler (and United States Senator) Robert Byrd, National Heritage Fellowship recipient and fiddler Melvin Wine, blues man Nat Reese, recording stars Lynn Davis and Molly O'Day, dulcimer master Russell Fluharty, and banjoist Sylvia O'Brien. Others are less well known, but their profiles and thoughts on their life and music are just as significant and often just as interesting. Folklorists and practicing traditional musicians will particularly relish the wide range of tunes that are named and discussed-from "Billy in the Low Ground" to "Whiskey Before Breakfast."

This is the most complete survey so far of West Virginia music, its practitioners, and its musical culture. Mountains of Music delineates a unique way of life where music and music making are part of an ancient and treasured heritage. The sly humor, strong faith, clear regional identity, and musical convictions of these performers draw the reader into families and communities bound by music from one generation to another. Moreover...