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  • A Few Honest Words: The Kentucky Roots of Popular Music by Jason Howard
  • Sarah Schmitt
A Few Honest Words: The Kentucky Roots of Popular Music, By Jason Howard. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2012. 272 Softbound, $19.95.

Jason Howard's A Few Honest Words makes use of oral history interviews to paint dynamic portraits of Kentucky musicians, singers, and songwriters. Howard joins Cecil Sharp, Charles Wolfe, Bill Malone, country music biographers, and other vernacular music scholars in attempting to identify and define how Kentucky continues to produce so many virtuosic musicians and canonical songwriters generation after generation. His historical approach accurately describes the Appalachian roots of Kentucky music without the bucolic stereotypes of an [End Page 251] isolated land and a people trapped in time. Still, he recognizes the real and continued influence of quintessentially Appalachian features, like the boom/bust coal economy and settlement schools, in shaping song traditions. Howard emphasizes interracial interaction throughout the state, from the eastern coal-fields to the western Delta, and its impact on musical traditions—a feature often skimmed over in works about Kentucky music. Every chapter challenges the fallacy of a homogenous Kentucky culture and defies arbitrary music genre taxonomies. Summing up, Howard writes of the Kentucky sound: "It is at once rural and urban, black and white; it is country and blues and rock and folk and jazz and bluegrass and gospel and rap. It is one of us" (3).

Howard's narrators are music legends, regionally beloved musicians, and everyone in between. He interviews and profiles Naomi Judd, Ben Sollee and Daniel Martin Moore, Chris Knight, Carla Gover, Kevin Harris, Joan Osborne, Dwight Yoakam, Nappy Roots, Matraca Berg, Cathy Rawlings, Dale Anne Bradley, Jim James, Kate Larken, and The Watson Twins. Howard never describes A Few Honest Words as pure oral history, and he says little about his methodology. Each artist or group receives a single dedicated chapter, and chapters are arranged in no particular order. The household names are interspersed with the hometown darlings, the genres are mixed together, and there is no chronology of age or career span. Howard introduces the narrators, usually describing the context in which they met for the interview, and then begins telling about the artists' journey and values, interspersing the text with the musicians' own words. The interviews are squeezed for all their juice, with integrated quotes, synopses, paraphrases, transcripts, and even creative nonfiction vignettes. For example, in "Headwaters," Howard introduces award-winning songwriter and performer Matraca Berg through the story of her pregnant mother fleeing Wallins Creek, Kentucky, to join her sister in Nashville. We're introduced to Berg's origins, homeplace, and family before ever reading a spoken word. Howard gives equal attention to the context—the recorded moment he shared with the artist—as much as the text, letting the narrator describe his or her own connections with the commonwealth's land and people. Each chapter features suggested music tracks—songs helpful in understanding the featured musicians' artistry and that allow the reader to experience the artists' product and process together.

Howard does not assert themes or offer analysis but rather invites readers to discover the commonalities. A shared thread through each narrative is the role of diaspora and migration in shaping the artists' sense of place and musicianship. Dwight Yoakam spent his youth in Columbus, Ohio, but his family eagerly made the long trip home to Store Holler on weekends. Carla Gover traveled with a Maryland-based dance group, but the positive experience only [End Page 252] strengthened her resolve to return home. Dale Anne Bradley moved twice, once to Jacksonville and once to Nashville, returning to the mountains after each sojourn. Daniel Martin Moore served in the Peace Corps and his narrative embodies the strength of Kentucky's pull: "It's not important enough to me to make it as a musician if I have to leave my home to do it," he says. "I'd rather do something else and have music as a big part of my life here" (49). Even with the ever-present tugging, the artists are open to settling in new places and encountering new styles, contrary to insular stereotypes...

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