Deep Voices 137
"The roughness takes on a beauty."
Deep Voices 137 on Spotify
Deep Voices 137 on Apple Music
Last week I bought an LP at a thrift store of Appalachian folk music from Tennessee called A Bottle of Wine and Ginger Cake. It was recorded in the 1970s, part of a series of LPs by an educator named Ron Williams for his label Pine Breeze. He and his students traveled around, recording fiddle players, dulcimer players, banjoists. The music is beautiful, on the raw edge of bluegrass. In the liner notes, Williams addresses the quality of the sound and the playing:
“People who are not familiar with old time music may like the idea of the project, but may wonder at the ‘roughness’ of the music. They will not know the integral part the music has played in the lives of Eldie [Barbee, a fiddler], or Blaine [Smith, also a fiddler], or Florrie [Stewart, a banjoist] and the rest of their friends. Or the several generations through which the music has traveled. Then the roughness takes on a beauty.”
He continues:
“My hope for the records is to share what I hoped my students have learned. The lack of pretension, the honesty, the sense of community and family … These folks are the last of the generation of traditional Appalachians. When my students have children, there will be no Eldie Barbees, no Blaine Smiths, or Florrie Stewarts and we will still need their qualities.”
I was very moved by this. He wrote about Barbee’s lack of education, but his desire to share his music, and that Barbee cajoled Williams himself into playing on some of the recordings, because it seems he simply enjoyed making music with other people.
Williams noted that he was 25 at the time of these recordings in 1977. I wondered what he’d been up to in the time since. I discovered he died a little less than a year ago. Up until that time, he maintained an active presence on YouTube, demonstrating various instruments. It also includes a video about Pine Breeze, his record label and project. I found him in the comments of a blog offering a free download of A Bottle of Wine and Gingercake. He said he didn’t mind the bootlegging, as he was sure all the artists, who were by then dead, would appreciate their music being heard, but he suggested listeners make a donation to MusiCares, a group that provides services to musicians. “They have helped one of our musician’s sons when he had a brain injury,” he wrote. In his obituary, his wife writes about his dedication to music. “On the way home from our honeymoon in 1975, we stopped at MTSU for a workshop in preserving local music … We couldn’t even get married without music sneaking in.”
I’m grateful I stumbled onto this album. I’ve spent the past week poking around, learning more about this music and Ron. He really seems like he was a good person. I’m sad I’ve learned about him after he was gone but I am very grateful he was here.
That said, I’m sick of that sentiment. So much death. I’m sick of death. A futile position to hold, the most uphill of battles. As you may have read, the musician “Sleepy” Doug Shaw died a week ago. He was my age, 43. I met Doug for the first time in 2005, when I interviewed him for long-defunct Anthem magazine as part of a piece on his then-group White Magic. I proceeded to see him around for the next two decades, in Texas, in Spain, in Brooklyn. I’ve remained a fan of his music, and last year wrote here in Deep Voices about it. “His voice has a sweet hoarseness to it that I assume has been seasoned by a lifetime of cigarettes and weed. He’s British, and he sounds a little posh, but a little mischievous, playing his acoustic guitar like an Eton runaway busking in a London Underground station.” I was trying to be clever. I should have written that he was good, so good. His music, with its roughness, is the type of thing Ron Williams would have loved.
This playlist includes music from several people who died before their time. Terry Jennings, lost to drugs. Michael Harrison, who I wrote about last Deep Voices, lost to cancer. Yana Pavlova, I don’t know what she was lost to, but I know she was young. My heart breaks for them all. I mean it, I really do.
These songs, like Williams’ preferred sound, like Shaw’s, have a roughness that takes on a beauty. I’ve been particularly taken with Eliana Glass’s “On the Way Down.” I found out recently the version of the song I like is actually a demo. The finished version is lovely, but doesn’t retain the same sense of friction, of a push against friction, as the demo. The demo is like a diamond unearthed but not yet polished. It’s so nice to see it in its natural state.
It’s interesting that Williams wrote in his liner notes that he wanted to record these artists before their own deaths. I don’t imagine, at such a young age back then, he was thinking that his albums would become part of his own of legacy, that his dedication to and love of music would outlast him. But it did. All music will outlast its makers.
The release date for my book, Rise Above, is July 21st. It’s about death, if you want to look at it that way. I prefer to think it’s about life. Order from your vendor of choice here. New Yorkers, I’ll be in conversation with Hua Hsu at the McNally Jackson in South Street Seaport on release day at 7pm.