The history of popular culture has often painted a unidimensional perspective of Southern Appalachia, and with it a statement about the region’s musical heritage. It is without a doubt easiest to compare early country music …
BY PHIL JAMISON— Since the late nineteenth century, when local-color writers first popularized many of the common stereotypes now associated with the southern mountains, Appalachia has been perceived as an isolated and backward place that …
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BY PHIL JAMISON— The Myth of Appalachian Isolation The local-color writers of the nineteenth century portrayed Appalachia as a remote and isolated place, and Frost and Semple, who suggested that the retention of eighteenth-century British …
The Myth of Appalachian Isolation & The Back Door to Appalachia Read More »
Southern Appalachian mountain music has transcended time and location, standing as a root to many music genres, such as the blues, jazz, bluegrass, country, gospel, and American folk. It is a fusion of culture that …
By JOE WILSON and WAYNE MARTIN— Settlers in the Tidewater region of the New World did not anticipate the flowering of new musical styles in the mountains that lay to the west. The powerful Cherokee …
