It’s been an exciting few weeks of research for the Blair Pathways Project!
In the first weekend in October, I headed up to the West Virginia State Archives to listen to music recording s as well as check out historic articles from the states’ quarterly Goldenseal Magazine. Many Goldenseal articles are available on line, and provide diverse and fascinating stories concerning West Virginia’s diverse ethnic history. I listened to historic recordings of West Virginia musicians, including the Tambouritzan Band, a Yugoslavian family-band which celebrated West Virginia’s Croation heritage for much of the 20th century.
I also took a trip to the Whipple Company Store, located in southern Fayette County now run as a heritage museum by Chuck and Joy Lynn. The Whipple Store was completed in 1893 by Justus Collins, a coal operator, and every detail of the design of the store speaks to an impetus to control and dominate. The main part of the store is circular, allowing the sound of even the most soft-spoken voice to be amplified. This feature allowed for easy and efficient eavesdropping by the Baldwin-Felts agents who worked there as clerks. There are hidden safes, and even a hidden middle floor that was used for storing coffins (there was an embalming room in the basement). I spent some time on the second floor-which used to be a ballroom- sifting through boxes of local sheet music, a good deal of which was of Polish and Croatian origin. Lining the walls were historic photos of immigrant men and women, many of which were couples photographed in their wedding attire. There are many stories that reverberate throughout the Whipple Store, many presences that make themselves known from time to time, and it’s amazing to see how Joy and Chuck are slowly transforming such an old panopticon into a modern center for education, community usage and reflection. I highly recommend a visit: There are tours almost every day, through the building is closed during much of the winter.
Continuing on to look for other songs sources concerning West Virginia’s coal wars, I made a visit the second week in October to the Folklife Reading Room at the Library of Congress, where I found a good deal of the musical meat of the Blair Pathways Project waiting for me. I spent two days straight listening to old reel-to-reel tapes, listening for historic songs that fit the themes and stories of the struggles of the Southern West Virginia coal wars. The most diverse and extensive music collection which I listened to came from the field collector George Korson. In the first half of the 20th century, Korson collected songs and stories from miners of the anthracite and bituminous regions. As I listened to his collection, I could hear songs reflecting Irish, English, African-American and Scottish influence. Of particular note were moving arrangements by singing groups such as the United Four Quartet and the Evening Breezes Sextet- both of which utilized a combination of hymn-singing styles and barbershop harmonies
Amongst other recordings I listened to were the songs of Aunt Molly Jackson: a rabble-rouser, nurse, mid-wife and ballad singer from Eastern Kentucky. Her songs and adaptations deserve a separate entry unto themselves, but needless to say her vivid melodies reflect fiery topics ranging from the murder of a young organizer friend to incarceration for being a member of the National Miner’s Union.
I was hoping to find relevant songs from the accomplished Kentucky balladeer Nimrod Workman, but his songs on coal mining deal more exclusively with black lung and the the Black Lung Movement of the late 20th century, unfortunately not quite on track with the Blair Pathways narrative, though of course miners were systematically dealing with black lung during the period of which the Project is concerned.
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Several recordings of fiddle and guitar tunes from the historic West Virginia State Folk Festival at Glenville from the early 1950s finished off my listening experience at the National Archives.
There is much to dissect from the recordings I listened to, and many ways to root these songs into the context of the battles at Logan and Mingo, the strike camps at Paint Creek and Cabin Creek. A strong story is beginning to unfold from the songs I’ve been listening to, one both as large as American mining history, and as small and pivotal as the conflicts in southern West Virginia. Through October and November I will be weaving these songs together, so that they can tell of both the whole and the particular, each in their deserving detail.
Thank you for your continued support and interest in Blair Pathways!
In Song and Solidarity,
Saro Lynch-Thomason
Download the CD on Bandcamp below!
