Jan 15, 2017 12:16am
'In my freshman year of college at Western Carolina I became increasingly aware of this thing called “old time music.” I attribute this mainly to a severe bout of homesickness, and when it comes to missing home, I’m not sure any genre can really match mountain music. It’s not like I hadn’t heard it before, or been around it, it’s just that I had to go “off” (the mountain) as they say, to appreciate it. I fell for those old love songs and fiddle tunes hook, line, and sinker. It turned out that Western had this killer collection of old time music CDs--stuff from the Field Recorder’s Collective, and by the Library of Congress, and bands with bizarre names like Georgia Yellowhammers and the Skillet Lickers. By then the fiddle bug had bit me incredibly hard, and I had the audacity to build my own violin (I didn’t have one) that summer with the help of old Ray Dellinger--who I have since adopted as my grandpaw of choice (I didn’t have one). Ray gave me more encouragement than I ever deserved and I just about wore that little fiddle out; five or six hours a day trying to play “Sourwood Mountain” or “Soldier’s Joy.” When I got back to Western that fall I began making regular trips to Hunter Library in between classes almost every day. I sat there pouring over liner notes and, yes, illegally copying that music for educational purposes (seriously). Plenty of days I just went there and didn’t even bother to go to class. And, on one of those trips, I discovered the music of Alan Jabbour.
It was Alan’s Southern Summits CD with Ken Perlman. I made a copy of it (eventually I bought it--twice) and popped her in the player on my Plymouth Breeze (“Kermit”) where I swear it stayed for the whole semester. I just couldn’t stop listening to those beautiful banjo/fiddle duets. “Waynesboro,” “Sally Anne Johnson,” and “Billy in the LowLAND.” I just left them on repeat. Maybe a year later I found out that Alan would be leading a week long fiddle class at John C. Campbell Folk School down in Brasstown. It happened to fall on the first week of Spring semester classes, but it was like having to choose between an apple off my parent’s old Virginia Beauty tree and one of those dry red cafeteria apples. I sent an email apologizing to my to-be-professors and drove down to the magical place that is Brasstown.
That’s where I got to meet the towering, smiling, corduroy pant favoring, fiddling force with a Gandalf-like twinkle in his eyes--Alan Jabbour. After a week of his teaching I was four times the fiddler, but that’s not what made the experience so incredibly important to me. Alan was so enthusiastic, and so profoundly knowledgeable, about the music. And he wasn’t stuck up about it either. He LOVED sharing what he knew, and importantly, I never heard him say “that’s not how that goes.” Instead he would smile brightly and say, “you’ve just created your own version! The folk process at work!” He was a dear, dear man, and I could listen to him opine on Tommy Jarrell, and the finer points of fiddling in the Upland South all day long.
A few years after the course he came to Bryson City and played a concert with Ken, and I came up to try and re-buy that album again. He remembered my name, and wanted to know exactly what I was doing. I mentioned I was going to try to get into graduate school for Appalachian Roots Music and he said, “Ohh! I would be happy write a letter of recommendation for you!” He did, I got in. Over the years our paths would cross and we almost always got to have a little music. I have very fond memories of him showing me some of the licks in his lights out version of “Mississippi Sawyer,” and of that time I bothered him to show me “Waynesboro” and “Sally Ann Johnson.” He was always so gracious and so supportive and so in love with fiddling.
It hurts to hear that Alan passed away. I can’t help but think of the incredible work that Alan and his wonderful wife Karen put together on Decoration Day. In the book there is a beautiful image of a hand painted sign that reads: “The character of a community is revealed in the way that it honors its loved ones.”
I am left with the painful truth that most of my favorite fiddlers have passed on. And I wonder how best I can honor them? Trying to play their tunes is an obvious one, but I think more important is trying to share their appreciation, joy, generosity, and kindness with anyone who will listen.'
'In my freshman year of college at Western Carolina I became increasingly aware of this thing called “old time music.” I attribute this mainly to a severe bout of homesickness, and when it comes to missing home, I’m not sure any genre can really match mountain music. It’s not like I hadn’t heard it before, or been around it, it’s just that I had to go “off” (the mountain) as they say, to appreciate it. I fell for those old love songs and fiddle tunes hook, line, and sinker. It turned out that Western had this killer collection of old time music CDs--stuff from the Field Recorder’s Collective, and by the Library of Congress, and bands with bizarre names like Georgia Yellowhammers and the Skillet Lickers. By then the fiddle bug had bit me incredibly hard, and I had the audacity to build my own violin (I didn’t have one) that summer with the help of old Ray Dellinger--who I have since adopted as my grandpaw of choice (I didn’t have one). Ray gave me more encouragement than I ever deserved and I just about wore that little fiddle out; five or six hours a day trying to play “Sourwood Mountain” or “Soldier’s Joy.” When I got back to Western that fall I began making regular trips to Hunter Library in between classes almost every day. I sat there pouring over liner notes and, yes, illegally copying that music for educational purposes (seriously). Plenty of days I just went there and didn’t even bother to go to class. And, on one of those trips, I discovered the music of Alan Jabbour.
It was Alan’s Southern Summits CD with Ken Perlman. I made a copy of it (eventually I bought it--twice) and popped her in the player on my Plymouth Breeze (“Kermit”) where I swear it stayed for the whole semester. I just couldn’t stop listening to those beautiful banjo/fiddle duets. “Waynesboro,” “Sally Anne Johnson,” and “Billy in the LowLAND.” I just left them on repeat. Maybe a year later I found out that Alan would be leading a week long fiddle class at John C. Campbell Folk School down in Brasstown. It happened to fall on the first week of Spring semester classes, but it was like having to choose between an apple off my parent’s old Virginia Beauty tree and one of those dry red cafeteria apples. I sent an email apologizing to my to-be-professors and drove down to the magical place that is Brasstown.
That’s where I got to meet the towering, smiling, corduroy pant favoring, fiddling force with a Gandalf-like twinkle in his eyes--Alan Jabbour. After a week of his teaching I was four times the fiddler, but that’s not what made the experience so incredibly important to me. Alan was so enthusiastic, and so profoundly knowledgeable, about the music. And he wasn’t stuck up about it either. He LOVED sharing what he knew, and importantly, I never heard him say “that’s not how that goes.” Instead he would smile brightly and say, “you’ve just created your own version! The folk process at work!” He was a dear, dear man, and I could listen to him opine on Tommy Jarrell, and the finer points of fiddling in the Upland South all day long.
A few years after the course he came to Bryson City and played a concert with Ken, and I came up to try and re-buy that album again. He remembered my name, and wanted to know exactly what I was doing. I mentioned I was going to try to get into graduate school for Appalachian Roots Music and he said, “Ohh! I would be happy write a letter of recommendation for you!” He did, I got in. Over the years our paths would cross and we almost always got to have a little music. I have very fond memories of him showing me some of the licks in his lights out version of “Mississippi Sawyer,” and of that time I bothered him to show me “Waynesboro” and “Sally Ann Johnson.” He was always so gracious and so supportive and so in love with fiddling.
It hurts to hear that Alan passed away. I can’t help but think of the incredible work that Alan and his wonderful wife Karen put together on Decoration Day. In the book there is a beautiful image of a hand painted sign that reads: “The character of a community is revealed in the way that it honors its loved ones.”
I am left with the painful truth that most of my favorite fiddlers have passed on. And I wonder how best I can honor them? Trying to play their tunes is an obvious one, but I think more important is trying to share their appreciation, joy, generosity, and kindness with anyone who will listen.'