Echoes of Appalachia: An Introduction?

In the days following a recent concert by Mipso that I attended with a friend of mine, I contemplated how I could feasibly combine my expertise in writing about music with my passion for music that is rooted in the area that I grew up. I haven’t ever blogged before, but there have been countless occasions where I found myself scribbling down mental notes about a performance I attended or an album I just finished listening to. Perhaps I’ve been nervous to have my more casual writings and thoughts circulating out in the world, but the writing that I do for the Met is read by thousands of people daily—there’s really nothing I should be afraid of.

Regardless of my fears, what most recently impacted my decision to start a blog was seeing a beautiful, large-print edition of the Mountain Gazette, which was laying on the coffee table in my parents’ house. It was Thanksgiving, and I remember my dad telling me about this magazine. It’s an impressive piece of print: thick paper, full-bleed imagery throughout, and significant editorial content in the pages between. The articles I read were like a breath of fresh air. (Perhaps I need to leave New York more often.)

Paging through the magazine, my dad mentioned that it might be publication that I could write an article for one day. I’d never really considered that my dad would want to read something like that from me. He’s read so much of my writing over the years, from excerpts from my dissertation to the numerous opera-focused articles I’ve written in the year-and-a-half since I started working at the Met. Yet I thought about the kind of music that might inspire me to want to write for a magazine like the Mountain Gazette, and then I thought back to that Mipso concert. This is a band that I adore, I’ve listened to for more than a decade, started in the area that I grew up, and continues to push the boundaries of their sound without losing ties to their roots. It’s the music that speaks to me and forms the bulk of my daily listening.

So, what this blog will become I am not yet sure of, but I do know that I love this music, and it has inspired me to create this blog, at the very least. There will be a lot of listening to songs new and old, familiar and not, but what I hope will come out of this journey will be a profound understanding of and appreciation for the sounds that came out of the Appalachian region.

To kick things off, since Mipso was my inspiration, I’ll begin with one of their hits, “Marianne.”

Until next time.