Music: A Cultural Product
Music played an important role in the labor struggles of the Appalachian area. In one sense, they brought light to tough times that the people were going through in 19th and 20th centuries. In another sense, they brought in money to certain families in the area. Also, it showed that people in the area were not as cut off from the rest of the public as many Americans thought, through songs that spoke about fashion in the non-Appalachian cultures. Generally, music was a good thing for the Appalachian area.
Country music, as we know it today, essentially began in the Appalachian area. It often highlighted the struggles of the working people in the area in songs such as “How Can a Poor Man Stand These Times” by Blind Alfred Reed. The struggles of these people were during a time in which railroad building and lumbering were the industries that predominated the area. These industries are not necessarily known for providing good living circumstances for their laborers. Appalachian music seems to make that very clear.
Music has been a cornerstone in the culture for a very long time. Music is often classified by the era in which it was released. An example of this is the music that was released during the 1960’s. During this decade, the American counterculture was the predominant scene among young people. The music that was associated with it has become so intertwined with the area that it would be impossible to separate the two into totally separate ideas. The music allowed the people to come together and make changes in a time that is known for political activism among the common people of America.
A Discussion of the Kentucky Cycle
In The Kentucky Cycle, the picture is painted of a family that resides in Kentucky since the time that the family’s patriarch took land from the Native Americans through some very sinister means. This man’s name was Micheal Rowen and he is depicted as a person that driven by greed and lives life in manner that is totally devoid of self-control or morals. Micheal is said to be everything that we may think of as evil; he kidnaps a woman and forces her to be his wife, he beats her, he murders babies, he kills people that may have trusted him, and even wipes out entire groups of people in order to satisfy the intensive greed that he feels for land. In this play, Mr. Rowen is a simple character that wants one thing in his life.
Depictions of characters from the Appalachian are like this one are common in media and entertainment. This sort of person has become an Archetypical mountain man; these men live lawlessly, carelessly, and selfishly. Back Talk from Appalachia is a collection of pieces by scholars from the Appalachian area that have taken it upon themselves to combat this stereotype. Perhaps the strongest debate against this stereotypical depiction of people from this area is made by Lewis in “Beyond Isolation and Homogeneity”. He argues that these depictions are “fictional” and due to the lack of a formal history of the area (Lewis, 21).
In Back Talk from Appalachia Ledford guides the reader through an account of some of the explorers that are responsible for some of the stereotypes that hold today. She accounts a man by the name of William Byrd. He was a man that was educated in England, who wanted to be the one day governor of Virginia. In the name of business, he made a trip to the Appalachian and piedmont areas to see what the terrain and people were life. Perhaps his most blunt account was one where the men supposedly sleep all day, smoke pipes, and watch the women work on their behalf. This is a familiar sentiment that we see in Micheal. He has no respect for the rights of those around him, including his wife.
These authors set out to combat the hillbilly stereotype largely because of the depictions laid out in Kentucky Cycle because they are unfair and used to exploit and damage the people of Appalachia. As we can see from its rebuttals, this play is offensive to people of the area.