Matthew Penaranda
June 12, 2015
ERH 303WX 01
The Travelin’ Hillbillies and Your Friendly Neighborhood Townies
One thing I have learned both from this course as well as the History of Art course I am taking this session is the value of such cultural artifacts such as art and music in helping us to understand a civilization or in the case of this class the region of Appalachia. Whereas documents and official records are liable to being influenced by the predominant societies throughout history, the arts are at times able to offer a perspective unadulterated by the authority of the majority and resist the canon. History of art in particular has proved to show instances throughout human history where art has been a rhetorical device for or against the powers that be. Since the Sumerian Bull Lyre, art and music have been shown to compliment each other in fulfilling the function of record keeping. This assignment specifically asks us to consider the music of Appalachia and in my experience I have been conflicted in putting my finger on what exactly “Appalachian music” is exactly. I did not want to my preconceptions of the region to influence my experience before it began so the best place to start was in town and finding whatever music I could to begin with. First I found a music in town at a joint effort of the schools in town to play music in the park across from The Palms and that same day I found myself at the Wild Wolf Brewing Company.to see the Travelin’ Hillbillies. I will start off by discussing the Travelin’ Hillbillies because they were the group I had planned to see to begin with whereas I ran into the so-called “Music-a-thon” of local high school performances in downtown Lexington earlier that day. I was interested in seeing the Travelin’ Hillbillies ever since I heard about them because of their name which incorporates a stereotype most everyone in the class was aware of prior to taking this course. I was interested in seeing what sort of image a band that would name themselves as such would present themselves. Without spoiling the experience of listening and seeing them in person, I discovered the Travelin’ Hillbillies genres include Southern Rock with hints of bluegrass, rock and roll, folk, blues, and country as self-proclaimed in their band’s facebook profile. The fact that I was on a facebook page for self-proclaimed “hillbillies” was in itself revelatory to realizing that I had expectations of the band based off of my associating the band with the word “hillbilly” and my amusement at they had a facebook page might be testament to an unconscious judgment of the band because of a stereotype. At this point I was determined to see them in person and let the music speak for itself and hopefully stumble across the authentic Appalachian for myself.
The performance was as advertised to some extent, it had that country feel that I am all too incapable of putting into words especially considering I am by no means in expert of the genre to begin with. One thing is certain, for the most part there were only hints of bluegrass but I may only be saying that because the banjo I had been expecting was present for a select few songs. All in all they were more or less a country cover band. As for their appearance, they were very clean-cut and what I would expect from band that originates from and frequents the mostly collegiate Harrisonburg scene. Maybe the band was inconsistent with expectation but that is probably for the best considering the mostly negative perspective I had on the word “hillbilly” prior to the course. To associate the region or this one band in particular with a derogatory stereotype is an unfair overgeneralization that my recurring reactions of surprise to the band have shown me I was unintentionally doing myself as a product of a culture that is uneducated on the region beyond the loaded stereotypes we have associated with them. As an outsider to the culture, it is ignorant to assume anything about people based off of the categories we may associate them with. The band’s eclectic tastes and covers of throwback R&B music are testament to the region being far less close minded than the average outsider might believe them to be. That being said, I think it is equally ignorant to say that this band is completely representative of the region.
I won’t go in to extensive detail, but I was glad to have coincidentally ran into the local “Music-a-thon” in downtown Lexington because something about going for a walk in what is considered to be part of Appalachia and listening to the locals play music seemed all the more authentic than pursuing a music event later that evening simply because the band was called the Travelin’ Hillbillies. The students mostly played covers of their favorite pop songs with some exceptions, a performance of clap music was particularly intriguing and I am yet to discover if that form of music is in anyway characteristic of Appalachia. Anyways, the rhetoric of firsthand listening to the kids play music that we would expect to hear from almost any other performing high school seems metaphorical to me for articulating that the people themselves are in many ways no different than from the average American except that we choose to view them that way.
