May the Circle Be Unbroken

Up in the mountains there is a different kind of music, a different blend of stories to tell.  They come from different roots, and most of the songs and stories are old ones, and the magic is not so much in that they haven't been told by others, but in the way the teller tells them.  The channeling of the words and the sounds through the person, making it at once unique and universal- old echos in different voices.  Manly Wade Wellman, Orville and Wilbur Hicks, Doc Watson.  Others.  

I don't usually write or truthfully, think much, about celebrities- but Doc died, and I want to think about him and say goodbye.  I learned to love his music when I lived in the mountains- interspersed with the other music I was introduced to (Irish punk, NIN, all sorts of others~)- and through the music rediscovered folktales and discovered murder ballads, which remain a favorite area of study of mine.  I had heard mountain music before, but had not payed much attention to it, lumping it in the category of 'country' and 'Sunday radio'.  Folk music was more familiar, but in the context of artists like Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, Gordon Lightfoot.  You know, hippie stuff from the 60's and 70's.

I am finding this surprisingly hard to write- not because I don't have allot to say about the man and his music, but I am word-stuck, and can't quite express what I want.  I've written and deleted because the words sound to 'reportish', or to much about myself, or don't capture at all the spirit that I feel at the moment.  To capture that, listen to the old songs.  Look out at the horizon- and even if they aren't there- imagine the mountains, deep and green and full of secrets.  Think of sight transformed to sound, tractors on high fields, whispers in the pines.  A wooden house with a porch, a blind man with eyes like sky playing the guitar, singing in a voice that cracks with age, but is all the better for it.  Think of summer in the mountains, chicory blooming beside the road, water so clear and so cold that you can't breathe, quilts on the line, nights where a fire would be nice, even though its June.  My heart misses the mountains today, and the music.  Rest in peace, old friend, listen well.