Jelly Roll Morton (1890-1941) was born Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe into the Creole community of New Orleans. “Creole” designates a person of mixed French or Spanish and Black descents originating from the early French or Spanish settlers of the U.S. Gulf states and preserving their speech and culture. His father left when he was three and when his mother married William Mouton in 1894, he took his stepfather’s surname, anglicizing it to Morton.

Morton learned to play the piano at an early age and was already performing in the brothels of the Storyville district of New Orleans at the age of 14, where he acquired the name “Jelly Roll”, a euphemism for a lady’s private parts. The song “Winin’ Boy Blues” dates back to this early era. At that time, jazz was also being formed by musicians such as Buddy Bolden (1877-1931), Kid Ory (1886-1973), King Oliver (1881-1938) and Sidney Bechet(1897-1959). Although Jelly Roll Morton famously claimed to have invented jazz, all agree that he was a very predominant pioneer of the genre.

When Morton’s grandmother learned that he was playing the “devil’s music” in brothels, she disowned him for disgracing the LaMothe name. Morton started touring in the US South, working in minstrel shows and composing a great deal of his repertoire. In 1926, Morton signed with the Victor Talking Machine Company, recording until 1931, when his recording contract was not renewed due to the Great Depression. He briefly had a radio show in 1934, then toured in a burlesque band. In 1938, Alan Lomax (1915-2002), an American ethnomusicologist best known for his numerous field recordings of folk music, invited Morton to record for the Library of Congress. Because of the suggestive nature of these recordings, some of them were not released until 2005. They were issued as 8 CDs and two booklets, a collection which won two Grammy Awards in 2006 as well as awards for Best Historical Album and Best Album Notes.

The sessions expanded to over eight hours, with Morton talking and playing piano all along. Lomax was interested in Morton’s days in Storyville and the ribald songs of the time. A long and bawdy version of “Winin’ Boy Blues” was recorded by Lomax but, thankfully, some more decorous versions were also recorded afterwards. The song makes mention of stavin’ chains, an expression open to much interpretation. In a Lil Johnson (places of birth and death unknown) 1937 recording of her song “Stavin’ Chain,” he was the chief engineer on a train who possessed great strength and stamina. The term “staving chain” may come from the chains used by barrel manufacturers to hold barrel staves together until an iron band can be fitted around the end of the barrel. Another theory is that staving chain was the name for the chain used to chain prisoners together by their ankles in a chain gang. Jelly Roll Morton believed that Stavin’ Chain was the name of a pimp in New Orleans while Stavin’ Chain, also known as Wilson Jones, was an American blues musician that Lomax himself photographed and recorded in 1934.

Shortly after the Library of Congress recordings, Morton was stabbed in a fight with a friend and suffered wounds to the head and chest. A nearby whites-only hospital refused to treat him, as the city had racially segregated facilities at that time. He was transported to a black hospital where doctors left ice on his wounds for several hours before attending to the injury. His recovery from his wounds was incomplete, and thereafter he was often ill and easily became short of breath. He continued to suffer from respiratory problems when he traveled to Los Angeles with the intent of restarting his career. He died on July 10, 1941, after an eleven-day stay in the Los Angeles County Hospital.

I think of my brother Gabriel (1936-1959) most every day but especially when I hear the sound of a piano from a distant past, like that of Jelly Roll Morton. At a time when everyone treated me like the child I was, Gabriel insisted on treating me like a person and took the time to teach me, despite our fourteen-year difference in age, the wonderful grown-up world of music. I wouldn’t be playing if not for him.

The pictures of Morton and Jones/Amos are in the Public domain.

To hear the recording, click on the song title below.

Richard Séguin – voice, acoustic guitar, mandolin

Winin’ Boy Blues

Bob Dylan’s song, “Just Like a Woman”, was released as part of his “Blonde On Blonde”album in 1966. Dylan’s recording was not released as a single in the United Kingdom but the London pop band Manfred Mann recorded and released the song as a very successful European single in 1966, reaching number 1 in Sweden. Joe Cocker, Ricky Nelson, Rod Stewart and Richie Havens are among the many artists who have covered this song.

The song has been widely criticized for supposed sexism or misogyny in its lyrics but this was the 1960s. Anyone who lived through that decade will surely remember that nothing escaped the raised fists, painted banners and marching, shouting hoards of denim-clad individuals outraged by the Vietnam war, women’s rights, racial inequality and anything else that rubbed them the wrong way. At the time, I doubted the sincerity of the whole protest era although it was certainly fashionable and young people have always been slaves to fashion. I remember that in my first year at the University of Ottawa in 1968-69, young people took over the Administration building and disrupted all classes taking place in that building. The revised class schedules were communicated to students through typed messages stapled to telephone poles, a communication strategy that the Administration failed to mention to the students. Consequently, I missed half of my classes, unaware of their location, and I decided that the whole university experience was not for me. I quit before the end of my first year. To this day, I have no idea what so upset these protesting individuals. From then on, I have always chosen the path of least resistance.

My arrangement of “Just Like a Woman” is heavily based on Otis Redding’s series of soul ballads of the 1960’s, songs like “I’ve Got Dreams To Remember”, “These Arms Of Mine”, and “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long.” Redding (1941-1967) had a unique style of singing which gained inspiration from the gospel music that preceded the new “soul” music. Otis Redding died at the age of 26 in a plane crash that occurred on December 10, 1967, near Madison, Wisconsin, during a multi-city tour with his band, the Bar Kays. Trumpet player Ben Cauley was the accident’s only survivor. Besides Redding, the other victims of the crash were their valet, Matthew Kelly, the pilot Richard Fraser, as well as guitarist Jimmy King, tenor saxophonist Phalon Jones, organist Ronnie Caldwell, and drummer Carl Cunningham.
(Image of Otis Redding – Public Domain)

Richard Séguin – voice, electric guitars, acoustic guitar, electric bass
Roch Tassé – drums

To hear the song, click on the title below.

Just Like a Woman

Jane Seymour (c. 1508-1537), third wife of King Henry VIII, was Queen of England from their marriage in 1536 until her death the following year. Catherine of Aragon, Henry’s first wife, had failed to produce a male heir to the throne which led to her banishment from court after Henry’s request for an annulment of the marriage was refused by pope Clement VII. In retaliation, Henry VIII instituted the English Reformation where the Church of England broke away from the authority of the pope and the Catholic Church. Henry sanctioned the complete destruction of all shrines to saints. All dissident monks were also executed. In 1542, England’s remaining monasteries were all dissolved, and their property transferred to the Crown.

Henry VIII married six times and his second wife, Anne Boleyn, miscarried three sons and fell out of favour with the king. Henry began courting Jane Seymour and, in order to marry her, he had to find reasons to end his marriage to Anne. He had Anne investigated for high treason and she was eventually beheaded based on fabricated charges of adultery, incest and plotting to kill the king. Henry was then betrothed to Jane the day after Anne Boleyn’s execution.

Queen Jane’s brief but significant reign led to the birth of a male heir, Edward VI, under very arduous circumstances. The English ballad “The Death of Queen Jane” is about the death of Jane Seymour following the birth of Prince Edward. Most versions of the song end with the contrast between the joy of the birth of the Prince and the grief of the death of the Queen. No direct evidence documents exactly how Jane Seymour gave birth but the popular view of a birth by cesarean section is unlikely, though ubiquitous in the versions of the song. Medical science at that time was not capable of such an operation. Cutting open a mother generally only happened when the mother died whilst labouring, in a desperate hope of saving the child. It is historically believed that Prince Edward was born naturally, and that his mother succumbed to an infection and died 12 days later.

The song “The Death of Queen Jane” survives to this day in great part to the work of Francis James Child (1825 – 1896). Child was an American scholar, educator, and folklorist, best known for his collection of English and Scottish ballads now known as the Child Ballads. “The Death of Queen Jane” is Child Ballad 170. The earliest record of the song seems to be a publication called The Lamentation of Queen Jane, licensed in 1560.

In the Harvard library, Child accumulated one of the largest folklore collections in existence, studied manuscript rather than printed versions of old ballads, and investigated songs and stories in other languages that were related to the English and Scottish ballads. His final collection was published as The English and Scottish Popular Ballads which contained 305 ballads. The melodies to most of the ballads were collected and published by Bertrand Harris Bronson (1902-1986), professor in the English department at the University of California, Berkeley, in and around the 1960s.

 

Richard Séguin – voice, acoustic guitar, mandolin

 

To hear the piece, click on the title below.

The Death of Queen Jane

“Queen Jane Approximately” is a song featured on Bob Dylan’s 1965 album titled Highway 61 Revisited. Highway 61 extends from New Orleans, Louisiana to Wyoming, Minnesota, cutting across the entire country from north to south. The highway is often called the Blues Highway because of its long history in blues music, part of the route lying on the Mississippi Blues Trail.

In 1965, I had already started playing guitar, as had two of my best friends, Martin Cunningham and Pierre Lafleur. Another friend, Roch Tassé, played drums and still plays on this site. We formed an orchestra called the Ravens. All four of us were dressed in black – black turtlenecks, black pants, black stockings, black shoes. More than 50 years later, my childhood friends are still my friends. Friends for life.

Over the years, there has been much speculation about the identity of Queen Jane, with the popular options being Lady Jane Grey, who held the throne of England for 9 days and was beheaded for treason in 1553 while still a teenager; Jane Seymour, Queen of England and third wife of Henry VIII who died in childbirth in 1537; and Joan Baez, a popular 60s folksinger romantically linked to Dylan.

“Queen Jane Approximately” is one of many Dylan songs of the period which featured adverbs and other qualifiers in their titles. Some examples are “Absolutely Sweet Marie”, “Obviously 5 Believers”, “Most Likely You Go Your Way And I’ll Go Mine”, “Positively Fourth Street”and others. Dylan never revealed the reason for this particular preoccupation.

In 1965 and 1966, Dylan released three albums which were to change the face of contemporary music forever. “Bringing It All Back Home,” “Highway 61 Revisited” and “Blonde On Blonde” formed the heart of Dylan’s very best work. Musically, he collaborated with the best studio musicians from Nashville as well as rock and blues dignitaries from The Band and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Lyrically, the words came from another world, one which was eventually recognized for its unique brilliance and would earn Dylan the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature. “Queen Jane Approximately” is an integral part of this imposing output which rivals and indeed surpasses that of any artists in any discipline.

Richard Séguin – voice, electric guitar, electric bass guitar
Martin Cunningham – acoustic guitar
Roch Tassé – drums

To hear the piece, click on the song title below.

Queen Jane Approximately

“ Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gives To Me” was written in 1919 by Carey Morgan (1884-1960), Charles McCarron (1891-1919) and Arthur Swanstrom (1888-1940), who were Tin Pan Alley composers and lyricists. It was first recorded the same year by singer Irving Kaufman (1890-1976), a very popular early recording artist who sang with such jazz greats as Bix Beiderbecke (1903-1931) and Eddie Lang (1902-1933). Tin Pan Alley refers to that area of New York City where music publishers, lyricists and songwriters operated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The end of the Great War brought much jubilation to the American public and, in a few short years, the Roaring Twenties and the Jazz Age unceremoniously barged through the door. The transition was rapid and dizzying. Music in the immediate post-war era had still favoured the sentimental and often corny offerings of vaudeville with shades of ragtime but, by 1925 and the first electric recordings of popular music, that sentimentality had disappeared and been replaced by a very contemporary brand of revelry. Many songs of the early post-war era, like “Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gives To Me”, featured a slow intro to the later more lively proceedings but these intros were quickly abandoned and were not to be heard in any subsequent recordings.

I first heard “Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gives To Me” in the 1960s as part of the amazing repertoire of the Jim Kweskin Jug Band. It was a dynamic, short piece, enthusiastically delivered by the band. It was only through research into the piece that I eventually heard the intro that was part of its earliest incarnation. The intro is certainly dated and I can even understand why everyone decided to ignore it for the last 100 years. However, I surely don’t agree with the practice.

History, as it relates to any discipline, is the repository of all human knowledge. It is all we have. Consequently, it is in my view a very grave error to rewrite it or change its facts in any way. If a musical idiom falls out of favour in more modern times, is it not the height of arrogance to simply erase it? Are contemporary people superior to those who came before? So, not surprisingly, I have chosen to play “ Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gives To Me” in its original form, complete with its intro, corny to some but completely legitimate.

Richard Séguin – voice, mandolin, acoustic guitar, electric bass, kazoo

To hear the song, click on the song title below.

Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gives To Me

The 1960s was a very different time where popular musicians didn’t dance. They didn’t have to dress up in outlandish clothes and they didn’t perform in gigantic arenas backed by light shows and multimedia presentations. They stood or sat, played their instruments and sang into a microphone. And almost all of them had something to say.

I remember when news of a singer named Bob Dylan reached Canada. I was 13 years old. The word everywhere was that he sang about socially important things that people of my generation valued : peace, civil rights and everyone’s belief that young people were really changing the world. Then, in 1965, when nobody really expected it, things really did change.

Previously, Dylan’s songs had been laid out in front of you – nothing was hidden, nothing was obscure. But a change started to cast its shadow on us with Dylan’s 1965 album “Bringing It All Back Home”, which featured some very different and disturbing songs. The lyrics began to be more surreal and non-linear. When I heard “Gates of Eden”, featured on the album, it made me wonder where this very new direction in music was leading us. I was a smart 15-year-old but I didn’t understand the song’s juxtaposition of plain English words that flowed into a foreign landscape of four-legged forest clouds, lampposts with folded arms and iron claws, wailing babies, ships with tattooed sails, black Madonna bikers and gray flannel dwarfs, all of this on display outside the gates of Eden, where no sound ever escaped, a place where there were no kings, no sins, no trials. Coming on the heels of Dylan’s previous songs, something as obscure as “Gates of Eden” simply did not fit.

Nobody expected Dylan to release 34 songs, excluding 14 outtakes and singles like “Positively 4th Street”, on three separate albums (“Bringing It All Back Home”, “Highway 61 Revisited” and “Blonde On Blonde”, a double album), in a little more than a single year, This unequaled artistic output formed the heart of Dylan’s extraordinary impact on contemporary culture and created a path leading directly to his Nobel prize in Literature, awarded in 2016.

It should be noted that some of these songs were over 10 minutes long, which was controversial at that time. Songs over 3 minutes did not fit into any radio station’s commercial platform. To circumvent this, some disc jockeys created what became known as “underground radio”, where long and more controversial songs were played, often during the early morning hours. In Ottawa, the contribution of Brian Murphy, who developed a weekend overnight radio show called Free Form Radio on Ottawa’s CKBY-FM station, needs to be underlined and appreciated.

I’ve often wondered where Dylan’s exploding consciousness might have led him, had it not been for a motorcycle accident that left him with a broken vertebra and a concussion, on July 29, 1966. He was never the same afterwards and many say that the accident prevented him from pursuing his previously reckless and potentially destructive lifestyle. Certainly, Dylan’s later songs, many of them superb in their own right, never matched anything on those three mid-sixties albums. I intend to revisit this exquisite era in future posts.

My arrangement of “Gates of Eden” features our trio, with Roch Tassé on drums and Alrick Huebener on bass. We play “Gates of Eden” in honour of three of the most outstanding musicians of our time in Pat Metheny (guitar, b. 1954), Jaco Pastorius (bass, 1951-1987) and Peter Erskine (drums, b. 1954).

Richard Séguin – voice, acoustic 12-string guitar
Alrick Huebener – electric bass
Roch Tassé – drums

Gates of Eden

When The Rolling Stones came to North America in 1964, they brought with them American blues and R&B, with some stinging original compositions, everything as raw and electric as could be. As the decade progressed, many rock bands, both American and British, began to temper their electric repertoire with more acoustic songs, likely another Dylan influence.

“Sitting on a Fence” was recorded in late 1965, in LA, during the sessions for the album “Aftermath,” but did not make it onto the pressings of either the UK or US editions of that album. The song made it to North America on the catch-all album “Flowers” in the summer of 1967, the much publicized “Summer of Love” which introduced the “hippies” social phenomenon to the world. The song was a departure for The Stones, featuring a more bluegrass flavoured instrumentation.

I remember hearing the lyrics to the song and thinking that, as a child, I had been the direct opposite of Jagger’s persona singing the song. My older sister sometimes brought me a small trinket back from a date in Ottawa with her future husband, a small red, white and blue rubber ball or a stuffed animal. This was like heaven to me, the kids in our big family not used to being pampered. I was also raised Catholic so, contrary to the song lyrics, I was very easy to please and I definitely knew wrong from right.

By the time I was 18, things had changed. I had no idea what I would do with my life and could not see myself as an adult, living on my own, getting married, raising a family. Dreams that I had fostered had dissipated with the many setbacks in my life – the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”, as Shakespeare so brilliantly put it. I found myself sitting on a fence. I could not commit to anything, I was angry and disappointed and simply resigned myself to going wherever my life would take me. I made no decisions for the next decade. So, this song that was so unlike me as a child, ended up fitting me like a glove as a young adult.

I dedicate this song to all of the men, women and children in the United Counties of Prescott and Russell, many of whom have been hard hit by our recent devastating storm. From what I have seen in my visits, I especially sympathize with the municipalities of Hammond and Bourget, where the devastation is very harsh indeed.

Richard Séguin – voice, acoustic guitars, mandolin, electric bass

Sitting on a Fence

In my opinion, 1965 was the best year of the 20th century. I was 15 years old and Rockland high school had given me my first girlfriend and friends who are great friends to this day. I had started learning the guitar and formed my first rock group with three of these friends: Marty Cunningham, Pierre Lafleur and Roch Tassé. We called ourselves The Ravens, after Poe, and dressed in black pants, black socks and black turtleneck sweaters on stage. We played one dance at the high school and retired! To hear the current Ravens play The Rolling Stones hit “The Last Time” click here.

Roch played on my first albums in the 1970s and has played in several local bands, becoming a tremendous drummer and percussionist along the way. We live quite far apart but are still great friends and Roch is a regular contributor to this website. Although Pierre’s path has led him away from music, Marty, Pierre and I are friends for life and regularly meet for brunch.

We are now getting together, augmented by Linda Challes who lives with Roch at the Howlin’ Huskies Studio in Ste-Cécile-de-Masham, Qc, for yet another Rolling Stones’ song, “Gotta Get Away”, released in 1965, as was “The Last Time”, not to mention The Beatles “Nowhere Man’, Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” and “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” by … oh yes, The Rolling Stones, who were everywhere in 1965. It really was an exceptional year.

Starting in 1964, rock and pop bands from the United Kingdom became popular in North America and contributed to the rise of the “counter-culture” on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. The Beatles led this «British invasion» followed by groups such as the Rolling Stones, The Zombies, The Kinks, The Animals, The Yardbirds, The Who and Them (featuring Van Morrison). “Gotta Get Away” was released on the UK album “Out Of Our Heads”, the US/Canada album “December’s Children” and as the B-side of the single release of “As Tears Go By.” At that time, the albums released in the UK were different from the ones released elsewhere. Singles were released because popular individual songs were played on the radio and singles were much cheaper than albums, which contained songs most people didn’t know. Consequently, “Gotta Get Away” is one of the lesser known Stones songs.

“Gotta Get Away” is representative of The Rollings Stones’ lyrical depiction of discontent, disrespect and misogyny, which they have fostered from their very beginnings. After a series of blues and R&B covers which left no doubt as to their attitude, they released “It’s All Over Now” in 1964, followed by such likewise acerbic songs as “Time Is On My Side”, “Heart Of Stone”, “The Last Time”, “Play With Fire”, “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” , “Get Off Of My Cloud”, “Gotta Get Away”, “Paint It Black”, “Stupid Girl”, “No Expectations” and “Under My Thumb”, to mention only a few. This was a very powerful message to some of the more impressionable kids I knew and some really took it seriously. I remember one Ottawa kid who was tall and skinny, wore a long black coat that went to his ankles, black jeans and black t-shirt, black Army boots and even his long hair was dyed black. He loved the Rolling Stones and his life was fueled by the profound negativity of their lyrics. He was the very personification of “Paint It Black.”

As the current active members of The Ravens, Roch, Marty and I intend to present more songs from our youth on this site.

Richard Séguin – voice, electric guitars, electric bass
Marty Cunningham – acoustic guitar, percussion (hand claps)
Linda Challes – percussion (hand claps)
Roch Tassé – drums, percussion (hand claps)

Gotta Get Away

Chris Stapleton (b. 1978) is an American singer-songwriter, instrumentalist and record producer from Kentucky whose work has been recognized with five Grammy Awards, seven Academy of Country Music Awards and ten Country Music Awards. As a vocalist, his strong tenor voice is equally suited to R&B and other genres. His song “Burden” forms part of the soundtrack to the film of the same name.

The film “Burden” deals with Mike Burden (b. 1970), an orphan raised by the Ku Klux Klan in the small-town of Laurens, South Carolina. Like all others caught in this racist culture, he grew up violent and hateful of all but his own. It is only through the compassion of a black minister named Reverend David Kennedy that Burden’s life changed dramatically. When they first met in Laurens, Burden was grand dragon of the local KKK and Kennedy was an African-American pastor who had grown up in segregated housing. At the time, Kennedy was trying to fight the existence of the small town’s Redneck Shop — a store, which was Burden’s idea, that sold racist memorabilia and hosted an unofficial KKK museum.

After meeting and falling in love with his first wife, Judy Harbeson, Burden started to question his involvement with the KKK. The Klan retaliated against Burden for rebelling against them. Burden and Harbeson were locked out of the apartment they’d been renting from a Klan member and with nowhere to go, Burden, Harbeson and her two children ended up at the Laurens police department begging for help. Incredibly, Kennedy offered to give them lodging, saying he saw a father and husband trying to protect his family against the Klan.

The 2018 film “Burden” was written and directed by Andrew Heckler and relates the events of Mike Burden’s life. Destined to be a low-budget effort, the film received a tremendous boost when both Tom Wilkinson and Forrest Whittaker, two world-class actors, decided to participate in the project.

Richard Séguin – voice, acoustic guitar, mandolin

Burden

Sam Amidon (b. 1981) is an American singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from Vermont born of folk musician parents. His surname is of French extraction and, oddly enough, means “starch.” Amidon tours extensively all over the world using New York City as a home base.

His song “Blue Mountains” was included in Amidon’s 2014 album entitled “Lilly-O” which was recorded in Reykjavik by Icelandic recording engineer Valgeir Sigurðsson. The album also features, among other talented musicians, master guitarist Bill Frisell.

The Blue Mountains are usually referred to as the Blue Ridge Mountains, a large Appalachian mountain range. The Alleghenies region is the rugged western-central portion of Appalachia.

Much of Amidon’s music consists of reworkings of traditional folk songs, bringing out their haunting dreamlike qualities. His parents performed and recorded in the early shape-note and Sacred Harp traditions common to sacred choral music and rural American church music in general. Their influence on their son’s music is significant.

In Appalachia, a particular type of ballad which singles out tragedies came to the front during the 19th century. Train wrecks, mining disasters and murders became the subject of many popular songs – dozens were written about the sinking of the Titanic alone. Murder being a purely human venture, those particular songs became very popular and were known as “murder ballads.” Murder ballads originated in Scandinavia, England, and lowland Scotland in the premodern era. These ballads came to America with European settlers, many of which populated Appalachia, a cultural region in the Eastern United States that stretches from New York State to Alabama and Georgia.

It can be argued that the song “Blue Mountains” is a murder ballad although murder is never overtly mentioned in the song. At best, it is about philandering – a married man lures a young girl into the wilderness, “past dark cabin windows where eyes never see.” Evil lurks palpably.

The treatment of death in early Appalachian songs is something most of us have never experienced. In the 19th century, as much as 46% of all babies did not live past their 5th birthday. Infant mortality rates are higher in rural Appalachia than in other parts of the United States. The region’s low income, geographic isolation, and low levels of education all reduce access to modern medical care. Folk beliefs and superstitions, a very poor substitute for medical care, continue to influence birth practices : a dove mourning outside the window is considered a bad omen, as is a member of the household sweeping the steps after sundown.

The early recordings of Appalachian music are unique and the sharper edges of private and personal pain emerges from the very grooves of these recordings. The voices have their own notions of tragedy. How many times had these people seen, in their own valley, righteous innocent people senselessly wiped away by car accidents, drownings, tuberculosis, children falling down wells. A.P. Carter’s sister Etta was a 13-year-old schoolgirl picking berries one afternoon, fevered in bed that night and dead by morning. There was no reason and, worst of all, there was no time to mourn. There were other children to raise, planting, weeding, cooking, sewing, feeding hogs, milking cows, chopping firewood. Appalachia’s most famous author, Thomas Wolfe (1900-1938) from Asheville, North Carolina, described his 12-year-old brother’s death in his novel “Look Homeward Angel” like so : “He was a quiet boy, and there were many, and he had gone unnoticed.”

Richard Séguin – voice, acoustic guitar, electric guitar

Blue Mountains