Talk puts spotlight on Appalachian music
By: Stephanie Prokop
BORDENTOWN CITY Quick: Name something that Appalachia is known for.
Diane Jones, a native of the Pinelands, asked a 30-member audience that question and got many answers, but the most prevalent responses were horses, moonshine and bluegrass music.
Ms. Jones focused her April 19 presentation, "Follow the Wagons," mainly on bluegrass (although there was some conversation of moonshine). She entertained the crowd with stories as she played instruments with a rich history and folklore that predates the circa 1740 building where the event was held the 1740 Friends Meetinghouse on Farnsworth Avenue. The talk was the fourth in a yearlong series of free history programs being presented in the city as part of its 325th anniversary celebration.
The talk traced the history of how Irish, German and Scottish people came to settle in Appalachia, and how they entertained themselves throughout the musical storytelling process.
Even though Ms. Jones is a South Jersey native, she started off by explaining how her ancestors settled parts of Lancaster, Pa. and then moved farther south to discover the still largely uninhabited parts of Appalachia.
"They had nothing except their wits," she said. "They hardly saw another person beside their own family members."
The first song she played on a traditional banjo was called "Yew Piney Mountains." The piece described the mountainous forests that make up Appalachia, although Ms. Jones noted a lot of the forests are now second or even third generation due to the logging industry that had a foothold in the area in the early 1900s.
Before launching into her explanation of the next song, she took care to make sure that her banjo was in tune.
"Banjos are persnickety creatures," she said while strumming on the strings. "They don’t like weather changes."
The next song was described by Ms. Jones as a "memory of a birth that occurred under a rock shelf." She said that would not be uncommon for an Appalachian family, waiting for their cottage to be built.
After the song, Ms. Jones showed the audience what looked like a large gourd. African-American slaves who lived in Appalachia would play the instrument made from a gourd with songs they taught themselves or carried from Africa, Ms. Jones said.
The three biggest themes in Appalachian music are dancing, listening, and spirituality, she said. Ms. Jones describes her playing as a "unique frailing style of claw hammer," referring to a method used for strumming the four- or five-stringed instrument, and she has developed her playing over many years with West Virginia master fiddlers and a lifetime of singing.
She has several CDs out, including "There Are No Rules!" and she plays in a band called the Reed Island Rounders.
Ms. Jones peppered her banjo playing with some advice for those who have traveled to parts of Appalachia and have been tempted to try moonshine.
"My personal favorite is the kind with plums at the bottom," she said, "Although my advice to anyone who drinks moonshine is that you should know the person who made it and know the stuff that you’re drinking, because some of that stuff can seriously kill you."
Next month’s history program on May 16 will center on women artists of Bordentown. Other upcoming events at the Friends Meetinghouse include a yard sale on May 5.

