More Music, Banjos, and Rocky Top

I, of course, listen to a lot of music whenever I'm driving. My mind was in a delightful mess as I prepared to leave for Florence, South Carolina all while preparing items to take to other places along the way. I actually did not forget anything, which is amazing, considering me. Before I left, I checked out a few CDs from the library: Rhonda Vincent (Stuart Duncan plays on the album. He is incredible and clever), Ricky Skaggs, and a more serious work of Sara and Sean Watkins and Chris Thile (Nickel Creek). As I drove up, I didn't listen to them though. I was saving them for when I was up in the mountains. But of what I did listen to, I want to show a few thoughts and paint a few pictures.

Ralph Stanley's music really sets me in a contemplative and inspired state. One thing that gets me about his music is that its often like a Negro spiritual. The banjo, after all, came from Africa. His music style, from his clawhammer banjo to that voice so full of grit -- raw as the Virginia mountainside -- brings a pleasure to the winter and grey trees that pass by me. I'm glad that I'm coming to embrace the gray. His voice always takes me to thinking of winter and oldness, ancientness even. Ralph is as a prophet, an old man on the mountain, like the white, long-haired, bearded man delivering the Word. In the bluegrass world, there is a smal dispute of whether Bill Monroe or Ralph Stanley should get the most notoriety. While I greatly respect Monroe (and his seemingly endless number of compositions) , you can guess which one I feel deserves more awe.

As I drove to Florence up I-95, I continually saw the clouds in the rearview mirror, a vague beautiful glow proceeding forth from them, and those same rays of light pouring down from clouds looming in the distance, as if beckoning me.

I haven't gotten these feelings -- emotions like awe and sheer exuberance -- while traveling for too long. I know the road is where I belong. I think about being a trucker after I get off my mission. I think about it all the time
I'm getting new sad feelings. Feelings of things not being as joyous and exciting anymore because they are not new. An idea that things are burned out, and its all been done, and that the things that I hoped for in newness have only turned out to be an exact replica of what now wearies me and what I have been attempting to find relief from. I've already been up to western North Carolina. I've already been to Charlotte. I've already been lots of places. However, my heart still burns upon looking at old pictures of past travels, like I'd wish to go back once more to a few of those places. I have yet to go to Holly Hill, and the ancient peals of Stanley's voice and banjo inspire me to chase out these plans that I, until recently, had considered stale. I am going to visit the Outer Banks of North Carolina by the end of this month, so that excites me.

Geographical Musically-Inspired Location Of The Day
Since people are saying everything is new, I think I'll show y'all something that's new to me. When I got into bluegrass, I mostly listened to newer and progressive bluegrass. I'm finally settling into a lot more old-style bluegrass from the 60s and 70s. I got a CD from my niece for Christmas, with a lot of Bill Monroe, Earl Scruggs, Ralph Stanley, and Osbourne Brothers. This song that I have chosen really connects me to the mountain, particularly in its most gruff and raw form. The song is Rocky Top, performed by Osbourne Brothers. I think of rocketing over a mountain hill so fast that the car leaves the ground, and making switchbacks at death-wish speeds. I always love the speed. Fast bluegrass captures the joy of velocity for me. Here it is!

Wish I was on ol' Rocky Top down in the Tennessee hills
Ain't no smoggy smoke on Rocky Top, ain't no telephone bills

Rocky Top you'll always be home sweet home to me

Good ol' Rocky Top

Rocky Top, Tennessee