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Recording from Highlander Center, 1973.
Gunning | I've been working on a project since February, of listening to the whole vinyl collection from A to Z. Along the way, I will post some of the findings that caught me off guard, one way or the other. First on the list is under Appalachian, "Come All You Coal Miners" - featuring Hazel Dickens, Nimrod Workman (links to video) and many others, working from the vibrant political and cultural mecca, the Highlander Center down in New Market, TN.
Hazel Dickens and Sarah Ogan Gunning tear up on "Come All You Coal Miners." Gunning and Dickens are just two of many activists and singers who have continued the folk tradition in the sense of Woody Guthrie and his predecessors.
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While Appalachia is maligned, the music and political activism from the left is and has been thriving. The listen was haunting and challenging because it immediately begs the question of why am I immobile at this moment in time? Is listening passivity?
"Come all you coal miners wherever you may be
And listen to a story that I'll relate to thee
My name is nothing extra, but the truth to you I'll tell
I am a coal miner's wife, I'm sure l wish you well.
l was born in old Kentucky, in a coal camp born and bred,
I know all about the pinto beans, bulldog gravy and cornbread,
And I know how the coal miners work and slave in the coal mines every day
For a dollar in the company store, for that is all they pay.
Coal mining is the most dangerous work in our land today
With plenty of dirty. slaving work, and very little pay.
Coal miner, won't you wake up, and open your eyes and see
What the dirty capitalist system is doing to you and me.
They take your very life blood, they take our children's lives
They take fathers away from children, and husbands away from wives.
Oh miner, won't you organize wherever you may be
And make this a land of freedom for workers like you and me.
Dear miner, they will slave you 'til you can't work no more
And what'll you get for your living but a dollar in a company store
A tumbled-down shack to live in, snow and rain pours in the top.
You have to pay the company rent, your dying never stops.
I am a coal miner's wife, I'm sure l wish you well.
Let's sink this capitalist system in the darkest pits of hell."
For those wanting to hear how the song goes, there are many versions, this one on "Come All You Coal Miners" is harrowing. It contrasts sharply with Nimrod Workman's radical revision of the gospel "Don't You Wanna Go to That Land" which is sung in group setting. "Ain't no politicians in that land where I go"....Nimrod reconfigures a heaven where no capitalist, mine owner, oppressor is let in the door. Arguably, a more accurate reading of scripture.
Verse aside, the apartment was filled with it all. Some might think that these are from times of old. The album's from early 70s and after all, the labor movement is dead, right? Why bother is often the refrain, if one gets beyond the discussion of whether there are radicals in places like Appalachia. I got this picture from Appalshop.
It's a picture from a demonstration against downsizing and corporatism from 1998 in Knoxville. True, marchers march - and the level of effectiveness varies, but the point remains that activism is not something that was restricted to some nostalgic past captured and rendered so beautifully on the vinyl. The music serves as a signature to action, pushing at every listen to move beyond passivity, noting that for many that is never an option. |  |
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