photo by O. Mullick

Welcome, alpha-denizens! Each week in “Alphabet City” I will examine an aspect of local music that corresponds with a letter in the alphabet. The first installment, “A,” takes a look at Appalachian music, since many New York bands, from indie folksters to traditional country musicians, often describe some aspect of their music as Appalachian folk, folk, or “old time music.”

How does rural music from the Appalachian Mountains relate to us city slickers here in NYC? Well, don’t get your flannels in bunch if you can’t figure it out. Playing Appalachian music is about preserving cultural traditions, which the Big Apple is wont to do, and, of course, having some damn fun jamming on a fiddle. “Down Home Radio” host Eli Smith explains that playing Appalachian music is about “preserving the authentic music of the American rural underclass, and not just about preserving the music, but about promoting an aesthetic system which has a totally different emotional quality to the pop stuff you hear across the radio dial and on TV, and to my ear a much healthier one.”

Here’s a brief glimpse into the lives of three groups who play old time music – as Appalachian music is sometimes called – and who each preserve folk music traditions in their own way.
More on Alphabet City: A is for Appalachian Music (and secret museums)