The Hornpipe: Folk Music in the Southern Regions

		Southern Folk Music . . . . What'n Thunderation Is It?
MYSTERIES & MUSIC: Daniel Elton Harmon is back "on tour"—this time adding historical mystery story readings to his traditional folk ballad bag. . . . NOW AVAILABLE: The Illustrated Harper & MacTavish Reader! A quarterly e-magazette featuring the adventures of two 19th-Century South Carolina crime reporter-sleuths. Plus classic mystery stories, historical crime facts, interesting South Caroliniana—and brand-new Harper and MacTavish adventures distributed as weekly "cliffhanger" serials. Subscription-based, e-book format (.PDF). PUBLICKE OCCURRENCES southern folk music venues & events. . THE HORNPIPE POST folk music news, inquiries and assorted items. BOUZOUKIS, CITTERNS, MANDOLAS & SUCH commentary from players far & near. . ARTICLES & INTERVIEWS with southern folk musicians & movers. . LAND OF LINKS folk Web sites in the South & beyond. . . BLITHERING SPIFFY PAGES—a diverse treasury of Web pages created by Hornpipe Vintage Publications. . VISIT THE EDITOR: historical mystery/adventure author & folk musician Daniel Elton Harmon. . HORNPIPE VINTAGE PUBLICATIONS home page.		The fella's good—good enough that the Irish pub crowd, without admonishment, is keeping the noise to a low roar so his songs can be heard by those who are interested. While the wait staff parcel out shepherd's pie and black-and-tans, the soloist on the tiny back-corner stage renders "Fiddler's Green," "Whiskey in the Jar" and "The Unicorn"—standard pub fare. Someone demands "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling," and he condescends to do the dirty deed with a polite smile. But occasionally he sneaks in some unorthodox stuff—the real stuff: "Dirty Old Town," Stan Rogers' "Northwest Passage" and "Mary Ellen Carter." Hmmm. This is no mindless request robot. He's been around. Seattle? Philly? Boston? Uh-uh. This is going on in Spartanburg, South Carolina, at a place called Delaney's. And yes—some of the listeners know all the words! If you try to contain the southern folk music scene in a nice, square, definable box, you'd better start with a pretty big box. It comes from a lot of disconnected roots, and now it's all over the place, in disconnected (yet somehow strangely connected) forms. It's a trio at a Norfolk pub bellowing an 18th-Century pirate ditty (a la Blackbeard—slain on the North Carolina coast, November 1718). It's Auburn University suitemates harmonizing to a Mary Chapin Carpenter ballad. It's a Gullah story-teller who isn't singing at all, but whose narrative is nonetheless lyrical. It's a lonesome fiddler in the Ozarks; an African-American choir in a small, remote church in Mississippi; a mariachi restaurant ensemble performing table-to-table in San Antone; a blues man in Memphis, eyes closed and soul far, far away; a kilted piper on Black Mountain; a bluegrass band in Oklahoma (or Maryland, or Florida, or Arizona, or Tennessee) with no paying gig at the moment but a darned fine fish fry cracklin' at pondside on a Saturday night. Most of America's authentic musical genres arguably originated in the South. You want the real thing? Check this out. . . . ======= Tune in to the editor's Web log ("blog")—regular postings on topics ranging from folk music to history to humor.