Sunday July 9th
We are back in high summer here on the Texas Gulf Coast. When the temperature is a degree above the dew point at 79 degrees and the humidity is only 2% below 100%. It ain’t nice out on the back porch this morning.
Yesterday we were surprised by some pop up showers that moved rapidly across the area to blacken the sky and dropped some pretty good accumulations of rain. Of course, once they passed, the heat and humidity rebounded with a vengeance.
There once was a time.. and a season, when I would sit out on the back porch of a morning and just observe as I would put these muses together. Granted.. I wouldn’t stay out long come July and August, but I would sit a spell before hightailing it into the cool of the house. These days… Not so much. Out… 3 photos… in.
This morning when I fired up the laptop and started the music it was “Stand Like An Oak” by Rising Appalachia that was first up in my playlist. Rising Appalachia grabbed my attention quite awhile ago… and continue to intrigue me on a continuing basis…
Rising Appalachia is an American Appalachian folk music group led by multi-instrumentalist sisters Leah Song and Chloe Smith. Leah also performs as a solo artist. Based between Atlanta, New Orleans, and the Asheville area of North Carolina, the sisters work with an array of international musicians and the band incorporates everything from simple harmonics with banjos and fiddles, to a wide variety of drums, kalimbas, beatbox, djembe, balafon, congas, didgeridoo, tablas, spoons and washboard creating a full mix of world, folk and soul music.
In the early days, the sisters busked, in the French Quarter of New Orleans and elsewhere. They began to find their own natural interpretation of Appalachian music which brought together folk, soul, hip-hop, classical, southern gospel and other styles based on their upbringing on traditional Appalachian string band music, as well as on their exposure to urban music like hip-hop and jazz and the influence of roots music, and world music of all kinds which they experienced during their worldwide travels.
