Kyle Duane Hebert

KNOW YOUR OWN
SEEDTIME ON THE CUMBERLAND FESTIVAL
BY KYLE HEBERT
Originally Published June 2006, Nougat Magazine

Robert Salyer strides into his dimly lit office in one corner of the Appalshop complex, unscrews the cap off of a thermos of “really good coffee” and offers me what will be my fourth cup of coffee of the day and not the last by far.

For some it’s whiskey, for others hallucinatory narcotics, but in Salyer’s case it’s that bitter drink that fuels his creative fire. My nerves are shot by this point, all the caffeine in my bloodstream having frayed my nerve endings, but Robert’s eyes are calm beneath the shaggy, black hair that spills over his forehead. As he speaks his rubs his hand over the day or two’s worth of stubble on his chin, giving the impression that every word is carefully thought over before spoken. I do not believe it is an act.

Appalshop, located in Whitesburg Kentucky, is an arts and education center that produces, among other things, films, music, theatre, radio and photography for and about Appalachia. They have the distinct nature of being known more worldwide than in their own state. The weekend of June 9th through 10th they are inviting everyone, Kentuckians especially, to the 20th Anniversary of the Seedtime on the Cumberland festival to see what they are all about.

Do not make the mistake of assuming that Seedtime is just another festival. As Rich Kirby put it “Seedtime could not take place just anywhere. It is a cultural festival first and Whitesburg is really good at celebrating its own culture.” Kirby is a former program director for WMMT, the Appalshop radio station, and a producer for the June Appal record label. There are, he said, mountain festivals that could take place in the desert. Not so of Seedtime. Seedtime is what it is because of where it is. Everything you’ll see at Appalshop will be of Whitesburg and the surrounding county. “It’s not like any other festival I know of,” Kirby said.

The beauty of Seedtime, and Appalshop itself, is its diverse nature. Because Appalshop is an umbrella organization covering many different activities and institutions, including Seedtime, there’s something for everyone. Previous Seedtime festival-goers have been able to listen to Old Time music, Native American ritual songs, and the black gospel music of Ethel Caffie Austin.

The musical portion of this year’s festival will feature concerts headlined by Hazel Dickens, Mike Seeger, Zoe Speaks and the Lee Sexton Band. Dickens was born in Mercer County, West Virginia. Her songs are characterized by her “high, lonesome” sound and, according to the Appalshop website, infused with the strength of her convictions. Seeger is a founding member of the New Lost City Ramblers. As well as being an accomplished musician, he is a folklorist particularly interested in traditional Appalachian music. Zoe Speaks consists of the husband and wife duo Mitch Barrett and Carla Gover. Their haunting melodies should be familiar to Lexington music fans. Gover is also a native of Letcher county, where Appalshop is based. Sexton has been an integral part of the Appalachian music scene throughout his career. He is a regular at Seedtime and several recordings by the Lee Sexton Band are available from June Appal records.

In addition to live music several Appalshop films will be shown. Those will include new films as well as films recently archived through Appalshop’s latest endeavor. Student films made during the recent media training labs of the Appalachian Media Institute (AMI) will also be shown and discussed. And not to be missed is the Second Annual Chuck Johnson Watermelon Eating, Seed Spitting and Hollerin’[sic] contests.

Do not drive down to Whitesburg thinking you’ll see how “real mountain folk” live and that is it. Appalshop’s voice is not a white voice, or a poor voice, it is an American voice. It speaks up about issues that we as a country need to face, issues that our government is ignoring.

Nick Szuberla is a co-founder of Holler to the Hood a media arts project that focuses on the the movement of inner city minority offenders to distant rural areas. His new film Up the Ridge: A US Prison Story, tells the story of a Supermax prison built in Virginia twenty minutes from Whitesburg. The film portrays the devastation that the prison wrought on the lives of the predominantly white families employed by the prison as well as the predominantly black families of the prison system.

Through Holler to the Hood Szuberla has also developed workshops that explore “hill-hop” a mash up of hip-hop and traditional music. Holler to the Hood is also the name of a weekly radio show on WMMT that broadcasts hip-hop for the growing urban audiences in the local prison systems and strives to bring urban and rural communities together.

All people have worth. If the essence of Appalshop had to be pared down to one sentence that would be it. There is no one person worth more than another. From coal miners to the displaced residents of the Ninth Ward in New Orleans, to the horse farm owners in Lexington. “The persistent idea that certain classes of people are worth less,” Salyer said, is what makes Appalshop relevant still.

Salyer and I sat down to view some rough cuts of his latest work, a film about Kentucky county politics. “Democracy is real in Letcher county,” he said. “If you have a problem with anything, you can walk down the street to the courthouse and talk to somebody face to face about it right now.” His aim is to examine how politics effect the lives of his fellow citizens at the very basic level. In doing so He hopes to avoid the broad strokes of the Red State/Blue State delineation.

The day after my visit to Appalshop Salyer and his crew were planning to get as close to a local polling place as they could. Flashing the smile that implies he might be chief among the in-house pranksters Salyer said “If I can take a camera into the booth and film myself voting, I’m going to.”

In addition to vast amounts of coffee, it is this decidedly loose framework within Appalshop that spurs the contributor’s work. There is no Prime Directive, no ruling political ideology. Under the same roof you’ll find liberals, Republicans, Democrats and conservatives. What they agree on is that media empowers their community, their country, and their world to face its problems and solve them. “The important thing is that the film is made or the song is recorded,” Herb E. Smith said, “not its viewpoint.”

Smith has been with Appalshop since the beginning. He was 17 years old when the Community Film Workshop Council provided the money to found the AMI. Smith was one of the first young people to learn film-making and form Appalshop. “Americans didn’t know their own country back then,” he said. “There is no way to develop national policy unless you know the nation.” The poverty level in Letcher county at the time was horrendous. Many of the public safety-nets were nonexistent. When people lost their jobs, many had to choose between begging or starving. Smith and a few others made it their job to show America their part of the country, to provide an insider’s perspective.

Smith expressed hope that people from all over Kentucky would come to Seedtime. He related a story to me to express the relative obscurity Appalshop faces in its home state. Governor Fletcher had flown out to California to meet with executives from Paramount and Disney in order to entice them to make movies in Kentucky. On two occasions people from both companies asked Fletcher about Appalshop. He had no idea what they were talking about. The same is true of many Kentuckians. When I mentioned my own trip to Whitesburg, I was twice asked why I was traveling all the way down there to buy apples. Smith wishes that Appalshop had a better relationship with Lexington, that the work was known better here and throughout the state.

Salyer is the middle guard of Appalshop. He’s a protégé of Smith and has been around long enough to gather a few protégé of his own. “People have a tendency too look beyond their own life for meaning,” he told me as we spoke about the future role of Appalshop. “Instead of looking at where you are,” he continued, “you look everywhere else.

By inviting people to Seedtime, Appalshop members are asking two things. One is that people will learn the power of their own voice and own eyes. That they’ll begin to look at the world around them, examine it and gain knowledge about themselves. “Lexington needs an Appalshop,” Salyer said, “Everywhere needs one.” But the wish is also that people will see what is going on in the mountains. Things have changed, things have improved, but just barely. There is still work to be done, evils to expose, voices to be heard.

Lexington may be a three hour drive away from Whitesburg, but there is a branch of the Kentucky flowing just outside the Appalshop complex windows. During our conversation Salyer indicates the water flowing by just outside. “What happens to that water out there,” he says, “flows right to Lexington.”