A cycle of Appalachian folk songs from writer and activist Si Kahn, subtitled Songs for Strong Kentucky Women
The subtitle for this album is “Si Kahn’s Songs for Strong Kentucky Women”. Si Kahn is one of American folk music’s most enduring and consequential figures – a songwriter, performer, and lifelong organiser whose has been a voice for music and activism in Kentucky for six decades.
East Kentucky musician and Appalachian traditional dancer Carla Gover put together a cast of female musicians from Kentucky to record a cycle of Kahn’s songs. Gover says; “I’ve never been able to resist a concept album, even now when the very idea seems out of date to so many. This album is not only part of a larger project that Si has to get more of his voluminous catalogue out into the world, It’s also the perfect vehicle to highlight the voices of contemporary women singers and musicians in Kentucky. I’m proud to have produced it and performed on it. I hope that it shines a light on Si’s particular genius along with the wealth of talented women in our state.”
The 17 songs featured here include musicians from several generations of Kentucky women, not all of them well known on this side of the Atlantic, but all contributing to an album of Appalachian folk both traditional and contemporary. With such an extensive and varied list there are some songs which stand out, although the whole album is an enjoyable listen.
Dancing with the Johnson Boys features Maddie Rae Wells vocal and some outstanding guitar from Arlo Barnette. Kahn builds some of his songs around the semi fictional Walden family and rail line of Williams Branch, and this song looks at the chaos that can ensue when the Walden Girls met the Johnson Boys when “folks close their shutters and lock their doors.”
Generations sung by Karly Dawn Milner is an affirmation of the ties and songs that bind the generations together and has an almost Woody Guthrie feel to it. One of the more up-tempo songs is Nobody Loves Me Like You Do with Gover’s Banjo and Charity Gilbert’s singing on a song about young lovers lying together as the morning breaks over the mountains. Gover herself takes the title song. “I was born in East Kentucky. In a little place that’s hard to find. Wide place in the road. Called Williams Branch Just a stone’s throw north. Of the Tennessee line.” A song rooted in the hills of East Kentucky and a story of a young girl, as she watches her father turn the tables on an arrogant city-slicker, wo hasn’t a hope of finding directions to Willams Branch as he lacks the local knowledge.
Ella Webster’s rendition of Harlan 1934, where “an almost 100-year-old matriarch lies close to death and silent in a hospital, her great-granddaughter imagines her great-grandmother’s final offering of love and music,” sums up Kahn’s approach to his songs perfectly. “Because in this I had no choice. You must be my earthly voice. Come sing the songs I would have sung. If I could dream of being young.”
Kahn says “I wrote these songs to honor some of the strong, inspiring women I met in my years working as a labor organizer and folk singer in the region. In making this album, I wanted to highlight the voices of contemporary women singers and musicians in Kentucky.” It’s an album which will reach an audience who want to learn more about the lives, and music of the women of an often-overlooked part of the USA, and as such it is a vital document, as well as a way of getting to know some musicians who may not otherwise have taken your attention.
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