Cage Matches

John Cage performs Walter Walk in 1960 on TelevisionThe centennial anniversary of John Cage’s birth is upon us. Live music loves an anniversary, and considering Cage was a native Los Angeleno who spent critical formative years studying with the likes of Schoenberg at both UCLA and USC, revisiting his work here with local forces seems appropriate. In this vein, the faculty and students of CalArts assembled a two day John Cage festival this past week at the REDCAT downtown. Headed by music faculty members Mark Menzies and Ulrich Krieger the expansive 6 plus hours of programming covered an amazing amount of territory. But like any consideration of Cage’s work, it also barely scratched the surface: Cage’s interest in chance and process leaves his music open to so many interpretations that any selection can seem like a very small window looking out onto a huge sea.

The performances of the CalArts faculty and students that make up the New Century Players and the CalArts Orchestra touched on the most important aspects and themes of the composer’s sound world. The first evening clocking in at four hours focused heavily on Cage’s interest in microtonal sounds and Eastern music traditions. The evening was bookended by two versions of Ryoanji from the early eighties with Rachel Rudich playing the shakuhachi, a Japanese end-blown flute. In between were larger ensemble works including Hymnkus (1986), Etcetera (1973), Renga (1975), and Fourteen (1990). Some of the works were marked by a halting pace of repeated bursts of sound like some microtonal dirge. Others hinted at the process games that underlie their performance but aren’t always immediately apparent to the audience.

Etcetera was a particular highlight in this regard with it constantly reformatting ensembles. The 26 players, arranged themselves in three groupings, appeared along the back of the stage area with three performers including Menzies, seated at the front, each facing a different number of empty chairs. These empty settings included a duo, trio and quartet. Periodically, players from the groupings would leave their seats to take one of the stations up front. When a particular grouping was filled, the “conductor” of that ensemble would stand and lead the players in a brief interlude played simultaneously with the sound emanating from the back of the stage. Horns, violins, car parts, or tuba mutes would find themselves unexpectedly alongside one another. Periodically, players would abandon their assigned instruments to percussively tap on a variety of empty boxes. It was a sort of contemporary chamber music speed dating whose results were surprising and fluid capturing a real sense of playfulness.

This sort of playful theatricality came to an even fuller realization on the second night of the series when the players returned for two and a half hours devoted entirely to Cage’s 1958 Fontana Mix. Fontana Mix isn’t so much of a prescribed piece of music as a template by which a wide variety of other music can be composed using its charts and overlays. All the works in the program were composed using the template whether or not they were Cage’s. The show started with a four-channel recording of Cage’s original audio collage with the work from 1958. With all of its caught radio signals, whirs and beeps it sounded like an invitation to nearly all of the electronic music of the later 20th century. There was also a prerecorded version of a similar piece from Max Neuhaus from 1965 that replaced some of these original sound artifacts with falls of audio feedback. Vocalist Carmina Escobar performed Cage’s ARIA which was further processed through another Cage composition/tool WBAI with the kind of shouts, trills, and other non-word sounds that would litter the works of so many other composers over the next several decades.

Perhaps the most fascinating moments for me, though, were the ones where the sound elements almost completely broke down to give way to a performance piece. Cage was intimately involved in making music for dance in a unique way and in works like 1959’s Water Walk. The Fontana Mix process is fed physical actions as much as sound. On Thursday, Kristen Erickson, arrived in a theatrical, red outfit and activated reel-to-reel machines, submerged gongs, mixed cocktails, activated the pressure cooker, and plucked at a prepared piano like a mid-20th Century avant-garde Betty Crocker. (You can see Cage perform this piece from 1960 on TV's I've Got a Secret above.) 1960’s Theater Piece, also receiving the WBAI treatment, was dramatic in a similar fashion true to its name. There were string players doing yoga, and a bassist bowing the pages of a paperback, all held together by Menzies whose arrangement of papers on an office desk provided a particular rhythmic structure.

The young musicians who make up the CalArts Orchestra availed themselves with an enthusiasm that nicely mirrored the adventurousness of Cage’s work. The music is still shockingly different, but there is a sense of wonderment and playfulness that should never be lost despite some of the elaborate music theory and procedural mechanics behind it. There is something rather American and rather Californian about this kind of exploration and the unexpected mingling of forces, and hearing this particular tribute at this particular place and this particular time made for some wonderful listening.

A Rye Whiskey Rural Arts Metaphor

Templeton's home-grown rye crop; Brewvana

[Editor's Note: As I am facing numerous writing deadlines over the second half of February, this seems like a good time to give a retrospective glance to the first two years of Art of the Rural. Over these weeks I will feature a few new articles, but also many favorites from the archives. Thanks again to everyone who has read and contributed; what began as a labor of love has become a project far larger, and far more rewarding, than I ever could have anticipated - and I deeply appreciate the readership and participation of such a diverse audience. In March we will offer new articles and series, and share some new projects related to our mission.

[A Rye Whiskey Rural Arts Metaphor was originally published on February 9, 2011. A review of Kristian Day's excellent documentary Capone's Whiskey: The Story of Templeton Rye is forthcoming. The trailer for this film is included at the conclusion of this piece.]

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We occasionally like to dwell on issues of food culture and the culinary arts that have a particular rural connection (see the search function on the sidebar for Ian Halbert's excellent series of articles), and today we've found a controversy that has developed across the state of Iowa that may be of interest to our readers.

The story involves Templeton Rye, a small-batch rye whiskey distilled in Templeton, Iowa. With the exception of liquor connoisseurs, most folks outside of Iowa--even most folks in the midwest--probably have never heard of Templeton, despite the fact that it is one of the most sought-after whiskeys in the United States. It's also a whiskey with a compelling local and historical legacy. Here's a brief introduction from the distillery's site:

When Prohibition outlawed the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages in 1920, many enterprising residents of a small town in Iowa chose to become outlaws – producing a high caliber and much sought-after whiskey known as Templeton Rye.

Based on its extremely smooth finish, the American rye whiskey earned the nickname of “The Good Stuff” and quickly brought a certain degree of fame to the doorsteps of Templeton (pop. 350). As the premium brand of the era, Templeton Rye fetched an impressive $5.50 per gallon – or approximately $70 by today’s standards.

Over the course of its storied history, Templeton Rye became Al Capone’s whiskey of choice, quickly finding its way to the center of his bootlegging empire. Hundreds of kegs per month were supplied to Capone’s gang who in turn filled the demand of speakeasies throughout Chicago, New York and as far west as San Francisco.

Capone was eventually convicted on charges of tax evasion and sent to prison. Later legends suggest that a few bottles even found their way inside the walls of Alcatraz to the cell of prisoner AZ-85.

Although most American whiskeys ceased production after prohibition ended, Templeton Rye continued to be produced illegally in small quantities for loyal patrons. More than eighty-five years later, the infamous small batch rye whiskey finally returned – made available legally for the first time ever in 2006.

While the Capone connection may be enough to tempt a taste, the product's history is far from a gimmick; this is one of the finest, and most unique, rye whiskeys that money can buy. Beyond the connection to Prohibition and Alacatraz, this is no doubt also related to the local elements of this product's creation, to the care that the distillers--and the town itself--has put into each bottle. As their blog indicates, this distillery is intricately linked to its home region.

The Templeton controversy, however, has emerged at the convergence of all the wonderful attributes contained in the previous paragraph. Iowans want to purchase a quality drink with an Iowa connection,  stores in the state wish to stock this local gem, and--to confound this seemingly simple example of supply and demand--a huge number of urban, coastal connoisseurs are desperate to also enjoy a sip. Extraordinarily limited quantities of Templeton Rye can be found in upscale liquor stores in New York City, San Francisco and Chicago, often at considerably higher prices. Even within Iowa, it is very hard to find the product; often local stores will only receive 2-4 bottles a month. People turn to Facebook and Twitter (#TRspottings) to report when and where they have found "the good stuff."

Ironically, then, a product which began as a contraband item has, through different circumstances, become again a subject of hush-hush conjecture. This has led, within the state of Iowa and no doubt through internet chatter, to the perception that the scarcity of Templeton Rye was linked to a single likely cause: Templeton was shipping a larger proportion of its product to distant cities. As the video below and the site's allotment data indicate, this was only a perception. The vast majority of Templeton Rye stays within the Iowa border.

Herein lies a multifaceted metaphor. We see in this story those ever-present tensions between the local and the cosmopolitan, between the rural and the urban; we also see here the point at which a fantastically successful rural, regional business reaches a challenge that has less to do with profit-margins than with the community on which the entire enterprise is rooted. As a culinary art form, this is a kind of instructive tale for artists working within other mediums.

Also, looking more broadly at the well-earned success story in Templeton, we have an aspirational model for the rural arts. It's a sort of material and aesthetic challenge for contemporary rural artists in all mediums, how to balance the desires of rural and urban audiences--and how to reach one's local audience in such a way that they take the kind of ownership over their region's work that Templeton's Iowa base has exerted. While this controversy has been a challenge to the distillery, it's an envious one for most rural artists. Imagine if the words "Templeton Rye" and "Batch 4" were interchanged in the video below with any number of other words: "our recent series of paintings", "our recent book of poems", "our current recording:"

Tales of Two Cities

Brendan Griffin, Frank Wood, Jeremy Shamos, Annie Perisse, and Christina Kirk Photo: Craig Schwartz/CTG 2012

It was a shrewd move on the part of L.A.’s Center Theater Group: providing local audiences a chance to see Lorriane Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun right alongside Bruce Norris’ Pulitzer-Prize winner, Clybourne Park. While Norris’ comedy, which will make its play for a Tony award later this spring on Broadway, is by no means an outright sequel to Hansberry’s masterpiece of American realism, the two plays are unquestionably related. Specifically, Norris follows the story of the unseen white family referred to in Raisin whose former home the Youngers will soon occupy at great personal cost. How that home has come to market is the story at the heart of Clybourne Park and seeing the two plays in close succession, as I did on a recent Sunday, helps highlight the subtle ways in which Norris riffs on Hansberry’s theme from a contemporary perspective. Of course this also invites a more critical look at Norris’ play and points out another relationship between them in their current stagings for CTG: on the one hand Clybourne Park is a great production of a good play, while across town, A Raisin in the Sun proves to be a good production of a great play. And while this may sound like the two experiences are similar, the distinction is a critical one.

The one character the two plays have in common, Mr. Linder, is ancillary character in A Raisin in the Sun. He attempts to buy the Youngers out of their contract to purchase a new home in the heretofore all-white neighborhood of Clybourne Park. In the first act of Norris’ play, he arrives with his pregnant wife, at the home of Bev and Russ, played here by an excellent Christina Kirk and Frank Wood, having failed in his attempt to convince the Youngers not to move. Events move tangentially away from Hansberry’s story at that point, and an awareness of the events in A Raisin in the Sun are not necessary to get everything in Clybourne Park. Soon a whole different set of broken promises and the failure of some American dreams unfurls as Mr. Linder tries to persuade Bev and Russ not to move. As the pleasantries of 1950s suburban life soon recede to reveal a more unpleasant underbelly to this suburban Chicago community, the emotional scope of the play deepens. Bev and Russ’ maid, Francine, and her husband, Albert, are also present for much of this brewing confrontation and Norris revisits some of the points about racism and racial politics of the period Hansberry so eloquently laid out over half a century ago. And while the politics of the period may be familiar, the words can still sting and the play can generate a fair amount of discomfort at times. (This is a popular strategy on Broadway right now and viewers may be revisiting Other Desert Cities again over the course of the evening.) But the project is different from Hansberry's, and the African-American characters in Clybourne Park often play a secondary role to the unfolding events in Norris' play.

After an intense and devastating first act, Clybourne Park shifts and the same set of actors now play two different couples. Jeremy Shamos and Annie Parisse who were previously Mr. Linder and his wife, are now Steve and Lindsey, a young, wealthy white couple who have just purchased the same now dilapidated house in Clybourne Park in 2009 and have made plans to tear it down and build a new home on the same lot. A married African-American couple played by Crystal A. Dickinson and Damon Gupton, Lena and Kevin, have come from the local neighborhood group to discuss a petition filled with the city’s planning commission with them. Lena is a great niece to Lena Younger and she expresses objections over the expansive construction plans for the site with an interest in maintaining architectural integrity to a now predominantly black neighborhood undergoing its own gentrification process. Norris revels in the many inversions and parallels between the two scenarios and makes wry use of the recasting of the actors in roles that diverge in ironic and unexpected ways such as when Brendan Griffin who plays the local priest, Jim, in Act I is now a gay community housing advocate in Act II. Soon the conference begins to unravel in a similar fashion to that prior meeting some 60 years ago. And while Norris wraps up the play with a stunner of a conclusion, the second act feels more conversational and unstructured than the first half. The characters hash out the contemporary veneer that disguises the underlying tensions about racism and economic disparities and Norris takes some glee in doing this in a progressively more blunt fashion. But the whole scene feels contrived and reaching with less natural dramatic development than the searing punch in the gut that precedes it.

Deidrie Henry, Kevin T Carroll, Kim Staunton, Kenya Alexander, and Brandon Davis Brown Photo: Craig Schwartz/CTG 2012

Norris still takes an optimistic tact at the end though, which is an appropriate homage to a similar sense that ends A Raisin in the Sun. As the Youngers leave for their new home, there is sacrifice ahead, but they have their pride an their family intact. Center Theater Group invited the Ebony Repertory Theater in Los Angeles to revive its recent production of A Raisin in the Sun at the Kirk Douglas Theater in Culver City after a well-received run last year under the direction of Phylicia Rashad. The play is virtually indestructible with poetry that still amazes at nearly every turn. One almost gasps to hear Berneatha proclaim that all the tyranny in the world will never put a God in the heavens. Hansberry's play is filled with so much, and so much that is so well written that one still sits almost agape at the play's quality and working.

But as good as the play is, Rashad and her cast don't always rise to its level. Mostly they do and Kim Staunton's Lena Younger and Deidrie Henry's Ruth provide two formidable anchoring performances that seem to keep the rest of the cast on track when they are around. And much like the characters they play, when they are absent some of the smaller parts veer off into more pedestrian realms. But the show gets the job done, filling these characters with the kind of life that leaves them haunting you while watching Norris' Clybourne Park and seeing the world they are about to step into. Though oddly, despite the quality of CTG's Broadway bound production, Norris' characters don't ever enter the mind when watching A Raisin in the Sun. Clybourne Park is a formidable edifice, but undoubtedly one that is at its best due to the foundations on which it was built.

A Moral Failure: Foundations and Rural America

Web banner from the Council on Foundations 2011 Annual Meeting

Yesterday on our Arts and Culture Feed we linked to the breakdown of President Obama's NEA budget proposal by Americans For The Arts. While discussions on this budget circulated yesterday, Charles Fluharty, President of the Rural Policy Research Institute, testified before the Agricultural Committee of the Senate to discuss how federal and private-sector forces can better serve rural communities and rural development. His full testimony can be found at The Daily Yonder, and video of the testimony begins at the 162 minute mark here.

As we've seen previously in creative economies and creative placemaking, artists and arts organizations both offer immense contributions to local economies and benefit from inclusion within the framework of rural development. 

For that reason alone, folks will be very interested to read Fluharty's analysis of the level of investment in rural communities by our national foundations. Generally speaking, rural America is 80% of the country and 20% of its population, yet these communities receive less than 3% from the major national foundations. (Many estimates put this number as low as 1%.) 

This "institutional and moral failure" is complicated by these foundations' tax status; in exchange for working towards the public good, these entities receive deductions and exemptions. Below, Fluharty's testimony suggests that not only is this an example of a gross inequality, but it's also a breach of public trust:

Beyond these public sector challenges, a concomitant rural disadvantage in philanthropic funding also remains significant. A 2004 report by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, “Beyond City Limits: The Philanthropic Needs of Rural America,” found that out of 65,000 grant-making foundations, only 184 made grants characterized as “rural development.”

Rural America remains challenged by this long-standing, differential disadvantage in philanthropic investment in its people, organizations, and institutions. And this is now more critical than ever, as federal, state and local government resources continue to decline. Because of the generous tax subsidies granted foundations and their donors, their presidents and trustees enter into a covenant with the American people, in which our government and these institutions jointly assume an obligation to steward this awesome public trust so as to optimize the public good achieved, in exchange for the lost public sector revenues and resources, as a result of tax deductions and exemptions. An awesome challenge, indeed…….As with all subsidies, deductions, and exemptions, federal budgetary pressures are again calling these dynamics into question, as both more research and more transparency are sought.

While redlining has been decried by national foundations for years on the part of government, a current de facto foundation redlining of rural America simply must be addressed. Federal funding for community capacity continues to decrease, and rural safety net resources are in dire need. Yet, American philanthropy continues to distribute less than 3% of its annual payout to the people and places of rural America, which comprise 20% of our population and 80% of our natural resource base. In fact, foundations have withdrawn further from rural commitments in the past five years, as need has increased exponentially.  These foundations, and the generous tax subsidies provided to donors, create a public partnership in pursuit of the public good.  This geographic inequity must be named.  It is an institutional and moral failure; and one so long-standing that serious inquiry regarding whether this is an abuse of a solemn public trust should be considered.

[Editor's Note: In the spirit of full disclosure, Charles Fluharty is the father of Matthew Fluharty, Art of the Rural Editor.]

Reconsidering Grant Wood's Revolt

[Editor's Note: As I am facing numerous writing deadlines over the second half of February, this seems like a good time to give a retrospective glance to the first two years of Art of the Rural. Over these weeks I will feature a few new articles, but also many favorites from the archives. Thanks again to everyone who has read and contributed; what began as a labor of love has become a project far larger, and far more rewarding, than I ever could have anticipated - and I deeply appreciate the readership and participation of such a diverse audience. In March we will offer new articles and series, and share some new projects related to our mission.

Reconsidering Grant Wood's Revolt was originally published on January 4, 2011.] 

This morning The Daily Yonder published an excellent review of Grant Wood: A Life, a new study of the legendary regionalist painter by R. Tripp Evans. Within her review "The Edgy Idylls of Grant Wood," Cyndy Clark notes many of Evans's new ideas on the use of gender and sexuality in Grant Wood's work--and Ms. Clark finds a way to artfully integrate this shifting interpretive terrain into the lines of the artist's most iconic canvas, American Gothic:

One of Wood’s eccentricities seems to have been a fascination with death and funerary subjects.  According to Evans, the gothic arch was a common 19th c. American folk art form that referred to mortality. Wood and his mother lived for ten years in a small apartment above a Cedar Rapids funeral parlor with a coffin lid as its front door, so the connection seems reasonable.  The American Gothic house may also represent the place where Wood spent the first eleven years of his life, in Anamosa, Iowa, the house where his father, Maryville, died.  The artist spent those early years hiding his artistic talents from Maryville, a man’s man who considered art feminine and only for sissies, an attitude consistent with his Midwestern contemporaries. Wood said, regarding his father’s disapproval of his art, “For a farmer’s son in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to say he wanted to paint pictures for his life work was as startling as a girl to announce she wanted to live a life of shame.”

Wood’s troubled relationship with his father contributes an obvious and psychologically predictable influence on many of his paintings.  Although the model for the male figure in American Gothic was his dentist, his resemblance to Maryville, a stern Quaker, is striking and confirmed by Wood’s sister, Nan. The prongs of the pitchfork, echo the seams of the farmer’s overalls and form the letter “W,” to evoke Maryville Wood.

Ms. Clark's review continues on to make a number of important connections between the varying responses to American Gothic, suggesting that we still have much to learn from Mr. Wood's situation, his place in that time-honored American-Arts-Bermuda-Triangle between rural, urban and academic spaces, and from the ideas he so gracefully articulated on canvas. 

Her writing led me back to an essay of Wood's I hadn't read in long while: "Revolt Against the City." As modern readers, we can scan the lines below in full cognizance that rural and urban spaces are inescapably interconnected, that a "revolt" from one merely means hardship for those involved in the rebellion. With this book review in mind, we come to understand that Grant Wood may not have argued such a basic dichotomy. Instead of revolting against the city, perhaps Mr. Wood would point the contemporary rural arts towards considering how they anchor regional artistic (and economic) centers:

Because of this new emphasis upon native materials, the artist no longer finds it necessary to migrate even to New York [or to emulate French painting, which Wood discusses before this quote], or to seek any great metropolis. No longer is it necessary for him to suffer the confusing cosmopolitanism, the noise, the too intimate gregariousness of the large city. True, he may travel, the may observe, he may study in various environments, in order to develop his personality and achieve backgrounds and a perspective; but this need be little more than incidental to an educative process that centers on his own home region.

.....

Let me try to state the basic idea of the regional movement. Each section has a personality of its own, in physiography, industry, psychology. Thinking painters and writers who have passed their formative years in these regions, will, by care-taking analysis, work out and interpret in their productions these varying personalities. When the different regions develop characteristics of their own, they will come into competition with each other; and out of this competition a rich American culture will grow. It was in some such manner that Gothic architecture grew out of competition between different French towns as to which could build the largest and finest cathedrals. 

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I am willing to go so far as to say that I believe the hope of a native American art lies in the development of regional art centers and the competition between them. It seems the one way to the building up of an honestly art-conscious America.

Articles of Faith

Grant Gershon Photo: Ken Hively

Any history of vocal music, and especially choral music, is by and large a history of sacred music. Seeing the text of a mass or a passion printed in the program for a choral performance is as predictable as the rising of the sun. And yet, imbuing those frequently Latin words with feeling isn’t always so easy. Many choruses have the benefit of doing so in a church or other religious setting where the hearts of the faithful can help bridge the gaps left by deficiencies in technique or aesthetics. But pulling this off without the accoutrements of worship is another matter. Producing a superb choral performance of extensible sacred music in a secular environment takes a lot of talent and hard work. The fact that the Los Angeles Master Chorale does this on a regular basis with seeming ease is staggering.

The case-in-point would be this past Sunday’s performance from the LAMC under Grant Gershon coming amid one of their strongest seasons in recent years. The program included both Bruckner’s Mass No. 2 in E minor paired with Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms. Granted, these are not your every day church choir pieces. And their relationship to real modern day faith-based services or practice is tangential. But the choral work here was piercingly beautiful. Bruckner, of course, is far better known for his orchestral works than choral ones, but this Mass was unmistakably his. Even with its small ensemble of brass and woodwinds as accompaniment, however, the gestures here tend to be grand in the late Romantic style. From the very opening of the piece, the Kyrie barrels out like any other composer’s Agnus Dei. The power and bright beauty of the music continued unabated for the whole 45 minutes or so, and the chorale had a clean, rich multi-layered sound.

The second half of the evening used a bit of a trick to extend Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms by pairing it with Bruckner’s short motet, Os justi meditabitur sapientiam. The lovely vocal waves of the Bruckner gave way to the percussive entrance to Stravinsky’s piece without pause under Gershon’s direction. It was a clever jump right into the 20th Century with a work the LAMC has proven itself to excel in many times, particularly in collaboration with the Los Angeles Philharmonic during its tenure under Stravinsky specialist Esa-Pekka Salonen. Hearing it again with the same lovely chorus couldn’t help but bring back memories of those poignant and glorious final concerts the L.A. Phil had under Esa-Pekka Salonen in April 2009 – his last as Music Director here. And while Sunday's performance didn't quite reach those heights overall, vocally it was again lovely, mustering spiritual overtones beyond what the occasion might suggest on the surface.

That Gershon and his chorus managed such a show just a week after their collaboration in the mammoth performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, with hundreds of others under Gustavo Dudamel at the Shrine, is further testament to exactly how finely tuned an ensemble this chorus is. We need more of them and maestro Gershon undoubtedly. And, of course, we in Los Angeles are getting some of that as Gershon becomes a larger and larger player in the opera world not only by his guest appearances in such places as Santa Fe, but in his continued alliance with the Los Angeles Opera. One wonders if ever higher-profile podiums aren’t in his near future.

The Carter Family Fold and Johnny Cash's Last Performance

Photograph by William W. Robinson of Friends of the Carter Family Fold 

[Editor's Note: As I am facing numerous writing deadlines over the second half of February, this seems like a good time to give a retrospective glance to the first two years of Art of the Rural. Over these weeks I will feature a few new articles, but also many favorites from the archives. Thanks again to everyone who has read and contributed; what began as a labor of love has become a project far larger, and far more rewarding, than I ever could have anticipated - and I deeply appreciate the readership and participation of such a diverse audience. In March we will offer new articles and series, and share some new projects related to our mission. ]

••••••••••

"He insisted on walking into the Fold that night," Hiltons resident Pat Jones told me a week after Johnny's performance. "They wanted to bring him in using a wheelchair, but he said no, he wanted to walk up to that stage himself."

Whenever I have friends that are looking to take a trip somewhere, one of the first places I recommend is The Carter Family Fold in Hiltons, Virginia. A few years back, I had the chance to attend one of their Saturday evening concerts and hear Janette Carter sing "I'm Thinking Tonight of my Blue Eyes." It's one of the songs that her father and mother, A.P. and Sara, along with aunt Maybelle, immortalized in an early Carter Family recording. Though Janette was frail, she was helped to the stage so that she could take the autoharp and begin the night's music with that selection from her family's legacy.

As she sang, I looked around. Underneath the generous tin roof, families and young couples sat and listened, children ran across the dance floor in front of the stage. It was an atmosphere and an inter-generational audience that harkened back to a time when traditional music--folk music--was actually sung and enjoyed by "folks", not cloistered behind the turn styles of cafes and concert venues. Ms. Carter and her brother Joe created the Fold in 1979 to honor her family and to give a piece of her family's heritage back to the community. When I walked in, I felt at home: large paintings of the Carters adorned the stage, homemade chili and pie beckoned from a window in the back, and a sign reminded me this was hallowed ground: no smoking, no drinking, no cursing.

A few months after Ms. Carter's song, she passed away. Here's Joe Wilson, President of the National Council for the Traditional Arts, remembering Ms. Carter and her legacy at the Fold:

Janette was not the Carter with the husky, penetrating female voice, perhaps the finest country female lead of all time. That voice belonged to her mother, Sara. She was not the lead guitarist who invented country guitar lead with its "church lick" and unrelenting emphasis of melody. That guitarist was her Aunt Maybelle. She wrote songs, but was not the greatest composer and arranger in country music history. That person was her father, A. P. Carter. She never married anyone famous, and individual fame never came to her. The Carter Family was a depression-era band that broke up after a mere 14 years, and Janette and her father returned to the Virginia mountains with considerable fame, but no cash. She worked as a cook at the elementary school, and raised her family. But she promised her father to keep his legacy, and that promise was kept in a hall she financed and her brother Joe built in the style of a burley tobacco barn. There she presented the local artists she adored and the famous who came to borrow bits of Carter magic. She kept the prices low and the quality high. She had time for the most humble, and enough love to fill this valley beside Clinch Mountain. 

The Carter Family Fold site has a lot to offer. First and foremost, you can check out their show schedule and also, if distance is an issue, purchase a ticket to the streaming video archive of dozens of recent shows. The grounds also serve as a preservation site for A.P. Carter's cabin as well as a family museum. Also worth visiting: The Friends of the Carter Family Fold has a wonderful selection of photographs and streaming music of the later generations of Carters to follow A.P., Sara and Maybelle.

One of the Fold's other rules: no electric instruments. This rule was waived for only one person: Johnny Cash, the husband of her cousin June and a frequent visitor to the Fold. On July 5, 2003, two months before his death, Mr. Cash made an unpublicized return to the stage in Hiltons for what would be his final public performance.

Here's Kimberly Burge, in Sojourners Magazine telling the story:

The Ovation began with those closest to the entrance that had been blocked off for his arrival. As the wave rippled across the audience, people took to their feet when Johnny emerged from his car, before he even stepped foot inside the Carter Fold and well before he sang a note.

Dressed head to toe, naturally, in black, he did indeed walk through the doors, slowly and propped up by two assistants. John Carter Cash, his only son, supported him from behind. The crowd parted, and he stopped and rested a few moments before attempting the three stairs that led to the small wooden stage. His body was frail, but his face still evoked the authority of an Old Testament prophet. he smiled bashfully at the thunderous reception.

Bursts of applause greeted each point of this 10-minute journey and reached a crescendo at the familiar opening notes of his first song, "Folsom Prison Blues." Although the backs of his hands appeared darkly bruised, Johnny played an acoustic guitar, as did his son. The wild greeting continued with his next number, "Sunday Morning Coming Down." Cries of "We love you, Johnny!" broke through the cheers.

Then he spoke to the crowd. "I don't really know what to say about how I feel tonight, being up here without her."

He placed only the slightest emphasis on that last word. The place fell silent for the first time that evening. Johnny sighed, his chest rising and falling slowly as he looked down at the guitar he quietly strummed. "June and I were together 40 years, and the pain is so severe, there's no describing it. You lose your mate, the one you've been with all those years, and I guarantee you it's the big one. It hurts so bad...it really hurts.

He thrummed the guitar again, two or three times. The ceiling fans clattered overhead.

"But every day the last week or so, it seems to be getting a little bit better, knowing that I was coming up to celebrate her birthday and the excitement of all that. Coming to her old homeplace here on the banks of Clinch Mountain, where we spent so much time and had so much love for each other. I just wish I could share it with you, how we felt about each other." he stared unseeingly down at the stage for a moment, then looked again toward his audience.

Luckily, video exists of this historic evening:

[The Carter Family Fold and Johnny Cash's Last Performance was originally published on April 8, 2010.]