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Mountain Music’s Harsh Truths: The Real Face of Bluegrass
In Appalachia, a group of teenagers find solace and expression through bluegrass music, singing about poverty, addiction, and the harsh realities of their lives.
The goddamn music sounded horrible. It was some sort of mixture between gospel sung by white people and redneck music in a beer joint. How, for the love of God, could anyone call this stuff music? From the hills of the Carolinas to the mountains of West Virginia and beyond, this music seemed to be a common thread of the American mid-south and mid-Atlantic regions. Even in 2024, this music was still found almost everywhere around here. Bluegrass, or “Mountain Music,” as some call it, is the spirit and pulse of Appalachian America.
Most of us couldn’t relate to it in the slightest bit — or could we? Songs about love gone wrong, murder, poverty, and hard times. It is something we’ve heard in rap and hip-hop music for years. At its core, this music is the story of every single one of us told in a different sort of way.
If you listen to this music, you’ll quickly come to learn that nothing is off-limits. Musically, it seems to adhere to a certain style, rhythm, and timing, but lyrically this music is a blank canvas where the artist is…
