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Coal and coal-related activities are often the first things that come to mind when thinking about the history of southern West Virginia. Coal played such a part in the history of the area that the counties of Logan, Mingo, Lincoln, Boone, Wyoming, McDowell, Wayne, Fayette, Mercer, Cabell, Nicholas, Summers, and Kanawha are often simply referred to as the southern WV coalfields - as if nothing else ever occurred there.
The focus of Haddox’ program is to shine a light on the individuals who contributed to the rich folk music traditions of those "coalfield” counties. While the songs and tunes themselves are wonderful and should be treasured, there is often a lack of information about the people who made the music - a gap this program aims to fill.
Being a traditional musician from Logan, WV, Haddox has had an interest in many of the featured individuals since learning about them decades ago. While he had no comprehensive, systematic approach to learning about the individuals, he did uncover tidbits over the years and his interest never waned. For some reason, it was with renewed interest that in 2019 he became determined to find, and was successful in his search, the grave of Dick Justice. With the help of Brandon Ray Kirk, he was also able to locate the grave of Peter "Pete" Henry Hill--a descendent of slaves down on the Sawmill Road area of Chapmanville. Pete was known to have played fiddle with Dick.
In 2019 Haddox was introduced to Dr. Gloria Goodwin Raheja of the University of Minnesota by his friend and colleague, Dr. Travis Stimeling, a Professor of Musicology at West Virginia University. Gloria is a cultural anthropologist who years earlier had developed an interest in a particular musician, Frank Hutchison, from Logan who had recorded a handful of blues songs in 1929. Frank’s style so captured her curiosity that she began making treks to Logan to learn more about him and his music. Each time she learned something about Frank, it led her to other musicians in the area. Soon she was fully immersed in the development of a book entitled: Logan County Blues: Frank Hutchison in the Sonic Landscape of the Appalachian Coalfields. The introduction to Gloria came about as Travis knew that both Gloria and Haddox had a mutual interest in Dick Justice, and that he had found Dick's long forgotten grave in a small mountainside cemetery in Yolyn, WV. Gloria contacted me immediately after the email introduction about the possibility of taking her to the location. She happened to be in Morgantown conducting research at the WVU Library, and Haddox happened to be headed back down to Logan the following morning. She could not join on that trip, and thus we planned a trip for later in the summer.
Brandon Ray Kirk, a professor of History, at Southern WV Community and Technical College, is a well-known expert on the history of the Logan area. He and Haddox had attempted to connect on music-related history a few times in the past, but had never managed to fully do so. He mentioned to him that Haddox was going to bring Gloria to Logan for some music history research and asked if Kirk would like to join. The three of us spent three wonderful days searching for graves, discussing the musical history of the area, and unwittingly hatching a plan for this project.
Everyone who knows Chris Haddox seems to know something different about him. That’s not surprising because this stellar musician is also a community leader who has directed Habitat for Humanity and worked to preserve old neighborhoods, a WVU professor of sustainable design, and an amateur musicologist who researches musicians from the southern coalfields of West Virginia. That’s a lot of breadth for someone the music community knows as a well-loved, easy-going consummate picker who never met a stringed instrument he couldn’t master—not to mention a gifted songwriter in the traditional country/Americana vein.
Says one of his close friends and fellow musicians, "I once looked around at a party where most of the guests didn’t know each other, but they all knew Chris. “You’re the nexus!” I said, to which he replied, after reflecting on his Logan County West Virginia roots, “Maybe I'm the Red Nexus!” That kind of self-deprecating wit extends to his voluminous repertoire of songs about (to quote him): “religion, firearms, courthouse squares, goats on trampolines, shoes, fiddles, and hurricanes”—whatever catches his eye. He continues, “Like most writers, I try to find new ways to address old topics. Some songs are funny, some sad, some sarcastic but they are all honest--even the ones that are full of lies.“
Born in 1960 into a musical family in Logan, West Virginia, Chris started playing piano at age six and moved onto guitar when he was influenced by his Uncle Jim, a fantastic country blues singer and picker. In college he picked up the dobro and just kept going… fiddle, banjo, mandolin; he seems to have an innate facility with those strings.
Galvanized by the Delmore Brothers, Chris moved to Nashville in 1981 to dedicate himself to making it as a songwriter. Over the course of three healthy stints in the Music City he learned about the music business, made some great friends and contacts in the business, but he eventually decided that the time was just not right for him. His time illustrates a principle from the age-old question: Do you want to be a professional songwriter, or do you want to write songs. After leaving Nashville, Chris never stopped writing, and we’re all the better for it.
If you live in Appalachia, a land of savage contrasts, you develop a relationship to obscurity and miscommunication. Many outsiders willfully misunderstand us. In Appalachia, we have a history of fixed ideas: Music is something you do after work, for fun. Your real work is about your people and the communities you live in. Chris’s work and avocation come together in his passion and talent for lending voice to forgotten musicians brings them alive for all of us. To hear him sing and play over the graves of lost and forgotten musicians in remote and overgrown mountain cemeteries, reveals their humanity and rescues ours.
An exceptional musician with an open heart, Chris is a collection of all the right kinds of contrasts. In short, Chris Haddox represents everything that is good about Appalachia.
Tickets are $20 and may be purchased by calling Carnegie Hall Box Office at 304.645.7917, visiting www.carnegiehallwv.org, or stopping by at 611 Church Street, Lewisburg, West Virginia. Carnegie Hall Box Office is open Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. until 4 p.m.
Carnegie Hall WV is a member-driven nonprofit organization supported by individual contributions, grants, and fundraising efforts such as TOOT and The Carnegie Hall Gala. The Hall is located at 611 Church Street, Lewisburg, WV. For more information, please call 304.645.7917 or visit www.carnegiehallwv.org.
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