By Stephen Smoot, The Shinnston News & Harrison County Journal
SHINNSTON, W.Va. — Within the broad and deep category of country and western music comes a subgenre with no definite name. Some call it, along with related books, motion pictures, and television programs “Appalachian Gothic.”
Appalachian Gothic differs from the 19th century “local color” genre. Local color writers’ audiences lay in the northeastern cities and enjoyed tales of the exotic and unfamiliar. Some authors based their fictional works on places they saw on vacation.
Others, like Kentucky’s John Fox and Hampshire County’s Rebecca Harding Davis, portrayed the strange and different of their own home areas to regale readers who thus formed their impressions of a geographical concept never referred to prior to the Civil War – Appalachia.
Appalachian Gothic and local color artists hit on similar subjects, similar themes, and similar types of people. The difference lies in the audience. Local color artists want to shock and awe outsiders. Appalachian Gothic artists craft stories for other Appalachians.
The overriding theme connecting all Appalachian Gothic artistry lies in resilience. That resilience can come in the face of externally imposed disaster, poverty, fate, or misfortune. It can take the form of straight drama, such as the films Sergeant York or Matewan. It loves to wrap serious tales of real problems in comedy, such as the Appalachian inspired regional favorite The Dukes of Hazzard. The world of Appalachian Gothic actively, and more so than almost any other style of American music, connects civitas terrena and civitas deo along with other concepts, such as fate.
Because what happens in life is the will of God, in Appalachian Gothic it is man’s job to make the best of it all.
Read more: https://shinnstonnews.com/smoot-appalachian-gothic/
