John Cohen – Luegra

This gem I purchased through Hamilton Books a few years back and came across it recently while sorting books after my move. This one is also authored by John Cohen, whose book Speed Bumps on a Dirt Road I reviewed back in June (https://luegra.design.blog/2023/06/17/recommended-book-speed-bumps-on-a-dirt-road/). Cohen looks at the life of Roscoe Holcomb, a legendary Appalachian musical artist that carried on the tradition of old-time music during the 1950s and 60s while the world around him was slowly modernizing, perhaps not for the better.

Like his other book, this is primarily a photo book, with very little text other than brief captions until the very end of the book. The story can be seen in the powerful photos of Holcomb and the people that he is surrounded by. Many of these photos are also in Speed Bumps, such as Bill Monroe’s performance in Hazard, Kentucky, but they are intermingled nicely and minimally, so that the montage leans more as a personal vision of an individual, namely Holcomb.

This book chronicles Cohen’s 1959 trip to east Kentucky to meet and work with Holcomb, who at the time had left the workforce due to many injuries. He supplemented his income by performing at folk festivals and farming. The black-and-white photos say so much about what Holcomb and his family struggled with in the Appalachian Mountain area. A moving photo is one just showing his hands and how weathered that were, even for a middle-aged man.

The text toward the end of the book includes reflections about Holcomb by those that knew him, as well as a 1978 interview with Holcomb shortly before his passing. However, the icing on the cake is the CD and DVD included with the book. The CD includes 13 tracks of Holcomb performing traditional songs on banjo, guitar, harmonica and vocals. While thumbing through the book, this CD is the perfect soundtrack. The DVD contains two short documentaries on Holcomb, one filmed during a 1964 visit with him, and the other a 2010 look at his life. The 1963 doc is a treasure, like watching a grainy television show from that time period. Not only it gives a back-in-time look at Holcomb, but also a reminder on how we saw documentaries back then.

This book was originally published in 2012, and while going for over $40.00 new, a Google search shows that it can be had for under $10.00 used, although I am not sure if the CD and DVD are included or what the condition is. Like Speed Bumps, it is a worthwhile purchase if you truly appreciate where old-time music was still living while much of the other country was looking at rock-and-roll.

Chew on it and comment.

There are a number of us that enjoy looking through coffee-table-style books that consist primarily of photos dealing with a much-loved subject matter. For us, the old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words” holds true. One of my favorite subjects, of course, is American roots music, and I have a number of books in this vein that I completely immerse myself into time and time again. So, along with the occasional “Perfect Song” blogs, I will also write about favorite books related to music, particularly bluegrass and other roots music subjects.

I had done a previous blog back in September 2020 on some interesting books on bluegrass that could use some updating (https://luegra.design.blog/2020/09/18/we-need-a-new-or-updated-bluegrass-history-book/). Now, I would like to talk about an extremely enjoyable pictorial book that I am sure anyone with a love for the history of bluegrass music would value having in his/her personal library. Speed Bumps on a Dirt Road: When Old Time Music Met Bluegrass is a photographic history by John Cohen that looks at a time when the first-generation bluegrass artists were influencing the next generation during the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s. It also visually examines how rural folks in the Appalachian Mountains, with little or no access to radio or television, relied heavily on self entertainment through playing instruments and dancing.

Cohen has been a long-time historian and curator of roots music. Originally a member of the New York City-based bluegrass trio the New Lost City Ramblers, he took to documenting folk and bluegrass music performers with his camera. Around 2017, a researcher for Ken Burns’ PBS documentary Country Music asked Cohen for use of some of his work. It inspired Cohen to produce this photographic masterpiece of bluegrass and old-time music history.

While there are many celebrities featured in this book, such as Bill Monroe, Ralph Stanley, Doc Watson, and Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard, much of the book is dedicated to the common folk that used music to escape the drudgery of their life’s struggles. One can see in the faces of these people that there is relief and a little bit of enjoyment from singing, plucking a guitar or banjo, and clogging to a familiar tune. Their surroundings are simple if not poor, they value singing to their Lord, and the youngsters still respect the elders.

There are scenes on old porches, in family houses, in bars, at radio stations, in cemeteries, at auctions, and on early bluegrass festival stages. There are glorious photos of premiere shows at Carnegie Hall, and glimpses of old television shows hosted by Pete Seeger. A chapter is dedicated to Hazel & Alice in the studio with many shots of a very young David Grisman playing mandolin for the recordings. There are also early photos of Clearance and Roland White performing at the Ash Grove in California.

The final pages of the book are of more recent events, but still show how powerful this music impacts the newest generation of musicians. We see both young and old gather for a memorial to Mike Seeger in 2010, and present roots musicians Anna Roberts Gevalt, Elizabeth Laprell, and Nora Brown paying homage to the aging second-generation bluegrass musicians. There are also short essays from Cohen on each chapter (printed in the back of the book so as not to distract from the photos), as well as insights from Alice Gerrard and Marty Stuart.

Speed Bumps on a Dirt Road was published in 2019 and is still readily available at various online resources. It retails for $45.00, but can be had for under $20.00 through a number of used and discount book dealers. I recommend securing a copy before it goes out of print, as many books like this do within a short period of time.

Chew on it and comment.