Yellowhammer Press

“Dangerous” is not how one is likely to describe The Queen Family: Appalachian Tradition and Back Porch Music.  The short documentary (< 30 minutes) chronicles a rural North Carolina family whose roots in mountain music reach centuries into the past, and even across the Atlantic.  92 year-old Mary Jane Queen, the charmingly lucid matriarch of [...]

When I was a child, my grandfather sang me odd, halting songs, seemingly atonal and operating within a structure I could scarcely remember, let alone master. Lyrically they were very simple and very much about the Crucifixion and its attendant imagery.  The lyrics were preceded by syllables more akin to shouts than notes, and though [...]