Hey, it's Francis Lamb, host of the splendid table.

And you know, I just want to tell you that our show is a great place to come to for some holiday sanity.

We're getting cooking help from amazing people this holiday season,

including Chef Kristen Kish, Errik Prepare, Aberber-book authors, Jocelyn Jelk Adams, Dan Pelosi, and Amy Felon.

We have cooking, eating, and gifting ideas for anyone you're going to have at your table.

But listen to the splendid table wherever you get your podcast.

Talk to you soon. I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown.

I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown. The Slo-Dohdon.

Several summers ago, I joined a friend at her dog outdoors at Percy Warner Park for the full moon pick and party. Along with hundreds of others on blankets and collapsible chairs, we listened to musicians pull forth into the

Nashville night air that high lonesome sound that is bluegrass.

I treasure the music's African origins in the banjo and celebrate its lesser

known history of early black string players such as Jimmy Strathors and Leslie Riddle. A younger generation of musicians

have only increased my devotion. Riannon Giddens, Jake Blount, Kaya Kater, Blind Boy Paxton, and others.

Listening to all those banjoes, mandolins, and fiddles, took me back to my childhood

summers in Tennessee.

After dinner, Aunt Kitty, charged with my care, watched the Grand Old

Opry and He-Haul on TV. I heard secular songs about love and heartbreak, as well as sacred gospel

tunes that asked, are you washed in the blood of the lamb. That was long ago it seems. Truly a bygone era.

Bluegrass conjures up the past in ways that feel both celebratory and painful.

They call it mountain music.

And some believe the creeks, rivers, valleys, and woods carry a hurt that one hears and all that fiddling,

a sentimental history of Appalachia, but also a palpable history of poverty, subjugation, bondage, and musical ingenuity.

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