Appalachia Goes Beijing

Sidedoor

Smithsonian Institution

African American History And Culture, American History, Exhibits, Dc, History, Science, Sidedoor, History Of The World, Society & Culture, The Smithsonian, Washington, Natural History, Pop Culture, Smithsonian, Exhibit, Tony Cohn, Zoo, National Museum, Air And Space, National Zoo, Art19, Museum, Postal Museum

4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 16 September 2020

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When Abigail Washburn and Wu Fei first jammed together, “it was magic.” Fei was shocked to meet an American banjo player so curious about China’s culture; and Abigail Washburn met a classically trained composer whose talents on the guzheng, a 2500 year old 21-string Chinese harp, perfectly complimented her banjo pickin’. Today, they collaborate to make a new brand of folk music: one that combines the tones of Appalachia with the melodies of China.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Side Door, a podcast from the Smithsonian with support from PRX. I'm Lizzy Peabody. Come all you're roving is a performance of an old American song called The Cowboy.
0:37.0	What you're hearing now is a performance of an old American song called The Roving Cowboy.
0:42.0	Here it's sung by Abigail Washburn. American song called The Roving Cowboy.
0:42.7	Here it's sung by Abigail Washburn.
0:45.4	I'm gonna go to quit this while the West.
0:49.6	It's a bleak and Stormy Pane, for I'm thinking I will leave you to never return again. The song was first recorded by a banjo player named Frank Jenkins who was born in the late 1800s and before Washburn ever recorded the song herself she she remembers listening to Frank Jenkins, sing it. And you can hear the little pops and squeam away and with a cattle on.
1:30.0	And you could hear the little pops and squeaks of the old-timey recording device. It's the story of a cowboy who is disenchanted with his own journey west and wishes he could be back home and regrets his decision.
1:53.0	The song ends with this emotional vow that the cowboy will never forget his dear old home and his mother's smile. It exists in this quintessentially American landscape.
2:18.4	The lyrics mention the Rocky Mountains and talk about roaming cattle on this bleak plane.
2:23.2	But where the original Frank Jenkins version stops,
2:25.9	Washburn's version takes a turn.
2:28.6	Because she and her musical collaborator, Wu Fay,
2:31.6	combine it with a second cowboy song. That one is called
2:35.6	Avagouli. Here's Fay. Avagouli first fall is a song from the Uyghur people who live in far west of northwestern China and it's about
2:50.1	a young man searching for his love whose name is Avarguili, this girl, beautiful girl.
2:56.0	He's traveling on the horseback throughout Gobi Desert, calling out Avarguili, calling out this beautiful girl's name.
3:04.0	Two cowboy songs, each about a young man traveling alone through the desert,
3:09.0	searching for something he's not sure he'll find.
3:12.0	It's almost like the Gobi Desert Cowboy.
3:15.0	That version versus the Western American Cowboy.
3:19.0	They search different things, however, the journey may have something in common as well.
3:25.9	This kind of approach, you know, it's like so open and so the romance of the song, but not knowing really if he'll get to really find her but he's still
	...

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