Crooked Road CD Series [Back]

Anya & Jackson :
Old Time Duets

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It's easy to forget that most songs—particularly those in American folk, traditional, or popular music—rarely last more than three and a half minutes. We often forget this because the best of songs exude a timeless quality, and tend to unexpectedly revisit us—some might say even haunt us—throughout the course of our daily lives. A good song exists in a kind of “time out of time.” A few verses of the best of songs can transport us into the subtle, yet often transformative dramas of everyday people, and provide us with a strikingly honest, even raw look into the thoughts of those we've never met but come to feel we know. The best of songs quickly locate us at the heart of the matter—to moments of profound joy, regret, acknowledgement, surrender, or revelation. It is for these reasons, I believe, that songs have continued to be the best preserved of all traditional forms of expression. Many of the songs that still haunt the Blue Ridge Mountains, for example, have been passed down through the generations for centuries.

It's important to remember that even the oldest songs, like any kind of traditional artistic expression, only exist when they are evoked in the present. We can often accomplish this, of course, by drawing from the substantial body of old recordings of this music—a precious and lasting gift given to us by insightful folklorists, music enthusiasts, and members of the early recording industry. But equally exciting, I think, is when these songs are infused with new life, resonance, and vibrancy in the hands of sincere, gifted, contemporary practitioners. For we really can't talk about a good song—a song that deeply moves us, or evokes in us feelings we can't quite name—without talking about its singers. There is no message without the messengers.

Anya Hinkle was born and raised in Blacksburg, Virginia. She grew up singing in the church choir and learned fiddle and guitar as a child. After moving out West for a number of years, Anya returned to Blacksburg primarily to be “closer to the music” and to play bluegrass and old time. Jackson Cunningham grew up in Southern Oregon. While this is not generally considered a hotbed for old time and bluegrass music, Jackson grew up listening to his grandmother sing at the piano, and there was much music in the household. Jackson came to Southwest Virginia to reconnect with his father, who had settled there, and he soon became fully immersed in the local music scene, regularly attending Fiddler's Conventions and weekly jams. It was at one of these weekly jams, the much beloved Friday Night Jamboree at the Floyd Country Store, where Jackson met Anya in 2005.

 

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