Dark Holler Documentary

[Billi Mayhue]

DarkHoller: Old Love Songs and Ballads is a 2005 compilation album released by Smithsonian Folkways. The album is composed of Appalachian folk music 1960's recordings made and compiled by musicologist John Cohen in Madison County, North Carolina.[1] Most of the songs are done in an a cappella style.[2]

More than half of the songs on the album are sung by Dillard Chandler, a "mysterious" illiterate man who knew hundreds of songs.[2] Allmusic writes that Chandler sings with "deft precision, often with the song's strong sexual undercurrents intact".[2]

The songs contain several dark topics and themes such as murder, revenge, infidelity, and abandoned children.[2] The New York Times describes the album as "traditional songs about love and murder usually traceable to England, a century or more before, but sung in a style rooted in the region: the singers all stretch out, irregularly, on vowels of their choosing, and add upturned yips to the end of stanzas".[1]

A bonus DVD of the short documentary film The End of an Old Song is included with the CD packaging. The film features Chandler's hardscrabble lifestyle and is described as "stark and lonesome".[4] No Depression's Barry Mazor noted the film's desolate theme.[5]

"When you go into a holler," Adams says on the phone, "it's not a normal day. You may go somewhere and someone's grandma is lying on the bed dying. Another woman down the road might be about to deliver a baby."

"Today, it is becoming more difficult to find actual salt-of-the-earth people," he writes in the book's introduction. "They are disappearing as we are overrun by a more sugarcoated society. ... Salt preserves wholesomeness and prevents decay. Salt lasts. And these hard-formed people from earlier times are still here, even as their population declines."

There's no doubt about his sincerity and passion for this place and its people. Although his work, which straddles a fine line between art and documentary, has come under some scrutiny through the years.

Adams counters that each photo is a collaborative process with the subjects. "With my personal work I take my time," he says. "I really talk and get to know the people. ... It's the depth of having real relationships."

These days, Adams spends most of his time living in Massachusetts, but he travels back to Kentucky in the summers to photograph. Like most photographers, he makes ends meet with other work as an industrial photographer. But his passion is Kentucky.

I am clearly adulting correctly lately. Although adulting hasn't made it into Webster's yet, its become a highly used slang to describe Performing tasks that are associated with adulthood. I am usually trying to postpone adulting, like leaving my laundry until the last minute. This procrastination is usually the result of working for a boss, i.e. I have to do this or I will get in trouble. However, there are days when adulting produces outstanding results and overwhelms me with a since of accomplishment and responsibility. This go getter attitude is a direct result of being my own boss. There is no one to blame but me. Two things have happened lately due to my adulting. First we received our first repeate booking. When I found out I danced around the house chanting, "We're a legit biz!" Then it dawned on me. We're a legit business, I've got more adult things to do! I would like to think that our client would have booked again this year regardless my little prompting email I sent a few weeks ago. However, my adulting ego was proud of my follow through and was thuroghly beaming.

My next great success is Mia, our little tiger striped dun mare. She is our first foster from The Horse Shelter and my first horse to pick out on my own for the business. Most of the time Mom and I visit the rescues together, pick through a few candidates and work together to choose our newest foster. Last year, due to illness, I trucked out to the shelter on my own, waded through the candidates, and settled on Mia. Since then she has become my pet project, with her snarky attitude, big doe eyes, and huge heart. And as we began this journey together we are finalizing it tomorrow when a representative from the shelter will come out for a home inspection and will have Mia's adoption papers in hand. I'm so happy to say Mia will be joining our heard as a ranch horse and will be avalible for clients to ride this season.

My adulting is simply trusting that I can actually do adult tasks effectively and realizing they're not as daunting as I believed. When I complete a project, a blog, or even the laundry I feel a since of order and accomplishment. It gives me the drive to do more adulting, even when I sit in my pjs all day binge watching Gotham.

Harry and the Snowman is the newest documentary about Harry de Leyer and his grey gelding Snowman. ThIs is one of my absolute favorite equine stories. In 1956 Snowman, an old plough horse, was standing in a trailer waiting to be sold for slaughter. Harry took one look into the horse's eye and knew he could be something great, however he didn't recognize the horse's talent until after he sold him to a neighbor and the big grey jumped the fence to return home. The pair went on to win many prestigious hunter jumper classes and even made a guest appearance on the Jonny Carson show. This eighty dollar, Cinderella horse became a priceless champion.This story has been immortalized in books but it Is listening to Harry speak about Snowman that offers the true insight into their exceptional relationship. These two had to fight to prove that they were just as good as any team competing. Harry knew that "every horse has a different personality, just like a human, and it's like finding the key for the lock." Apparently Harry was a master locksmith because Snowman trusted his rider completely and would jump anything Harry pointed him at.

I believe that in order to find that key a horseman must understand the type of lock they are working with. Here at Enchantment Equitreks we come across many different horse personalities and usually we have limited or no information as to what created the lock. So we have developed a series of exercises to divulge the mechanisms of the animal. The easiest lock to rekey is the tune up. Horses like Teddy have all the working parts and foundation needed to be an excellent trail horse, however some bad manners and a threatening disposition landed him at a rescue. We recognized that all he needed was a little work to re-instill that training, kind of like a rusty padlock that pops open with a little D-W40. Then there are locks so mired in fear, frozen in pain, and welded shut in mistrust that the only option is to take the mechanism completely apart and slowly put each piece back. Our Jake is that type of horse. With each layer of gunk that we wipe away another deeper problem is divulged, which can be frustrating. This is when you have to start looking at the key you're trying to use and retool the method. Often with Jake we have to reevaluate how we are approaching his training and adjust to better suit his needs. We also know we can't force a lock like Jake and sometimes he needs a step back to be able to move forward.

There are as many locks, as there are horse personalites, as there are keys. I live for the moment the mechanism slips open and the horse places its trust in you. However, it often doesn't mean the horse is fixed, all locks need a little grease to keep them working properly, keys need to be refashioned , and parts reassembled. This is what makes rehabilitating rescue horses so intriguing and fulfilling, they are a constant puzzle just waiting for the correct code.

Zena in some language or culture has to translate as Queen, because that is exactly what this silvered chrome Appaloosa mare is, the queen of the heard. When we first encountered her at the rescue ranch, Zena had the attitude to match a spoiled and haughty monarch. She refused to listen to those she believed beneath her, which equated to any human with in biting range, and ran over those who didn't move out of her regal path. Yet, when you were on her back she made you feel like royalty yourself. Her walk is noble and proud, striding out with purpose and intensity. This is what Mel fell in love with. Now we all tend to favor a certain breed or type of horse, Mel tends to gravitate to big, solid, dark sport horses. Zena is smaller, stocky, light and spotted with pink rimmed eyes that gives her a wild looking disposition. Although she was not Mel's first choice of the herd, there was something about her imperious nature that presented a challenge.At this point Mel and I were volunteering on the rescue ranches training team. My mother had a knack for working with difficult horses and starting them on a new path toward adoption. Mel's fully intended to do the same with the appy mare but I'll never forget the day that changed her mind. While out trail riding, being a bit of an adventure, she turned Zena down a ruddy path that I hesitated to follow. The two crashed through brush and weeds as if it were a pasture of tall green grass. Cash and I picked our way through the rubbish left behind in their wake until we came upon them standing in the middle of the most beautiful meadow, Mel patting on Zena's neck. "I don't know Juss," she said, "I'm really starting to like this horse, she will go any where I point her."

Now Zena had never been abused or mistreated, she didn't have any traumatic wounds to heal. Her problem was she had always been the boss and it showed in her ground manners. She rushed through gates, walked over the top of anyone on the other end of a lead rope, she would bite and kick when she didn't get her way. However, for the first time in her life Zena met a human who was the boss, demanding obedience. It took Mel almost a year and hours of ground work to mold Zena into the intelligent and respectful horse we all love today. Every once in a while Zena will get in a mood and challenge my mother for her regency, like the white queen and the red queen battling over a spot on a chess board. So they return to the basics and Mel reminds her who is ultimately heard leader.

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