I’m going to deviate from the usual themes of my diatribes to write on two of the things I love: Music and food, with a stronger emphasis on the former. I consume both with much gusto, and occasional animation. Don’t worry: I’m not turning this website into anything other than it’s always been; I plan to customarily overanalyze both subjects herein.
Both food and music are produced through mental and physical means, and both food and music evoke emotion. What’s more, the more you research, the more you know, and the more critical you become of both. You become harder to please, form preferences, and instead of “eating to live,” you “live to eat.” The same concept applies to music. The processes of production for music and/or food is equal parts art and science. Machines may be applied in the production of both, to their detriment. I believe human input is required to make good music and/or food. It’s through production the subject gains its soul.
At this point it gets tricky; both food and music become geographic in nature. It is here I can say unequivocally and without waver, that food and music from the American South are the best on this planet. Now let me explain why.
Existentialist Understanding
An arrow is recognized by its intended target firstly by its tip. It is important to understand who fired the arrow that hits you. Today, music and food is often misconstrued by recipients who lack the discernment necessary to sift the wheat from the chaff. For example, corporations have discovered which sounds bring in the most profits, regardless of whether it’s good or bad. Corporate record labels only care about the sound of the cash register. They have found that people will like music that is bad if it entertains the sorriest fibers of man. The arrow has hit the target, and the subject wants more. In that regard, entertainment can have a drug-like effect. Just ask Charlie Sheen.
But I digress. Ask yourself, why was the arrow built? In other words, was music and food originally intended to make money? As for the music that speaks to your soul, makes the hairs on your neck stand up, wraps itself around your brain and squeezes the tears out of your eyes, where does the arrow come from? For this, I have a theory. Just as physical and emotional qualities are passed on from generation-to-generation through our DNA, I believe tacit memories are handed down the same way. That accounts for our inherent affinities with certain landscapes, architecture, literature, lifestyles, members of the opposite sex, and, yes, music and food. It is something not understood, but felt.
To go a step further than intended, I also believe science, and therefore DNA, is the language of God. Although we may deny it, through our DNA, we know God exists. We can’t reason through it, which is both bothersome and intended by our Creator, but He’s there; we can feel it. He gave us the emotions provoked by the things on Earth. It’s our duty to discover our relationship with them, and to fulfill our mission here.
Why the American South?
The South obviously starts south of the Mason-Dixon line; that is, south of Pennsylvania. Its border then spans West-Northwest to Chicago, West-Southwest down to St. Louis, West-Southwest through Tulsa, and down I-35 through Texas. Somewhere between San Antonio and Houston, this border heads East to New Orleans, and around the coastlines of Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia. The closer you get to the center, the further into the South you are. Music varies widely at the perimeters. I know some may disagree with my borders there, particularly my Northern border, but that’s the way I see it; that constitutes a fairly large amount of real estate.
To quote musician (and proxy musicologist) Justin Townes Earle, “We (the South) own all popular forms of music. They’re all inherently ours, because we created them all. (Okay, hip-hop, New York’s got that.) But we’ve got string music from the hills of North Carolina and Virginia and eastern Tennessee that moves over to bluegrass in Kentucky, country music in Nashville, blues in the Delta and all over the South, jazz in New Orleans, and like Levon Helm said in The Last Waltz, this all slides to Memphis and becomes rock ’n’ roll. So they’re all ours.”
While I appreciate all aforementioned types of Southern music, I can pinpoint where my favorite types of music come from on a map: in the surrounding square miles that encompass the borders of Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee, with Muscle Shoals to the South, and Kentucky to the West. This is Southern Appalachia. Here, you can experience Bluegrass, Piedmont Blues, and Old-Time Music. This is also where Jimmie Rodgers, the Blue Yodeler and Father of Country Music, found his success, developing what my brother calls “paleo-country;” that’s country music before corporate Nashville ruined it.
Bringing It All Back Home
If you want to know more about what affects me the most, just listen. This is what strikes my core; understanding why this is happening harkens to my DNA Theory. I contend I prefer the music I do based on where I came from; well, not necessarily me, but my 400+ years of genetic makeup. Anything past that gets a little tricky. My people, from both sides, landed in the United States within that time period. Over that time, generation-to-generation moved further South, from Virginia, onward to Alabama, Louisiana, and eventually, Texas. Living in Virginia, I have realized how much those Cumberland hills feel like home.
Understanding why you feel music will lead to further research and will change the way you listen to music. That’s how I have found music from another time that somehow speaks louder than anything produced today ever can. My DNA Theory does not explain where my affinity for blues came from per se, other than it is from the American South. That’s good enough for me.
I can also pinpoint my favorite place for food: where I grew up, in Deep East Texas. Hands-down, this is the best place to eat on Planet Earth. With Cajun influences from the East, seafood from the Gulf, Mexican food from the South, all wrapped up in Texas cooking, it doesn’t get any better. Luckily for me, and as evidenced by the photo above, my wife gracefully dabbles in it all, and I am her humble guinea-pig.
Likewise, my strands of DNA have stronger affinities to other kinds of music (and food) than the people who most closely share my DNA, i.e., my parents and brothers; they like different types of music (and food) than I do. That’s to be expected, if you know anything about genetics. Our kids aren’t carbon-copies of us; albeit similar, they’ll have their own features, personalities, and affinities.
So by saying Southern music and food are the best in the world, I don’t want to disparage folks from other backgrounds; it’s not their fault they favor inferior flavors. Besides, if other types of music and food didn’t exist, I couldn’t draw such a broad line of demarcation between the good and the bad. I jest. Whatever it is that moves you, let it move you, and pass it on. Bridges are built which harken to our heritage and our identity by feeling these things out, so don’t be afraid to find your passion, and enjoy the ride. I leave you with the 19th Century poem of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Arrow And the Song.”
The Arrow And The Song
I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.
I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?
Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.
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