Tyler Hughes & Sam Gleaves performing at the Camel

Traditions  Speak Out: How the Strong Women, Mountain Sounds, and Close Communities of Appalachia Inspired Progressive Duo, Sam Gleaves & Tyler Hughes

The stony mountains and deep hollows of Southwestern Virginia have harbored progressive voices for generations. These unflinching yet compassionate chroniclers of their communities turned keen observations and sharp wit into stunning songs and spirited tunes. They got family and neighbors pushing aside furniture for impromptu dance parties in the parlor. They sang and played the sorrows and struggles of their home region.

Sam Gleaves and Tyler Hughes both hail from this corner of the US, one often painted in bleak, unsubtle tones in this politicized era. Drawing on favorite musical mentors--the many songwriting women and remarkable musicians of the region--the duo’s beautiful blended tenors and skillful banjo and guitar all serve to shine a bold light on the other Appalachia, one that remains free thinking, eloquent, open hearted.

Produced by veteran roots musician, researcher, and studio whiz Cathy Fink, Sam Gleaves & Tyler Hughes (Community Music Records; release: June 16, 2017) invites listeners into this world, with earthy, just-enough arrangements and close vocal harmonies.  Songwriting women like Maybelle and Janette Carter and Ola Belle Reed inspired these young musicians to cry out for justice and love of their home places.

The album’s two originals speak volumes to this lineage. Tyler’s moving “When We Love” springs from the spiritual and political roots that lie deep in the region, while Sam’s “Stockyard Hill” takes the words of his great aunt and transforms them into rousing testament of Appalachian life.

"Sam Gleaves and Tyler Hughes claim their place in the deep tradition of duet singing, so much a part of their Southwest Virginia home.  Tyler’s ‘When We Love’ and Ola Belle Reed’s ‘Tear Down the Fences’ are heart stopping anthems to everything that is the best in Appalachia and in each of us." -John McCutcheon, folk musician and songwriter

{full story below}

When Sam and Tyler met at a music-filled party in West Virginia, they clicked. Though they discovered they grew up in similar circles, a big part of the connection came from a shared musical passion. “We loved all the same people,” recalls Tyler. “We had all the same major influences and admirations.”

“It’s not too often you meet young men from our area who love Janette Carter, or some of the other people who wrote the songs on our album,” adds Sam. “We were drawn to the same kind of expression.”

Both had learned to play in their home communities in Virginia, and both had honed their craft in distinct ways. Tyler focused on flatfooting, the region’s percussive dance tradition, as well as banjo and singing. Sam has a burgeoning solo career. His debut album, Ain’t We Brothers, a collection of Sam’s original songs and traditional pieces, addressed gay experiences in Appalachian communities. NPR dubbed it part of a “traditional revolution” in Southern roots music.

The revolution has long simmered in traditional music, however, and that spirit busts out of many of the tracks on the duo’s album, in the stark portrait of hypocrisy and cruelty of “I Washed My Face in the Morning Dew,” the labor anthem of “Bread and Roses,” or the moving call to find common ground on “Tear Down the Fences,” a song by Fink’s friend and the duo’s inspiration, bluegrass legend Ola Belle Reed.

Tyler and Sam never stray too far from tradition, even in the way they mastered and arrangement the material on the album. “Usually one of us knows the song by heart,” muses Sam. “One of us will learn the whole song and one of us will sing it, backstage or around the house. We learn from each other in person, not by sending links via email. I find learning this way is so much better and more enjoyable.”

That pleasure is audible on their renditions of holy rollers like “I Can’t Sit Down” or puckish songs like “Well I Guess I Told You Off,” made famous by June Carter. Yet the two young men truly shine when they honor local songwriters and musical elders, like Wise County, VA’s Kate Peters Sturgill, who hailed from one of the area’s coal camp towns and penned “My Stone Mountain Home.”

“Kate is not well known to the wider world, and not even that well known in the traditional music scene,” notes Tyler. “I really admired Kate. She played music in our area, and was respected in the community. There have always been strong women in the music scene, but their stories have been neglected. I always thought she was so poetic about the way she wrote about Wise County. She grew up at the foot of that mountain. I grew up looking out over that mountain where she grew up.”

Cathy responded to the duo’s lively devotion to the music. “When I heard them sing together, one of the things I loved from the start was the continuous respect, the love of tradition they feel, and what it can bring to us today,” she notes.

What it brings is fresh insights into our current predicaments, as Tyler’s “When We Love” exemplifies. “Like a majority of people, I was quite disappointed with the ways of the world in 2016,” explains Tyler. “Seeing this wave of anger brought to the surface of society, and not just here, but abroad as well. I thought about how people really don’t mean to bring such hate to the surface. Often humans are self-centered, we don’t think of how our words and actions affect those around us. I tried to address some of those thoughts.” The result was an elegantly crafted song with a positive, but not saccharine message. It’s a rare feat of songwriting.

“In so few words, he stated this welcoming message. I was inspired by this,” Sam remarks. “We included older songs addressing political concerns, and we wanted our original tunes to dovetail with that.”

Cathy agrees, and ties Tyler and Sam’s ability to distill the old and new to their deep grounding in tradition. “Studying tradition can help a songwriter learn how to take an important issue and translate it into a very universal song, when serendipity and luck mixes with a deep knowledge and love of tradition. It’s important that that song is mixed in with traditional and tradition-based music. It’s all of a piece.”