New Sounds of the Old South

Like kudzu, Coca-Cola and pecan pie, there are some facets of American culture whose roots will always run below the Mason-Dixon line.

This weekend, as the hazy days of a Southern summer fade into a North Carolina fall, several indie musicians will revisit and reinterpret a set of recordings that epitomize one of the South’s most important contributions to American music: Folklorist and musician Alan Lomax’s “Sounds of the South.”

The three-day performance series, which unites Durham’s Megafaun with Fight the Big Bull, Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon and Sharon Van Etten, will explore many of the tracks Lomax gathered, culminating in a live recording to be released late next year.

Megafaun’s Brad Cook has a longstanding attachment to the Lomax material that the band will cover.

“In 2006, I was working at Schoolkids Records and somebody brought it in used one day, and I was just like ‘Cool man, this looks awesome,’” Cook said. “I picked it up, brought it home, smoked for a while and kind of fell in love with it. There’s a lot of familiarity with the record.”

Aaron Greenwald, director of the Duke Performances series, sees the collision of contemporary indie musicians and historic material as an opportunity to cross musical boundaries.
“I’m interested in the collapsing of genres, and how that seems much easier for musicians that are the age of the guys in Megafaun than it has been for a long time,” Greenwald said.
“I think that it’s an opportunity for these guys to make more work, and to make work that engages these sources and is truly collaborative, and to really get inside this material that is really fundamental.”

For Cook, a previous experience at the Hayti center augmented his desire to work with historically significant music in an equally prestigious venue.

“I saw this concert there last year called the Hallelujah Train with Brian Blade and Daniel Lanois,” he said.

“I had never been in the Hayti center before, and it was one of the best-sounding rooms I had ever been in. When I talked to Aaron, we both had the exact same reaction, and we agreed that if we did this project, it should definitely be done there.”

Though the musicians participating in the event are respected in local and national music, most of them grew up far from the sites of Lomax’s recordings. But in Greenwald’s opinion, this doesn’t detract from the artists’ understanding of the material.

“I think that they know enough and are knowledgeable enough about this music to pay it the respect that it’s due, and also creative enough and showmen enough to sort of make it work,” he said.

“You risk, with this kind of material, making a museum piece of it, but with these guys — it’s evidenced by the albums they’ve released that they’re not interested in making a museum piece or anything, that their engagement with the stuff is earnest.”

Assistant Diversions EditorJoseph Chapman contributed reporting.

Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu.