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Harpers Ferry is a historic West Virginia city and international tourist hub. But four years ago the national park and surrounding town were devastated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
LISTEN: Artist Cris Jacobs Drops "Color Where You Are" Album
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“I think sometimes we just look way too past the present and are sort of blinded to…our ability to create beauty in the present.” That was the meditative response from singer/songwriter Cris Jacobs when asked about the meaning of the title to his newest album “Color Where You Are”. Recently Jacob’s life has changed drastically with the birth of his child and now has been focused on creating music in the present instead of waiting for it to happen. This new lifestyle help put the impetus on Jacobs to write this new album–even between changing diapers.
Throughout the album are the influences that have always been a part of Jacobs’s repertoire since his days with his former band, the Bridge: folk, funk, blues, and bluegrass. These styles mix together in a veritable “gumbo” from songs like the grooving “Under the Big Top” to the funky “Rooster Coop”. The lyrical ballad “Painted Roads” is a bluesy meditation that provides us the title of the album in its lyrics.
Take a listen to this interview between Matt Jackfert and Cris Jacobs about this new album as they discuss everything from Jacobs’s influences to his songwriting process to his new lifestyle.
If you’re looking for a chance to catch Cris play live, you can see him perform this weekend at the 4848′ Festival in Snowshoe, WV. Or if you can’t make that, you can always download the podcast of his performance on WVPB’s Mountain Stage!
On this West Virginia Morning, Erika Howsare is the author of The Age of Deer: Trouble and Kinship with Our Wild Neighbors, a book that takes some of the mystery out of the white tail deer that have lived on the edge of humanity for a very long time.
On this West Virginia Morning, it was a shock when author, musician and West Virginia University professor Travis Stimeling died abruptly in November. They were 43. Folkways Reporter Zack Harold collected remembrances from colleagues, former students and friends. He shared them recently on Inside Appalachia.
In walked Travis Stimeling. Burly and ebullient, Stimeling grew up playing guitar in church as a child in Buckhannon, West Virginia, then went on to study trombone in college. That eventually led to a Ph.D. in musicology from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and a teaching gig at Millikin University in Illinois.
This week on Inside Appalachia, we remember Travis Stimeling. The author, musician and educator left a deep mark on Appalachian culture, and the people who practice and document it. And, grab your dancing shoes and learn about a movement to make square dance calling more inclusive. Plus, it’s not just you. There are more deer than ever these days. A writer explores the long, complicated entwinement of people and our wild kin.