The Dixie Cragger's Summer 2014 Mixtape

(via google)

The Southern Agrarian, Robert Penn Warren once said, "Storytelling and copulation are the two chief forms of amusement in the South. They're inexpensive and easy to procure." If you grew up in the Deep South, that much is clear. What's fascinating is the intrinsic link between the former (possibly the latter as well) and southern music.

The counter-narratives of black spirituals subverted white racist sensibilities with hope.

In Appalachia, fiddle and banjo attempted to preserve the rural way of life against the threat of industrialism and recency.

Bluesmen and blueswomen kept catastrophe and celebration in balance amongst the systemic oppression of Jim Crow America.

Lynyrd Skynyrd (in its original conception, at least) attempted to tell another side of southern experience beyond its negative national perception: good, smart, artistic people dwell in these parts.

The North Carolinian poet James Applewhite wrote, "The South has been notorious for mythologizing itself." These songs both celebrate the South and lament her cultural contradictions. These songs are the soul of the South laid to bare. Folk, country, gospel, hip-hop, bluegrass, rock n' roll - it's all there. Whether you're driving down dusty roads, chasing the shade at the crag, sitting on your front porch rocking chair, or finding yourself out there in the land where they don't hold doors for folks: this one's for you.

As for me, I've headed out west for the summer again. And as always, it is a bittersweet departure; I'm stoked for the big mountains and high country but leaving your friends and kin is always a major bummer. While driving across those great midwestern plains, you better believe I'll be screaming along with Dallas Taylor on the opening track, "we can't help but be blessed, when you've been raised by God's finest." 

CAUTION: mixtape may cause you to slide across the hood of your car and crawl in through the window like Bo and Luke Duke. Listen to it on Spotify HERE.

1. Maylene and the Sons of Disaster - Raised by the Tide (II)
2. Possessed by Paul James - Sweet But Bitter Life (There Will be Nights When I'm Lonely)
3. Rising Appalachia - Cumberland Gap (Filthy Dirty South)
4. Hurray for the Riff Raff - Blue Ridge Mountain (Small Town Heroes)
5. Doc Watson - Omie Wise (The Definitive)
6. The Osborne Brothers - Georgia Mules and Country Boys (From Rocky Top to Muddy Bottom)
7.  Ralph Stanley - Dixieland (Old Time Pickin': A Clawhammer Banjo Collection)
8. Mandolin Orange - There Was a Time (This Side of Jordan)
9. The Drive By Truckers - Three Great Alabama Icons (The Southern Rock Opera)
10. Carl Perkins - Tennessee (Sun King Collection)
11. The Drive-By Truckers - Carl Perkins' Cadillac (The Dirty South) 
12. The Band - The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (The Band)
13. The Golden Gate Quartet - Go Down, Moses (Negro Spirituals)
14. The Sacred Harp Singers - The Trumpet (The Fiancee)
15. Nappy Roots - Awnaw (Watermelon, Chicken, and Gritz)
16. Carolina Chocolate Drops - Cornbread and Butter Beans (Genuine Negro Jig)
17. Muddy Waters - Deep Down in Florida (Hard Again)
18. Killer Mike - God in the Building (I Pledge Allegiance to the Grind)
19. Mavis Staples - Down in Mississippi (We'll Never Turn Back)
20. Austin Lucas - Alone in Memphis (Stay Reckless)
21. The Showdown - Breath of the Swamp (Temptation Come My Way)

Listen to it on Spotify HERE.