Participation Type
Paper
Session Title
Session 4.01 Music
Presentation #1 Title
"Sick No More": Singing a Beloved Musician Home in the New River Valley of Virginia.
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
Abstract preface: This paper uses interview excerpts, video and audio clips from musician Bill Richardson’s “Sick No More” jam, along with other research, to explore the larger subject of Appalachian singing and music traditions surrounding death. Abstract: When Bill Richardson, a talented fiddler, songwriter, and community organizer of many old-time music events in Blacksburg, Virginia, was admitted to the hospital for a cancer that showed no signs of being cured, he invited his friends to a “Sick No More” jam in his hospital room. Despite his grave condition, he played along and sang, and a few times, got up to dance. So many fellow musicians started coming, that the hospital opened up a larger room down the hall, where Bill could hear the music. Even though Bill became progressively weaker, the music surrounding him grew progressively stronger. This paper documents this extraordinary example of how singing was used by a musical community to ease the transition from living to death. Collaboratively written, our paper will place this remarkable example of “singing Bill home” against the larger tradition of singing and music in rituals surrounding dying in Appalachia, as well as the relatively new occurrence of the use of death-bed singing that is occurring around the U.S. in the form of “Threshold Choirs.” This project includes interviews with musicians who took part in the “Sick No More” jam, an examination of their choices of musical selections, as well as analysis of video footage of songs at Bill’s jam and funeral.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Jordan Laney is a doctoral student in the Alliance for Social, Political, Ethical, and Cultural Thought at Virginia Tech and teaches Appalachian Studies.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #2
Elizabeth Fine is a Professor in the Department of Religion and Culture at Virginia Tech and teaches Appalachian Studies.
"Sick No More": Singing a Beloved Musician Home in the New River Valley of Virginia.
Abstract preface: This paper uses interview excerpts, video and audio clips from musician Bill Richardson’s “Sick No More” jam, along with other research, to explore the larger subject of Appalachian singing and music traditions surrounding death. Abstract: When Bill Richardson, a talented fiddler, songwriter, and community organizer of many old-time music events in Blacksburg, Virginia, was admitted to the hospital for a cancer that showed no signs of being cured, he invited his friends to a “Sick No More” jam in his hospital room. Despite his grave condition, he played along and sang, and a few times, got up to dance. So many fellow musicians started coming, that the hospital opened up a larger room down the hall, where Bill could hear the music. Even though Bill became progressively weaker, the music surrounding him grew progressively stronger. This paper documents this extraordinary example of how singing was used by a musical community to ease the transition from living to death. Collaboratively written, our paper will place this remarkable example of “singing Bill home” against the larger tradition of singing and music in rituals surrounding dying in Appalachia, as well as the relatively new occurrence of the use of death-bed singing that is occurring around the U.S. in the form of “Threshold Choirs.” This project includes interviews with musicians who took part in the “Sick No More” jam, an examination of their choices of musical selections, as well as analysis of video footage of songs at Bill’s jam and funeral.
