MOVIN' THE MOUNTAINS: AN OVERVIEW OF RHYTHM AND BLUES AND ITS PRESENCE IN APPALACHIA

Think of Appalachian music and, initially, the associations are likely Anglo. Terms like "bluegrass," "country," "old-timey," "string band," "hillbilly," and "mountain music" spring to mind. However, given the enormous sweep of Appalachia-from the northeast corner of Mississippi across northern Alabama, through northern Georgia to the western corner of South Carolina, then on north through adjacent sections of North Carolina and Tennessee, Virginia, and Kentucky, all of West Virginia, across to Ohio, and into Pennsylvania before finally trailing off in southern New York State-logic dictates that African-American music in all its manifestations, rhythm and blues included, must have been a part of the historical regional mix. Indeed, rhythm and blues was and continues to be a viable presence in the Appalachian cultural region. Whereas older genres of African-American music-blues, jazz, gospel-blossomed early in the twentieth century, rhythm and blues flowered at midcentury, a time when mass media sources, especially radio and records, afforded access literally to any ears that cared to listen. Riding in on the airwaves, rhythm and blues from its inception reached every corner of Appalachia. As a result, while it was initially a black performance genre marketed to black audiences, rhythm and blues rapidly developed cross-ethnic appeal, as Hugh Gregory (1998, 7) observed, "to include a young, white audience" and in the process achieved "a wider JERRY ZOLTEN, Associate Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences and American Studies at Penn State Altoona, is the author of numerous liner notes and profiles for blues and gospel artists and of the book Great God a 'Mighty! The Dixie Hummingbirds (Oxford,