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Classical Music Happy Hour
West Virginia: Yo-Yo Ma and West Virginia Coal
00:45:35
West Virginia is defined by its beauty and its coal, two things that can work against each other. Yo-Yo Ma felt this as soon as stepped foot in its hills. This episode explores how music and poetry help process the emotions of a community besieged with disaster and held together by pride, duty, and love.
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- [00:03]
A
As a little girl, I would go with my granddad to the company store and all the coal miners would be around and they would say, sing me that song. And they would pay me. So I would get a few pennies for penny candy. And it was 16 tons, so I would sing 16 tons and what do you get? Another day older and a deeper index say, Peter, don't you call me.
- [00:28]
B
Cause I can't go.
- [00:30]
A
I owe my soul to the company store.
- [00:35]
B
So cool.
- [00:38]
A
That's Diane Williams. She's sitting with me and yo yo and a group of coal miners in New River Gorge national park in West Virginia. It's the first weekend of fall, and we're outside of a historical mine called Nuttallburg. The Appalachian hills around us are tiny, height and thick with summer leaves. The river behind us is a constant flow. We just had a picnic of pepperoni rolls and Mr. Pibb from Real Life Coal Miner lunch buckets. And then yo yo stood up as a stranger.
- [01:10]
B
I'm so overwhelmed with a sense of appreciation and gratitude for what you have done. It's important to unite all of us because you've united us once before in what you've done. So what would you like? Take away?
- [01:31]
A
Coal has formed the lives of so many West Virginians. It's formed this country, really. But there's a dark irony to coal. Say, Peter, don't you call me.
- [01:44]
B
Cause I can't.
- [01:46]
A
You hear it in that song 16 tons.
- [01:48]
B
I owe my soul to the company stone.
- [01:55]
A
And that irony makes it hard to get to know coal if you're an outsider, especially today, as coal faces another challenge. The industry, especially in West Virginia, is shrinking. Coal is changing, but the culture of it is still there in these Appalachian towns. So in this episode, we dig into the music and the stories of West Virginians whose lives are are defined by coal, to see what keeps people holding onto this place and the black fossil falling out of its hills. Hi, I'm Ana Gonzalez, and this is our Common Nature a musical journey with Yo Yo Ma through this complicated country to help us all find that connection to nature that so many of us are missing. We climb mountains, play music, drive dirt roads, recite poetry, traverse rivers and oceans, and even our own brains. All to figure out how to better live on our planet together. Can I get you to do the classic intro? Who are you and what do you do?
- [03:11]
B
I'm Yo Yo Ma and I play the cello. Always great to see you.
- [03:14]
A
Always great to see you.
- [03:16]
B
Yeah, thanks for having me.
- [03:16]
A
Isn't it weird that we have a Podcast together.
- [03:19]
B
I know, it's fantastic.
- [03:22]
A
Yo yo and I traveled deep into the heart of West Virginia because it's a place we both don't know very well. And this trip winding through Appalachian mountain towns was a way to learn more about this place that holds so much of our country's history and identity.
- [03:38]
B
I was struck by the immense beauty of the landscape and the rivers, the mountains, and how extraordinarily kind the people were. We met were lost. All my money but a $2 bill. I'm on my long journey home.
- [03:58]
A
Back on that riverbank in New River Gorge by the old mine. We're here with a bunch of people whose lives have been touched by coal miners, of course, but also a poet and some musicians. We want to get to know this place. So we start on some common ground.
- [04:14]
B
You know, Cult Myers is gospel and music, country music. Oh, lovely. Kathy Mattea. Oh.
- [04:22]
A
Kathy Mattea, he said. She's a West Virginian singer, songwriter, and she's here too.
- [04:27]
B
Well, they're my people. I mean, they just are.
- [04:31]
A
Both of Kathy's grandfathers worked in West Virginia mines. My grandfather mined a 30 inch Seamocol.
- [04:39]
B
He did it with a pick and would pick sideways into the coal and.
- [04:43]
A
Work his way in. And my grandmother would sew leather patches.
- [04:47]
B
Onto the backs of the top of.
- [04:49]
A
His shirt so that when he wedged.
- [04:51]
B
Himself in against the ceiling, it wouldn't wear through his shirts.
- [04:56]
A
Kathy grew up hearing stories like this from everyone in her family. They'd all gather in one of her grandparents homes and tell stories and play music. That's where Kathy started playing guitar. Her parents would get her to perform and this was around the 1970s when a new song was taking over West Virginia radio. How many times would you estimate you've played Country Roads in your lifetime?
- [05:20]
B
Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. West Virginia, the Ridge Mountains. She'll have to sing with me though, because that's the whole point, you know.
- [05:40]
A
Take me Home. Home. Country Roads is quintessential Americana music. People all over the world know it and in West Virginia, this song is the song. West Virginia university football games, high school graduations, weddings. It is so nostalgic for this version of West Virginia that feels good and it's absolutely beautiful, but it's not really true because all the specific locations they.
- [06:12]
B
Mention are in Virginia.
- [06:13]
A
Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah river. Those are Virginia landmarks. And while the mountains and the river both technically travel into West Virginia, it's the most eastern side. And the song is just clearly not written for West Virginia. Kathy said that the songwriters had never even been to West Virginia when they wrote the lyrics. They were singer songwriters in Washington, D.C. who started naming pretty landmarks in that general area. One of them was even thinking about his home in Massachusetts. But they decided to use West Virginia because it sounded really nice. The people who wrote it didn't know.
- [06:50]
B
But, you know, where else are you going to find a song that's coming out of all the dashboards of all the radios and all the cars in the country that screams West Virginia mountain mama, Take me home.
- [07:02]
A
Start the tag.
- [07:03]
B
Take me home down country road.
- [07:13]
A
It's like a place where people feel invisible.
- [07:16]
B
And so to have that celebratory song that's proclaiming our existence and that yearning to be there is profound for people who are from there. And we might be on completely different sides of the political spectrum and the.
- [07:33]
A
Social spectrum and all those things, but.
- [07:34]
B
We can sing Country Roads together.
- [07:38]
A
So this song that the whole world thinks of as representing West Virginia actually doesn't. At least not, like, literally. And as we sit along the riverbank, a coal miner named Dorsal brings up another musician that he thinks represents West Virginia. Bill Withers. Like Ain't no sunshine when she's gone, Just the two of us. Bill Withers, he grew up in a coal mining town in West Virginia.
- [08:04]
B
Yeah, lean on me. Yeah. He told me, Dorsal, that he wrote Lean on Me about living in the Polk camp.
- [08:13]
A
You just call on me, brother, when you need a hand. Kathy met Bill one time, and he told her that this song about people leaning on each other, supporting each other was written about coal miners, and nobody.
- [08:28]
B
Cared what color anybody was. That's why he was on the ground.
- [08:32]
A
Yeah.
- [08:32]
B
He said that's. Nobody cared. It just wasn't a thing in the community. Everybody just helped each other. That's right. So always look out for each other. As long as you're on that same crew, everybody's the same crew. Always look out. Black men, and they work just as hard as the white men. And as long as everybody did their job, everybody got along really good.
- [08:54]
A
So they're saying that Lean on Me is about the ways minors supported each other, no matter their race. And I'd love to believe that life actually played out like that. But in the crowd, there are two black women. Diane, who spoke at the top of the show and sang 16 tons, and her mom, Zora. I'm Zora. Yup.
- [09:15]
B
I worked underground for 20 years.
- [09:18]
A
It's hard to hear Zora because she spent decades in the mines, and now her lungs are damaged, so her daughter Diane, who's sitting right next to her and holding her hand, she speaks up. This is my mother, Zora. She worked in the coal mines down at Maple Meadows for 20 plus years until it closed. She told us as we were growing up about the young men that she worked with, with. But she always had a story to tell about how the men would pick at her and would make her do.
- [09:50]
B
Their work if she, if she cleaned.
- [09:52]
A
Her belts, they would always leave some.
- [09:55]
B
More for her to do and how.
- [09:57]
A
She used to threaten to beat their.
- [09:58]
B
You know, what's when she got them outside.
- [10:02]
A
Okay, that's a little different from Cassie Mattea's. Read on Lean on me. And it turns out that Zora and Diane come from a big mining family. Talk about history. So my granddad was a coal miner. My uncle was a coal miner. My mom, I still have a brother Christopher Saunders that's still working in the coal mines. If I want to get to know this place a little bit more, I have to meet Chris.
- [10:30]
B
I mean in coal mining we always say everybody going to be black at the end of the day.
- [10:37]
A
Chris Saunders, after the break. Our Common nature is supported by the National Forest Foundation, a non profit transforming America's love of nature into action for our forests. Did you know that the national forests provide clean drinking water to one in three Americans? And that national forests and grasslands cover nearly 10% of the U.S. hosting 150,000 miles of trails and providing habitat for over 3,000 species of plants and animals. The National Forest foundation supports the places where we come alive, keeping the trails, rivers and forests we love healthy. Last year they planted 5.3 million trees and advanced over 300 projects to protect nature and communities nationwide. Their work creates lasting impact by restoring forests and watersheds, strengthening wildfire resilience and expanding recreation access for generations to come. And when forests struggle, so do we. The water in our taps, the air we breathe and the trails that connect us all. Learn how you can help@nationalforest.org Yoyoma WNYC Studios is supported by the New York Phil Mozart's music is showcased in two concerts. Violinist Gil Shaham leads the orchestra as soloist in two concertos. The elegant second and exuberant fifth, Louis Langri then conducts the orchestra's wind section in Mozart's genial Grand Partita and Richard Strauss Lyrical Serenade January 2nd and 3rd at David Geffen Hall. Tickets@nyphil.org.
- [12:17]
B
Hey, it's Francis Lamb, host of the Splendid Table.
- [12:20]
A
Every week on our show, we talk.
- [12:21]
B
About food and cooking and the meanings of food and cooking.
- [12:25]
A
We talk with the most interesting people.
- [12:27]
B
In food about their techniques, their culture.
- [12:29]
A
And everything in between. Whether it's about how fried chicken took over the world or how Instagram changes the way people are actually eating.
- [12:38]
B
It's a food show where everyone is welcome.
- [12:40]
A
Come join us. You can listen to the splendid table wherever you get your podcasts. Our common nature is back. We're in West Virginia meeting up with present day coal miner Chris Saunders, who also happens to be black.
- [12:58]
B
And when you underground, you put all that aside, if you have any prejudice in you, all that because you gotta work together, you gotta work safe. Now when they come back up, it might be a different story.
- [13:09]
A
We met up at a local history museum in West Virginia. It focuses on coal mining and there was an exhibit dedicated to his mom, Zora.
- [13:17]
B
Yeah, here, here she is. And this is one of the pictures. This was the crew that she worked with at the end on the bell. That's her? Yeah.
- [13:26]
A
Whoa. That's this great photo of Zora in a hard hat and aviator sunglasses, leaning up against a chain link fence. And she has the face of a woman who's put up with a lot of shit.
- [13:38]
B
And it's so true. Cause there's still a stigma about women being in the coal mines, you can imagine. So plus she was a black woman, so that stigma was there.
- [13:48]
A
Chris told me his mom came to coal mining as a single mom of four. She moved down from New York City to take care of her aging parents and her dad actually was a coal miner. For Zora, working in the mines was a livable wage. It would pay for the house, the kids, the parents. But the other miners let her know that a woman, and a black woman at that, wasn't part of the boys club.
- [14:12]
B
My mom's a hard worker. She said, I'm gonna prove to you I can outwork you. I can out. Thank you. I'm gonna treat you with love and kindness regardless of what you say or do to me. She said, sometimes you just gotta let it roll off your back and keep on doing what you gotta do. She had a guy that was always wanted to tell her the N word jokes. She said, oh baby, I ain't got time for that. I tell you what you do. Write them out for me and let me read them. So every day he writin these big long jokes and she just fold them up, fold them up. And then he come to her one day, he say, I'm the one dumb enough to be writing these jokes out and you ain't doing Nothing but throwing them away. She said, no, I got them all. I'm making you a book like that. And buddy, he just laughed. He said, mom, I'm sorry, you know? And that's just the way she was. She said, now he gonna sit up and waste his time writing these jokes out every day. And I let him do it. That's my mom, y'. All. I mean, that's just her.
- [15:11]
A
And this was just one of the stories Chris had about his mom warding off bullies. They'd steal her lunch.
- [15:16]
B
She baked brownies and put XX in them. And so she knew exactly who was getting in her lunch. Buck or her bucket. That's what they call it.
- [15:27]
A
Some days she didn't have a good comeback or the energy to bake brownies. Some days she was tired.
- [15:35]
B
She would always say, I done the best I could for y'. All. I said, I know that, mama, you know? And she would apologize for not being there a lot, so. But I had a great mom. Yeah, still do. I'm a big softy. But, yeah, she's. And she taught us how to love people.
- [16:01]
A
The sentiment behind Lean on Me was probably not true for Zora, but it is for Chris. He's committed to the job and his co workers through thick and thin.
- [16:13]
B
You know, the money was good to be in Appalachian to go to high school and get out and can make 100 grand right out the gate. 18 years old, huh? I'm just telling you, that's the type of money they paying you and give you health insurance for everybody in the family. And I look at it like this. I chose to do this, but if I gotta be on oxygen again, I don't want it.
- [16:36]
A
Yeah. Do you think about that with your mom?
- [16:38]
B
Yeah.
- [16:40]
A
Zora's condition has worsened since I saw her along the banks of the river. And now she can't speak without oxygen. Chris is worried about her, but that's not the only thing he's worried about.
- [16:53]
B
We have what I call. I'm gonna keep it right. Kiss my butt. Curves like you gonna go around and then you. So we. If we get ready to go through a few of them down this way.
- [17:05]
A
If you look at a map of Route 3 heading west from Beckley, West Virginia, it looks like a squiggle. It follows every twist and turn of the Coal river through Eccles, Glendaniel, Rock Creek, and Dry Creek. My producer Alan, is swerving in the rental car with Chris Saunders as a passenger, and I'm in the backseat trying not to get car sick. I see a lot Of Trump? Yeah.
- [17:28]
B
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. All of us. You love Trump. Yeah, Everybody here. And now he's an outlaw. So.
- [17:39]
A
Like, how much of the population is related to coal?
- [17:42]
B
Like, probably 90%. Yeah. It's either railroad, coal or timber. Yeah.
- [17:52]
A
And the railroad is how you move the coal.
- [17:55]
B
Right, right. Yeah, right.
- [17:56]
A
Is this weird for you to be in a car when people ask you all these questions?
- [18:00]
B
Yeah, yeah. All right. I like to talk.
- [18:04]
A
Chris, like a lot of miners isn't quick to trust people with microphones. We couldn't get permission to even enter the parking lots of any of the coal mines that were driving by. People are even suspicious of the North Carolina plates on the rental car.
- [18:20]
B
He know he can't drive down here. What he doing up here? Yeah, but this one here, look. This is the kiss your butt. What I call it.
- [18:28]
A
West Virginia is an isolated place. It's not only the geography but the culture. People not from here don't always get it. And the truth is that coal formed these towns. Coal built these houses and set these families up. For generations, coal formed unions and made billion dollar deals. But coal kills and coal releases massive amounts of pollution into the world. People today don't usually understand why anyone in the 21st century would work in this industry.
- [19:02]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's why I was kind of leery about talking to you at first.
- [19:06]
A
Yeah.
- [19:07]
B
I'm just being truthful, you know, because I said now I don't want to say, you know, be nothing negative to what I do and it's negative to every job. It really is. But it has been great to my family financially and stuff like that. Yeah. So.
- [19:22]
A
Yeah. But for Chris, mining is about more than just making money. It's about survival.
- [19:30]
B
In the 80s and stuff, I got into the drug trade and got on some stuff and had no business doing, you know. And then I started going to church. In 93 is the year I went into mines. That was just a prayer. I was like, well, God, here I am now. I need to provide of my family. The street life ain't going to get it, you know, and God opened doors. I wanted to follow in my mom's footsteps. And it's been a. A great way to provide for my family.
- [20:03]
A
I think that's what we're trying to get at.
- [20:04]
B
Right. And. And it's complicated. Yeah, it is.
- [20:09]
A
The history and culture of coal is complicated. Human beings have actually used coal for fuel for thousands of years. People would just pick it out of the hills and burn it because coal itself is just fossilized plant Material that's millions of years old. But it's only in the past century or so that coal mining in the United States has grown to be king coal. So much of our world is made with coal, and specifically West Virginia coal. Because this is a special type of coal. They call it high metallurgical coal, meaning it's higher in carbon and lower in moisture than thermal coal, which we use for fuel and heat. High met coal is some of the best in the world to turn into iron and steel.
- [20:55]
B
That's the pride that I think that people in West Virginia must feel for having actually been the power source behind the development of iron and steel in this country, which meant westward movement, building railroads, cities. That connection was completely lost on me until I went there.
- [21:22]
A
Yeah. And it's still going today. So there is still that pride. The people who mine coal for generations, they still love it.
- [21:32]
B
The company I work for, I know they export to China, South Korea. You have a lot of big steel mills in India. And then you have Ukraine right now. But Ukraine was a big steel producer for Europe.
- [21:45]
A
Yeah. And they're buying us coal produced.
- [21:48]
B
Yes. Yeah. Because again, you have the best coal in the world to make steel.
- [21:56]
A
The culture of coal mining is baked into West Virginia, but it's from another time when more people could get coal jobs. The mines themselves have become more automated and mechanized. The work is different, and they need fewer workers, even though coal is still being used to make everything from electric cars to solar panels and housing. As we drive deeper down Route 3, the towns get smaller. We see abandoned company stores and downtown ghost town lands.
- [22:28]
B
This was the old grade school, all right. During the explosion, they were lined up from there on both sides of the road.
- [22:35]
A
He's talking about TV reporters from CNN and other outlets.
- [22:39]
B
Yep. All the way down. Yeah, that's where. Where I had to drive through them every day. They would start right there.
- [22:46]
A
What those news outlets recovering after the break.
- [22:53]
B
Foreign.
- [22:59]
A
Nature is supported by the National Forest Foundation, a nonprofit transforming America's love of nature into action for our forests. Did you know that the national forests provide clean drinking water to one in three Americans? And that national forests and grasslands cover nearly 10% of the U.S. hosting 150,000 miles of trails and providing habitat for over 3,000 species of plants and animals. The National Forest foundation supports the places where we come alive, keeping the trails, rivers, and forests we love healthy. Last year, they planted 5.3 million trees and advanced over 300 projects to protect nature and communities nationwide. Their work creates lasting impact by restoring forests and watersheds strengthening wildfire resilience and expanding recreation access for generations to come. And when forests struggle, so do we the water in our taps, the air we breathe, and the trails that connect us all. Learn how you can help@nationalforest.org Yoyoma WNYC Studios is supported by the New York Phil Mozart's music is showcased in two concerts. Violinist Gil Shaham leads the orchestra as soloist in two concertos, the elegant second and exuberant fifth. Louis Langri then conducts the orchestra's wind section in Mozart's genial Grand Partita and Richard Strauss's lyrical Serenade. Jan. 2 and third at David Geffen Hall. Tickets@nyphil.org.
- [24:31]
B
Hey, it's Francis Lamb, host of the Splendid Table.
- [24:34]
A
Every week on our show we talk.
- [24:36]
B
About food and cooking and the meanings of food and cooking.
- [24:40]
A
We talk with the most interesting people.
- [24:42]
B
In food about their techniques, their culture.
- [24:44]
A
And everything in between. Whether it's about how fried chicken took.
- [24:48]
B
Over the world or how Instagram changes.
- [24:51]
A
The way people are actually eating.
- [24:53]
B
It's a food show where everyone is welcome.
- [24:55]
A
Come join us. You can listen to the Splendid Table wherever you get your podcasts. This is our common nature. I'm Anna. Before the break, coal miner Chris Saunders was taking us on a road trip all along Route 3 in West Virginia. And now we've reached our destination.
- [25:14]
B
Now look on top of the hill right here and you see where the tube went in? That's the coal seam right there.
- [25:22]
A
We pull off the road and park on the gravel beneath a long metal tube connecting one mountain to another. It's the conveyor belt that transported coal between mining operations.
- [25:35]
B
I don't know if you can see the black on top of the hill, then you usually have a other seams below it. But that's the Eagle Seam that we mined.
- [25:43]
A
Seams are layers in the earth where the coal is. It's where the mines are set up to extract the coal. And until I saw this, I didn't really understand how modern coal mining worked. I thought it was still like Kathy's grandfathers described, 30 inches tall and picked out with hand tools. But this mine, the Upper Big Branch Mine, is a colossal compound in the hills. Upper Big Branch used to be one of West Virginia's largest coal producers. It was owned by Massey Energy, a huge name in coal for decades. And even as there were more safety regulations placed on mining, Massey was consistently cited and fined for not following them. The heavy machinery used today to dig into coal seams brings up more and more coal dust, which suspended in air is explosive. In a perfect world, coal dust is blown out of the mines with giant ventilation systems. But nothing is perfect. On April 5, 2010, a little after 3pm One of the teams at Upper Big Branch burrowed into a pocket of methane gas that exploded and ignited the unventilated coal dust.
- [27:01]
B
I was underground, I was a section boss that evening and it was just a crazy evening outside. You could see this storm coming in and we was doing our safety meeting about the time the explosion hit. I heard Everett telling Leon it's bad. I said Leon, what's going on? He said been an explosion. He said 32 people could be dead or trapped. He said don't say nothing yet. I don't want to cause panic.
- [27:34]
A
But the news got out.
- [27:37]
B
And see they actually suffocated. Everything pulls out of the air and they was all like packed in there, you know like instantly you done dropped down to 15, 16% oxygen.
- [27:48]
A
These are friends of yours?
- [27:50]
B
Yeah, yeah. Lost a lot of friends. Yeah, knew every one of them. I'm sorry about that. Yeah, yeah. 29 people that day.
- [28:01]
A
Chris has led us to a makeshift monument. 29 hard hats sit on 29 crosses. Family and friends have placed Christmas trees and lunch pails, necklaces, bottles of liquor next to the names of their loved ones killed in the explosion.
- [28:21]
B
I actually worked with Joel Robert Clark, Steve Hara, we called him Head Maynard Willingham, Pursinger and Spanky. Me and Spanky was close. Only two people lived Mousey but he's. His mind went I guess the lack of auction oxygen. Then another boy named Bennett, he, he doing fine. He was younger.
- [28:49]
A
Like losing this many people. Was that fear ever there when you went into it? Yeah.
- [28:53]
B
Oh yeah.
- [28:53]
A
After this?
- [28:53]
B
Yeah.
- [28:54]
A
Yeah. But before this. Did you ever think this was possible?
- [28:57]
B
No. You don't? I don't know you. Like I say, you get complacent. You never think about no disasters like this.
- [29:05]
A
The Upper Big Branch explosion was the worst mine disaster in the United States in 40 years. In its aftermath, the families of the miners who died were thrust into the headlines of national news cycles. Meanwhile, they had 29 funerals to plan and attend. And 29 families had to face a new reality and begin rebuilding their lives. The surviving miners like Chris had to show up for work the very next day.
- [29:35]
B
Why didn't we just take at least a day? Yeah, for respect. At that time, you know, far as I guess in the corporate mind, well we don't want to admit that we done nothing wrong. Buddy, you already in this now you might as well Just shut down, regroup, you know, 29 people dead. Regardless who wrong, let's show some type of respect. And that always bothered me, it still bothers me because if I was a CEO of a company, that's what we would have done. Regardless who wrong who right, what happened, you know, we, we going to hash that out later. These people, the lost friends, family, regardless, let's show some kind of compassion.
- [30:21]
A
Chris never speaks too harshly about his employer. He's careful to toe the line. His life, his livelihood, his identity as a coal miner would all be at risk. But Crystal Good can speak up. The poem came, but it came. What you know about black diamonds. Black diamonds, black diamonds hey, hey, hey, hey. For like two years. So I just walk around the house singing just that, right? Black diamonds, black, black diamonds. Crystal is a writer, an activist, and a West Virginian who watched the news of Upper Big Branch as it played out on TV. Black diamonds form on days like April 5, 2010, the day that started, just like all the other days, the other days, just like all the days, the hundreds of days that the earth fell in on miners, trapping them underground with nothing but their prayers. This time, on April 5, 2010, 29 men died in what they call a mine disaster. So much of the Upper Brick Branch was like national news organizations. Seeing black people on the news and being like, wait a minute, black coal miners, like this country doesn't even know about the history, you know, the labor of black men in West Virginia and the families, you know, the injustice of it all, stuck with her. West Virginia, a place where people feel invisible on a national platform for a disaster. She watched some Massey executives pay fines and go to jail. And she talked to the widows of miners who never got a chance to tell their side of the story. When every coal miner's wife sheds a tear, there comes the pressure. Compacted, compacted, compacted, and every. This is her performing the poem next to the new river. Industrial homicide, homicide, homicide, dead 29 miners. Black diamonds, black diamonds in pages where black ink fades until somebody digs and some brave heart will always hear the call and dig deep inside the earth so that millions of and millions of years from now, they will hold up and marvel at our diamonds and wonder at their priceless, priceless love formed by the pressure, the pressure, the pressure and the salt of her tears. Crystal has performed this poem on the steps of the West Virginia Capitol. She's performed it on stage and among people, and whenever she performs it, people cry. The biggest thing I've learned about West Virginia is just how Much coal seeped out of these hills and into people's lives. Everyone has a story about how coal has either enriched their lives or taken from them. And a lot of the time it's a mixture of both. Crystal knows that as a writer and a poet, she has almost no the responsibility to articulate those complex emotions that people aren't always able to express themselves. And part of that responsibility comes from, yes, identifying as an artist, but the other part comes from identifying as black. In Appalachia, West Virginia is 3% black. It's survival. Tell me how you're gonna survive in a coal mine. Talking about, you know, black power and, you know, fuck the police and, you know, so I think people have to survive here, right? Like Zora and like Chris, there are days where it's harder for Crystal to find the energy to survive here. Like the day that she woke up to find that a coal company had poisoned her water supply and it stunk the whole air. Everything smelled like licorice. Ugh, I can't even eat licorice to this day. It makes me sick just even thinking about it. After weeks of buying water to drink and shower and cook, Crystal found a dinner to sue the company, and she won. And then folks got their checks, which weren't much. I think people might have got 500. It just kind of made me think, what really is a win? Like it wasn't worth it. I lost all of my friends. They all left. A lot of Crystal's friends who could leave West Virginia did because of the fear that this could happen again. Crystal stayed, but now it's been over 10 years and she's tired of fighting. I only have so much energy and I only have so much time on this planet. And living in West Virginia, the statistics, you die earlier. Like, the statistics suck. West Virginia's life expectancy is the second lowest in the nation. Its population is declining faster than any other US State. That's because of new epidemics like drugs, but also old ones like poverty and the pollution from coal. If Chris Saunders and Crystal Good met, they probably would disagree on some core things. But they're also both part of that 3% of black West Virginians who have chosen to stay in this place despite the statistics, the disasters, and the daily grind of finding a way through. Because outside of all of that, West Virginia is more than coal. And that's where Crystal finds her strength. You know, the coal barons are going to coal baron, but maybe the coal barons couldn't coal baron so hard if we actually kind of built our everyday Lives and our school systems and our nursing homes and everything, you know, with nature in mind. And I have no idea how to do this or what I'm talking about, but what I can do is take another group of kids down the new river next year and the next year and the next year.
- [36:31]
B
Absolutely. I mean, the natural world is all energy. It's the transfer of energy and life takes place. That's the miracle.
- [36:41]
A
I asked yo yo about how he finds the energy to keep going in his life when the days get long. But he still has to perform and be Yo Yo Ma for the world. And it turns out that he also goes to a place in the mountains.
- [36:56]
B
There's a stream. The sound of a rustling brook is maybe one of the most beautiful sounds in the world. And you could see the stars. I saw birds, some blue jays. There was a cardinal. I was listening to the chirping, the tweeting, and it was the most beautiful music in the world. So I carry this memory. It stays there. That will help me get through what I need to get through. I think about really the whole cycle of living. It's inseparable that we are part of this world. We are part of nature, we are part of the stars, we are part of the earth. And I used to not think that, but I now do think that more and more. And let's go forward. Five strokes again.
- [38:20]
A
Greetings. Greetings, recording friends. I'm wearing the newest fur fashion. I got the new blanket. What did we just do?
- [38:27]
B
Water rafting.
- [38:28]
A
And I'm cold. It's early fall on the new River. There are three big blue whitewater rafts filled with kids from a middle school program called Step by step. So who am I talking to? You're talking to Josiah and who else? My name is Brennan Leaf. Israel angel, have you ever been whitewater rafting before? No, this is my first time. I'm in one raft. Crystal Goode, the poet, is on another. And we're all paddling down the new river to meet up with Yo Yo. Yo Yo.
- [38:55]
B
Are you a first name bassist?
- [38:57]
A
Yeah. Yo yo is waiting on the banks of the river with his cello, and he begins to play Bach. Cello suite number one, Prelude in G major, obviously.
- [39:05]
B
I told you there was a cellist everywhere.
- [39:08]
A
After. After he finished playing, yo yo hopped on one of the rafts and challenged everybody to a race. Well, of course, you were, like, yelling at. You were like, coach yo yo. Like, come on, everybody.
- [39:20]
B
I think we lost, but that's okay. We had such a good time. We had such a good Time. There's nothing like being in nature and doing something participatory, and that breaks the ice. And the kids were so different from before and after.
- [39:40]
A
Oh, yeah, big time. At the end, a couple of them performed a song that they wrote from scratch.
- [39:47]
B
A beat. Next time, they got all that.
- [39:51]
A
I've been making that money.
- [39:54]
B
I've been making it since I was 10.
- [39:56]
A
Hey, that's. That's the main part of the chorus.
- [40:01]
B
It's great, it's fantastic. And that's how it comes out, right? You know, you're relaxed enough, you're safe enough, and it's. It's fantastic, it's goofy, it's fun. And guess what? It was memorable. You still remember it?
- [40:13]
A
Oh, yeah. The sun set and we made it off the river to get a good West Virginia dinner of barbecue and Mac and cheese. Under the string lights of a riverside pavilion, there's a mix of river guides and kids of all ages fixing plates and chit chatting. It's our last night in West Virginia, so a lot of familiar faces have come out to join in on the food and get a little song going.
- [40:35]
B
You ready, maestro? I know, maestro. Pretty much I'm ready. All right, well, let's see if we can get it. 1, 2, 1, 2, 3.
- [40:50]
A
Banjo player Dom Flemons is here playing this tune that he wrote with Yo Yo. And pretty soon he switches to an old line dancing song.
- [41:00]
B
This is a piece called Great Big Eight here.
- [41:02]
A
And starts calling dances.
- [41:04]
B
When I used to play this one with Joe, he would kick his head back and he'd do a couple of the square dance calls. He'd go like this, Baby gate boy. We need one another in order to function and survive and thrive. We need. We need one another and we need to do things together in order to break the ice and to break the cycle of fear, of mistrust and territoriality. We build up these walls when we're kind of scared. And when we're on the water together and we're doing something afterwards, it's different. Thank you all so much.
- [41:49]
A
There was time for one more song.
- [41:50]
B
Oh, yeah, get a harmonica, y'. All.
- [41:52]
A
Any guesses? So this would be like the national.
- [41:56]
B
Anthem for West Virginia, except that all the geographical references are wrong.
- [42:03]
A
People were requesting it this afternoon, and.
- [42:05]
B
It'S just always like a great. It's a great opportunity for everyone to sing along.
- [42:21]
A
If I wanted to get to know West Virginia, I think this is a good start. It's singing the words to Take Me Home, Country Roads, even though I know they're not technically. Right. Because it feels good to sing by a river with people who love this state and will continue to love it even through disaster and heartbreak, and who all share a future in this place if they keep fighting for it. A notable absence, though, was Chris and his mom, Zora.
- [43:07]
B
Hello?
- [43:07]
A
Hey, Chris, it's Anna from the podcast. Yeah, I was just calling because I was just so sad to hear about your mom, and I just wanted to see how you're doing. A few weeks after recording with Chris, he texted me and said his mom, Zora, had died.
- [43:27]
B
You do, Mama. She done everything her way and so she told us all she was ready to go. She said, jesus, got my house ready. That's what she told us. We read her lips and my sister sung to her. She patted her foot and just smiled and she looked at me saying, you got to go to work. No.
- [43:48]
A
Yeah.
- [43:49]
B
Yeah. So, I mean.
- [43:55]
A
What did your sister sing? Tour.
- [43:58]
B
She liked this one song, Jesus on the Main Line Tell him what you want if you need a healing Tell him what you want if you need a miracle Tell him what you want well, it was one of our favorite songs. Yeah. Jesus on the main Line Call him up call him up Tell him what you want yeah, he one of her songs.
- [44:24]
A
Are you having services for.
- [44:26]
B
Yes. Yes. And I'm gonna work up until Monday anyway. I know you probably think I'm crazy.
- [44:34]
A
You can't get time off.
- [44:36]
B
Yeah. But I'm. I'm. They only gonna give me three days, so I'm gonna work tonight, tomorrow, and then Monday morning, I won't go back. My boss is like, I never seen nobody like you. He said, you all right? You know, because they worry about. About me getting hurt or something, too.
- [44:51]
A
Yeah.
- [44:51]
B
And I said, no, I'm fine. I said, I talked to my mom. I said, my mom loved me, and I loved her. I said, and we just coal miners, you know?
- [45:05]
A
Chris told me that when the funeral parlor found out his mom was a coal miner, they gave him a discount. And they're talking about building a monument to her in the cemetery.
- [45:34]
B
And now for this one here, there's going to be one line that comes up a whole bunch. We are almost down to the shore. And another. Now, I'm just gonna run it one time so you can hear it. We are almost.
- [45:45]
A
Down to the shore.
- [45:48]
B
Let'S try it one time.
- [45:49]
A
We are almost down to the shore.
- [45:57]
B
Moses died on the mountaintop Praise the Lord, said Moses heart we are old.
- [46:04]
A
I want to end with this song that Dom Fleming sang. On the banks of The New river by that old coal mine where we ate pepperoni rolls. He sang it to me and yo yo and Kathy Matea, to Crystal and to Zora. He found this song in the Library of Congress recorded by John Lomax. It was written and performed by a black musician named Jimmy Strothers.
- [46:27]
B
He worked in a coal mine outside of Baltimore. He was caught in an accident. He was blinded by it. And he met John Lomax about a year after he had gone blind. And that was the one recording they had made of that song. We are almost down to the shore Peter Peter out on the sea Drop your nets and follow me we are.
- [46:49]
A
Almost.
- [46:51]
B
Down to the shore despite it.
- [46:56]
A
All, Cole led us here to this sweet moment along the New River. And maybe the lyrics of this song aren't quite true either. Not literally, but the feeling I get every time I hear it transcends that. I go back to the hills and the river. I see Zora holding her daughter's hand. I see Chris and Crystal and the kids on that raft racing yo yo down the river. I see a place where the river flows clean under cloudless skies and the country roads take everybody home Fight on.
- [47:39]
B
Fight on children, don't turn back we are over Mo's down to the show.
- [47:55]
A
That's Dom Fleming singing us out. Our Common Nature is a production of WNYC and Sound Postings hosted by me, Ana Gonzalez. Produced by Alan Gofinski with editing from Pearl Marvel. Sound design and episode music by Alan Gofinski mixed by Joe Plord. Fact checking by Anna Alvarado. Our executive producers are Emily Botin, Ben Mandelkern, Sophie Shackleton and Jonathan Bayes. Our advisors are Mira Burtwin Tonic, Kamaka Diaz, Kelly Libby and Chris Newell. Music in this episode by Kathy Mattea and Dom Flemons. If you want to hear a beautiful studio recording of We Are Almost down to the Shore, check out Dom's album Traveling Wildfire. Special thanks to Matt Ike for letting me use his phone to record on a river raft. To Leslie Baker at the Beckley Coal Mine and Exhibition Museum and to New River Gorge National Park. And if you want to listen to more music from this series, you can check out the Our Coming Nature EP featuring Yo yo playing with Eric Mingus, Jenn Kreisberg and an Icelandic choir. Now available on all streaming platforms. This podcast was inspired by a project of the same name conceived by Yo Yo Ma and Sound Postings with creative direction by Sophie Shackleton in collaboration with partners all over the world. Our Common Nature is made possible with support from any Emerson Collective and tambourine philanthropies. Our Common Nature is supported by the National Forest Foundation, a nonprofit transforming America's love of nature into action for our forests. Did you know that the National Forests provide clean drinking water to 1 in 3Americans? And when forests struggle, so do we. The National Forest foundation creates lasting impact by restoring forests and watersheds, strengthening wildfire resilience, and expanding recreation access for all. Last year, they planted 5.3 million trees and led over 300 projects to protect nature and communities nationwide. Learn more@nationalforest.org Yoyoma.