The stories in “Appalachia” — the second part of PBS’s four-part documentary series, The Express Way with Dulé Hill — are about breaking boundaries: the boundaries between recovering addicts and meaningful work, the boundaries between distinct musical aesthetics, and the boundaries between artists from different cultural backgrounds.
“We all may speak different languages and have different ideologies, but the music moves us all the same,” remarks Hill, a dancer, singer, and actor with roles in “The West Wing,” “The Wonder Years,” “Suits,” and “Psych.”
Music in “Appalachia” is equalizer, medicine, and message. Hill’s road trip focuses on the power of music to move us, to comfort and heal us, and to challenge social injustice. He focuses specifically on three Southern artists in eastern Kentucky, eastern Tennessee, and North Carolina. Hill interviews these artists about their work, their histories and their careers, and their communities. His interviews are conducted in artists’ homes and studios and in natural settings. The documentary uses cutaways and archival footage, shows the artists performing in concerts, and transitions between places and artists with views of lush green woods.
In the first vignette we meet Doug Naselroad, a “luthier” or stringed instrument maker in Hindman, Kentucky. He is founder and director of the Troublesome Creek Stringed Instrument Company and co-founder of the Culture of Recovery program, which helps individuals on the road to recovery from opioid addiction by teaching them to make stringed instruments with authentic Appalachian hardwoods. “We’re building lives one guitar at a time,” he says.
In Johnson City, Tennessee, Amythyst Kiah, a queer Black musician whose anthem “Black Myself” was nominated for a Grammy for best American roots song, explains to Hill how West African banjo and Scotch-Irish fiddling coalesced to form the earliest country music, and how she extrapolates on that tradition in her own music.
In the most moving part of the documentary, Kiah sings “Wild Turkey” as we learn from Kiah and her father about her mother’s death by suicide. “When I was seventeen, I pretended not to care,” she sings. “I stayed numb for years to escape despair.” Her low voice is melancholy and soulful and extremely affecting. I immediately listened to her debut solo alt-rock/roots album “Wary + Strange.”
Hill also visits Durham, North Carolina, where he interviews both Joe Troop and Larry Bellorin. Joe and Larry, who migrated to and sought asylum in the U.S. from Venezuela, play a distinctive bluegrass music — a mash-up of Appalachian and Venezuelan folk music that often protests racism and xenophobia. I’d never heard Latin American music played with bluegrass instruments before, a fusion known as “Latin-grass.”
“Appalachia” is a deeply moving and well-constructed film about the use of creative expression to heal the pain of poverty, addiction, loss, and isolation. And it’s about our primal need as human beings to make things, to make our ideas and our thoughts manifest, to create order out of disorder. In a country that is currently characterized by so much tribalism, so much “othering,” this documentary is a balm for the soul. I didn’t know I needed reassurance that there are good humans out there helping other good humans.
The Express Way with Dulé Hill premiered on April 23 and will be available to stream on all station-branded PBS platforms. The other three episodes are “California,” “Texas,” and “Chicago.”
FILM/DOCUMENTARY
The Express Way with Dulé Hill
Starring Dule Hill
Directed by Danny Lee
Premiering April 23, 2024
Southern Review of Books 