"Devil In The Hills", Music About Esau In The Coal Fields by Mary Hott

 For those of you who have already read my previous blog post about Esau in the coal fields, you probably know that the music in this CD is not feel good music in most cases.  Esau in the coal fields was a practice in which women in coal camps whose husbands, fathers, or other custodial male relative was unemployed due to injury, a strike, or other serious event were able to obtain necessary items at coal company stores through a practice similar to scrip but with much more serious consequences if the debts could not be paid.  This practice was first brought to light at the Whipple Company Store in Raleigh County West Virginia.  Mary Hott, who is a singer/songwriter from Paw Paw, West Virginia, learned about Esau during the time when the Whipple Company Store was being operated as a privately owned museum by Joy and Chuck Lynn.  Because she was deeply moved, as any compassionate human being would have been, by the stories of Esau and the sexual abuse and sexual servitude which it resulted in Mary Hott wrote most of the songs on this CD and recorded it with a well known West Virginia band known as The Carpenter Ants.  Her website, "Devil In The Hills", can be found at this link.  The CD is composed of ten songs and an introductory sound bite called "A Miner's Perspective".  Ms. Hott wrote or co-wrote eight of the songs.  the CD ends with Mary Hott's versions of the well known songs "Life's Railway To Heaven" and "Take Me Home Country Roads" both of which have for many years been strongly associated with the Mountain State.  The CD is also shipped with a 24 page booklet which includes several historic photos, lyrics to the songs, and Mary Hott's own powerful writing about both the CD and the practice of Esau which prompted this piece of work.  

Although I have written about music several times on this blog, I do not recall ever choosing to review a CD before.  That should be considered as an indicator of my overall opinion of this CD.  The lyrics are powerful.  Mary Hott's voice is smooth yet strong, trained yet native to West Virginia in such a way that the CD is clearly authentic, and her vocal range makes the CD a pleasure to listen to if it is not a faux pas to call a CD on the subject of Esau in the coal fields by such a word.  Mary Hott and I exchanged internet based messages about this CD and Esau almost immediately after I first learned of the practice of Esau and her information and honesty helped a great deal in the formation of my opinions about Esau.  During those exchanges, Mary Hott had this to say, in part, about the CD and Esau:

"I'm careful to not call the Esau scrip "institutionalized" -- it appears it was more localized, and may have originated in railroad culture, but not necessarily known at the upper ownership levels of coal companies. It appears it was mainly a method for keeping families "in their place" and not attempt unionization (or any betterment of their living conditions). And Esau was only a part of the story of the conditions women lived under during that time. My interest started with Esau but soon turned to the overall abuse of human rights, both women and men, of all cultures. My CD package contains a booklet that interprets the background stories as well as explains the historical context." (Mary Hott- personal message to Roger Hicks March 20, 2021) 

The CD begins with "A Miner's Perspective" which is a recorded reminiscence by a coal miner in the book "Whipple Company Store Vol 1:Coal Camp Voices"  by Joy Lynn.  The second track, "They Built A Railroad" was written by Michael Lipton and Mary Hott about the early development of railroads into West Virginia in support of the rapidly burgeoning coal industry.  These lines from the lyrics are an excellent portrayal of what was happening in the early days of the coal industry both in West Virginia and in Appalachia in general: "They were building empires from a distance. Monied men from the north and east.  They called it progress, taming our wilderness.  They left despair and poverty." The third track, "Annabelle Lee" utilizes the name of Edgar Allen Poe's martyred heroine.  Poe's lines "That the wind came out of the cloud by night, Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee." are echoed in the lyrics of Mary Hott "At twelve years old she was sold to the agents who sought out her kind.  Trafficked by train to the deep, remote coal camp-a comfort girl."  And that is the nature of Esau in the coal fields.  The fourth track on the CD, "Room Of Lost Souls", combines elements of three different stories which have been told by miner's and their survivors about the cruel, often fatal, consequences for miners who opposed the company and it's enforcers.  "Each death a mystery. A warning how it will be.  If we think you're a Union man."  The fifth track on the CD directly addresses the issue of Esau under the title "Take The Esau".  These powerful words by Mary Hott tell the story of Esau in a nutshell:  "Mother took the Esau, had no choice.  Had no other options, had no voice.  Kept us kids from starvin', kept our home.  She faced the consequences all alone."  The next song, track six, "The Spot", was actually written by Mary Hott and Michael Lipton about a bar near her hometown of Paw Paw, West Virginia, but the song, the story, and the bar are emblematic of many towns, numerous bars, hundreds of coal camps all across Appalachia.  "It's anyone's guess at the end of the night. The liquor speaks loud and fuels the fight.  In desp'rate times, reach for your revolver, Load one chamber, watch 'em head for cover."  The coal fields of Appalachia are filled with literally thousands of stories about desperate men, without hope, bereft of alternatives who sought the alleviation of their pain in coal camp bars and found only death among other men who were often even more desperate and sought some semblance of power with a gun or knife in their hand.  The title track of the album, "Devil In The Hills", co-written by Hott and Lipton, returns us directly to the story of Esau in the coal fields: There's a devil in the hills...and he's on the loose.  He's a mean one, those company men have the power to abuse."  That abuse took many forms in the Appalachian coal fields: murder, beatings, unjustified firings, and the worst form of all, Esau, which preyed on the wives and daughters of miners who were unemployed and powerless, even more powerless than when they were still working.  "Rise Up, WV", written by Hott and Lipton, is a call for action, both by the powerless miners, wives, and daughters in the time of Esau and for all West Virginians today in memory of those earlier, unprotected victims and reminds us of the famous words of the West Virginia motto as the personification of that call for justice.  "Gotta take a stand for WV.  Rise Up, be free.  Show the world the way it can be.  Mountaineers are always free."  The ninth track of the CD, "Blair Mountain Ballad" is a traditional song set to music by Mary Hott which reminds us of the connection between Blair Mountain, the most famous occasion in which miners literally fought for their lives in Logan County against coal company gun thugs with machine guns.  Blair Mountain will always stand out as the one occasion in which American citizens were attacked by agents of the US government in support of criminal corporations and an even more criminal sheriff.    The last two track on the CD are the traditional songs "Life's Railway To Heaven" and "Take Me Home, Country Roads" which can also be said to personify traditional cultural life in the West Virginia coal fields.  

If you are familiar with the coal fields of Appalachia and the struggles of the Appalachian coal miners and their families, you will appreciate this music.  If you are unfamiliar with the miners and their struggles, this CD is a good place to start.  The description of the CD and its musical styles on Mary Hott's website says The music ranges from bluesy Americana and roots rock to Celtic and gospel, and the deep groove of the anthemic “Rise Up, WV.”  The album is mostly original songs with two covers, including a unique southern gospel version of West Virginia’s adopted state song, “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”  And therein lies my one objection to this work. I would have appreciated the CD more if it had been recorded in one cohesive style no matter what that style might have been.  Whether it had been in the country and Bluegrass which are so popular in the coalfields or in the popular music played on most radio stations today, it could have been a better, more cohesive product if it had been consistently one style of music.  But do not allow my single objection to this CD prevent you from buying, enjoying, and promoting this CD.  It definitely deserves your undivided attention.  And so does the subject of Esau in the coal fields. 

 

"Written In Blood" edited by Wess Harris--Book Review

 

"Written In Blood: Courage and Corruption in the Appalachian War of Extraction" is edited by Wess Harris who is employed by Appalachian Community Services, Inc. located at 229 Birtice Road, Gay, West Virginia 25244, and the book can be ordered directly from Mr. Harris.  The book is listed at $19.95 plus shipping and is well worth the price if you have any interest in the Appalachian coal mining industry and the efforts of coal miners to achieve and maintain safety in their relationship with the generally absentee owners of mines in Central and Southern Appalachia.  This book was my first contact with what is known as Esau in the coal fields.  My earlier discussion of this practice has been read by hundreds, perhaps a few thousand readers on this blog.  The book is composed of about 20 generally short chapters written by several of the more important writers in the ongoing effort to accurately portray the history of the Appalachian coal fields.  Those authors and/or interviewees include Wess Harris himself; William C. "Bill" Blizzard who was a writer for the Charleston Gazette for many years before being fired for refusing to cross a pressmen's picket line during a labor strike, and who later worked as a professor of West Virginia History and Labor History at the Southern Appalachian Circuit of Antioch College in Beckley, West Virginia; Michael and Carrie Kline whose writing and oral history has been featured in many newspapers and magazines for the past several decades; UMWA official Cecil Roberts; former Mine Safety and Health Administration executive Jack Spadoro; and Joy and Chuck Lynn who previously owned the Whipple Company Store and first brought about awareness and documentation of the practice of Esau in the coal fields.   

The book provides an excellent timeline of labor efforts and operator resistance to those efforts primarily  in the West Virginia coal fields but also discusses the Adkins Coal Company explosion at Kite, Kentucky, in my native Knott County, along with a discussion of the Martin County Kentucky coal mine blowout of millions of gallons of black water and coal sludge into the Tug Fork River below Warfield, Kentucky.  Jack Spadaro's discussion of his inspections and reports at the Adkins facility at Kite, Kentucky, squarely places the blame for the deaths of several miners on the owner's refusal to pay a paltry price for clay "dummies" which were usually inserted into blasting holes behind explosive charges in order to prevent dangerous sparking into the mine's atmosphere during those explosions which could ignite suspended coal dust in the air and which Spadaro found to be the cause of the explosion and the fatalities.  Spadaro was also a major player in the research and regulation following both the Buffalo Creek Flood and the Martin County Kentucky mine blowout which caused the severe pollution of the Tug and Big Sandy Rivers and the need for municipalities to shut down 17 water intake facilities downstream from the blowout. It is generally not necessary to explain the Buffalo Creek Flood to most people in coal mining areas since it resulted in the deaths of more than 125 people. Spadaro, Blizzard, and Roberts are all historic figures in the history of the Appalachian coal fields.  It is my opinion that, in time, Joy and Chuck Lynn will also be viewed as historically important people in the effort to disseminate the truth about the persistent efforts by the coal industry to stymie organized labor, cover up non-compliance, and minimize the importance of the average worker in one of the most dangerous professions in America.

This book is not a clean, neat, saccharine sweet piece of reading.  It tells the cold, hard truth page after page and is not for the timid reader who might have previously been misled into believing the standard propaganda of the typical coal mine operators or acquiescent government officials who would allow anything short of cold blooded murder in order to hang onto a few jobs in the coal fields.  The book reports honestly and realistically on opposition to union organizing including the Battle of Blair Mountain in which Blizzard's father, William Blizzard, led UMWA miners in the effort to unionize the Logan and Mingo coal fields in southern West Virginia while facing machine gun fire from coal company hired gun thugs.  It also exposes the practice of Esau in the coal fields, particularly at the Whipple Company Store in Raleigh County which I have discussed at length in the blog post linked at the beginning of this story.  That is a practice in which wives and daughters of miners who were temporarily unable to work were forced into sexual servitude in order to obtain food or other necessary commodities for their families.  That practice was first brought to light by Joy and Chuck Lynn when they were operating the Whipple Company Store as a privately owned museum. They documented numerous accounts of the practice of Esau which were related to them spontaneously by women who had either lived in the coal fields or descended from mothers whose husbands worked in the industry.  I spoke at length by telephone with Wess Harris earlier this week about the book and many other issues related to the coal industry in Appalachia.  I also made multiple attempts to speak with Joy Lynn this week about many aspects of the book including Esau in the coal fields but was never able to make contact with her other a short e-mail which said nothing.  I have also communicated via Facebook Messenger with the West Virginia singer and song writer Mary Hott who has written and recorded an entire CD of songs, "Devil In The Hills", about the practice of Esau and has created a private website at this link both to market her CD and to disseminate the truth about Esau.   Joy Lynn has produced two books about the entire experience of operating the Whipple Company Store Museum which can be ordered directly from her and her information can be accessed from Mary Hott's website above.  

I repeat that this book is not for the timid or doubtful reader. It will cause you to feel anger, disgust, and a desire to help make the world a better place and that is a good thing.  In many circumstances, it is necessary to feel all those emotions in order for wrongs to be righted, evil to be resisted, good to be sown, and for justice to be served.  And everyone who has been wronged deserves to have justice even if they never lived to see it while alive in the world.  This truly is a story "Written In Blood".