Our Common Nature: West Virginia Coal

oh wait you're listening okay all right okay all right you're listening to radio lab radio from wnyc hey this is radio lab i'm latif nasir a little while back lulu and i had we were basically starstruck because we got to sit down with a living musical icon oh my god i can't believe it yo-yo ma yo-yo of course is a famous cellist kind of the famous cellist he's won 19 grammy awards produced more than 90 musical albums but the reason we were sitting down to talk to him was i'm a newbie at podcasting we got together with our friend producer and host anna gonzalez and they made a whole podcast series called our common nature and we loved the podcast so much that we wanted to sit down and talk to the two of them about why they made it yeah so the idea for the podcast started with yo-yo right like he'd been doing these outdoor performances for about a year and he was basically trying to reconnect to nature himself and bring music outside of the concert hall playing in locations that you wouldn't necessarily expect to find a classical music concert like on a riverbed or by a coal mine in a cave in the woods and they were these really intimate performances kind of to whoever was around and at a certain point yo-yo wanted to get this to more people he decided he should have somebody on the ground with him with a microphone making recordings making stories and at some point he and his team came to me and they asked do you want to be that person do you want to be on the ground with a microphone making recordings with me and i was like yes please that sounds amazing well i was so happy to meet anna because she also works with children you may recognize anna's voice because she's also a producer on our sister show for families terrestrials she has this wonderful podcast with children and and actually i never grew up so i started from a child's point of view you know we've all pestered adults with the question why at a certain age it's usually around two or three years old why why daddy why mommy but i think i never stopped and then of course in the natural world which i came to later although i think the fascination was there always i think who hasn't looked out in the night sky and wondered what's out there i mean just all of that that yo-yo just said made it so fun to go with him because he is this great combination of childlike wonder you know just having fun playing such a people person and then would like prank me by like saying like oh i want to say something important and then like make duck sounds into my microphone and the way that people opened up with yo-yo there him having his cello playing his cello playing his cello playing his music as an offering it opened up these worlds that otherwise would take years honestly of relationship building that we could do in a day what i do as a musician is not unlike what a reporter does i just have to report it through sound and you reported through words although anna comes pretty close to reporting it through sound because in in west virginia we had a lovely dinner for all the participants that were going to come in and they had a cider press and guess what anna was there with her big fuzzy microphone recording i think that was the first thing i recorded was yo-yo pressing apples on an apple for like i recorded people eating food and and fire crackling and the the crickets chirping and so yeah i that i also thought the same thing in that moment yo-yo i was like oh we're doing the same thing you have a cello and i have a microphone but we're like relaying energy and sound and feeling in our own mediums what anna did and does is she's able to do not reporting on facts or even on knowledge but reporting on experience the series they ended up making together i mean it's basically anna and yo-yo going around to different locations across the country climbing mountains rafting rivers chanting to whales bringing music to people in these places and then telling stories about those places and their connection to the natural world and that hopefully this these podcasts are there to give a sense of uh through sounds and words uh what it feels like to be there and to be part of a very special community that we've visited that gives us the best possible way of sharing a deep experience of a place with a radio audience i think i said this to anna when i first heard it like it it's sort of spiritually refreshing it's kind of so at odds with all the news or other media that i feel like is out there right now it feels like slower and richer and and more human somehow thank you latif i mean yeah i felt that way the whole time making it it made it all worth it because everyone deserves that kind of four dimensional view of their lives and where they live so we decided to pluck one episode out for you to hear it takes place in west virginia and covers among other things a huge recent tragedy i want to talk to you about the most famous rivers in the world that is improbably called new river and a famous song that you may have even sung at karaoke that's based on a lie take a listen as a little girl i would go with my granddad to the company store and all the coal miners would be around and they 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 in debt say peter don't you call me because i can't go i owe my soul to the company store 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 the year and it's the first fall and we're outside of a historical mine called nuttleburg the appalachian hills around us are tight 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 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 us to take away coal has formed the lives of so many west virginians it's formed this country really but there's a dark irony to coal you hear it in that song 16 tons 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 defined by coal to see what keeps people holding on to this place and the black fossil falling out of its hills hi i'm anna 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 coal and to the world of coal and to the world of coal and to the world of coal and 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 what do you do i'm yo-yo ma and i play the cello always great to see you always great to see you yeah thanks for coming on this way We have a podcast together. I know, it's fantastic. 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. I was struck by the immense beauty of the landscape and the rivers and the mountains and how extraordinarily kind the people we met were. Two-dollar bill, I'm on my long journey home. 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. You know, coal miners, it's gospel music, country music. Oh, lovely. Can't seem to tell you? Oh, yeah. Kathy Matea, he said. She's a West Virginian singer-songwriter, and she's here, too. Well, they're my people. I mean, they just are. Both of Kathy's grandfathers worked in West Virginia mines. My grandfather mined a 30-inch seam of coal. He did it with a pick and would pick sideways into the coal and work his way in. And my grandmother would sew leather patches onto the backs of the top of his shirt so that when he wedged himself, it wouldn't wear through his shirt. 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? Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. Almost heaven, West Virginia The rich mountains, Jindal River Y'all have to sing with me, though, because that's the whole point, you know? Take Me 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 mention are in Virginia. 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. But, you know, where else? 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? It's like a place where people feel invisible. 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 social spectrum and all those things, but we can sing country roads together. 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. Flap four. Flap four. Lean on me. He told me, Dorsal, that he wrote Lean on Me about living in the coal camp. You just call on me, brother, when you need a hand. Kathy met Bill Withers. He met him one time, and he told her that this song about people leaning on each other, supporting each other, was written about coal miners. Nobody cared what color anybody was. That's right. Yeah, he said nobody cared. It just wasn't a thing. In the community, everybody just helped each other. That's right. So you always look out for each other. As long as you're on that same crew, everybody's the same crew. Always look out. There's a lot of 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. So they're saying that Lean on Me is about the ways miners 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. Yep. I've worked underground for 20 years. 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. But she always had a story to tell about how the men would pick at her and would make her do their work if she didn't do it. If she cleaned her belt, they would always leave some more for her to do. And how she used to threaten to be there, you know what, when she got them outside. Okay, that's a little different from Kathy Matea'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. Still working in the coal mines. If I want to get to know this place a little bit more, I have to meet Chris. I mean, in coal mining, we always say everybody's going to be black at the end of the day. Chris Saunders, after the break. Our Common Nature is back. We're in West Virginia meeting up with present-day coal miners. Chris Saunders, who also happens to be black. And when you're underground, you put all that aside. If you have any prejudice in you, all that, because you got to work together, you got to work safe. Now when they come back up, it might be a different story. 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. Yeah, here she is. And this is one of the pictures. This was the crew that she worked with at the end. And that's her. Whoa. And that's her. There'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. And it's so true, because there's still a stigma about women being in the coal mines. I can imagine. So, plus she was a black woman. So that stigma was there. Chris told me his mom came to coal mining as a single mom of four. She had 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. My mom's a hard worker. She said, "I'm gonna prove to you I can outwork you. I can outthink 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." And she had a guy that was always wanting to tell her the N-word jokes. She said, "Oh, baby, I ain't got time for that. I'll tell you what you do. Write them out for me, and let me read them." So every day, he writing these big, long jokes. And she'd just fold them up, fold them up. And then he'd come to her one day, and he'd 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." Yeah, and buddy, he just laughed. He said, "Mama, I'm sorry." You know, and that's just the way she was. She said, "Now, he gonna set up and waste his time writing these jokes out every day, and I'll let him do it." That's my mom, y'all. I mean, that's just her. And this was just one of the stories Chris had about his mom warding off bullies. They'd steal her lunch. She'd bake brownies and put egg slacks in them. And so she knew exactly who was getting her lunchbuck, or her bucket, that's what they called it. Call it. some days she didn't have a good comeback or the energy to bake brownies some days she was tired she would always say i've done the best i could for y'all i know that mom you know and she would apologize for uh not being there a lot so but i had a great mom yeah still do i'm a big softy but yeah she she's uh and she taught us how to love people 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 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 like this i chose to do this but if if i gotta be on oxygen i don't want it yeah do you think about that with your mom yeah 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 we have what i call i'm gonna keep it right kiss my butt curves like you're gonna go around and then you so we and we get ready to go through a few of them down this way if you look at a map of route three heading west from beckley west virginia it looks like a squiggle it follows every twist and turn of the coal river through eccles glenn daniel 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 back seat trying not to get carsick i see a lot of trump uh yeah oh yeah yeah yeah all of us love trump yeah everybody here you see that and now he's an outlaw so like how much of the population is related to coal like probably 90 percent yeah it's either railroad coal or timber yeah and the railroad is how you move the coal right right yeah right is this weird for you to be in a car when people ask you all these questions yeah yeah but it's all right i like to talk 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 we're driving by people are even suspicious of the north carolina plates on the rental car oh yeah that's a lot of you know you can't drive down here what ain't going up here yeah but that's what you're a little this is the kiss your butt what i call it 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 yeah yeah and that's why i was kind of leery about talking to you at first yeah 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 and stuff like that yeah so yeah but for chris mining is about more than just making money it's about survival in the 80s and stuff i got into the drug trade and got on some stuff i 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 for my family the street life ain't gonna get it you know and god opened doors i wanted to follow in my mom's footsteps and it's been a great way to provide for my family i think that's what we're trying to get at right and it's complicated yeah it is 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 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 yeah and it's still going today so there is still that pride the people who mine coal for generations they still love it 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 a ukraine right now shut down but ukraine was a big steel producer for europe yeah and they're buying u.s coal yes yeah because again you have the best coal in the world to make steel 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 we see abandoned company stores and downtown ghost lands this was the old grade school all right during the explosion they were lined up from there on both sides of the road he's talking about tv reporters from cnn and other outlets yep all the way down yeah that's where where i had to drive through them every day they would start right there what those news outlets were covering after the break 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 three in west virginia and now we've reached our destination now look on top of the hill right here and you see where the tube went in that's the coal seam right there 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 i don't know if you can see the black on top of the hill then you usually have other seams below it but that's the eagle seam that we mined 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 grandfather's 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 massie 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 5th 2010 a little after 3 p.m one of the teams at upper big branch burrowed into a pocket of methane gas that exploded and ignited the unventilated coal dust 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 explosion he said 32 people could be dead or trapped He said, don't say nothing yet. I don't want to cause panic. But the news got out. 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. These were friends of yours? Yeah. Yeah, lost a lot of friends. Yeah. Knew every one of them. I'm sorry about that. Yeah. Yeah, 29 people that day. Chris has led us to a makeshift monument. 29 hardhats sit on 29 crosses. Family and friends have placed Christmas trees in lunch pails, necklaces, bottles of liquor, next to the names of their loved ones killed in the explosion. I actually worked with Joel, Robert Clark, Steve Herr. We called him. We called him. We called him. We called him. We called him. But before this, did you ever think this was possible? No, no. You don't, like I say, you get complacent. You never think about no disasters like this. 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 the consequences. They 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. Why didn't we just take at least a day for respect? At that time, you know, as far as, I guess, in the corporate mind, well, we don't want to admit that we've done nothing wrong. Buddy, you're 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 the CEO of a company, that's what we would have done, regardless. Who wrong, who right, what happened, you know, we're going to hash that out later. These people, the lost friends, family, regardless, let's show some kind of compassion. Chris never speaks too harshly. He's careful 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. ♪ What you know about black diamonds, black diamonds, black diamonds ♪ So I just walk around the house singing just that, right? ♪ Black diamonds, black diamonds, 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 5th, 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 5th, 2010, 29 men died. And what they call a mine disaster. Others. So much of the Upper Big 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 massy 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. This is her performing the poem next to the new river. Industrial homicide, homicide, homicide, dead. Twenty-nine 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 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. Okay. 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 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 going to 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! Ugh! I don't 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. Declining faster than any other U.S. 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 home. And they're also 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 home. 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. Absolutely. I mean, the natural world is all energy. It's the transfer of energy. And life takes place. That's the miracle. I asked Yo-Yo about how he finds the energy to keep going in his life when the days feel long. Where does he go in the world? Or in his mind to get through and still perform and be Yo-Yo Ma for the world? And it turns out he also goes to a place in the mountains. 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. 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 Greetings, greetings recording friends I'm wearing the newest fur fashion I got the new blanket What did we just do? Water rafting 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 Brandon Leach Israel Angel Have you ever been whitewater rafting before? No, this is my first time I'm in one raft, Crystal Good, the poet, is on another And we're all paddling down the river And we're all paddling down the new river To meet up with Yo-Yo Yo-Yo Are you on a first name basis? 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 I told you there was a cellist everywhere 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, you were like Coach Yo-Yo Like, come on everybody I think we lost But we won 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 Oh yeah, big time At the end, a couple of them performed a song That they wrote from scratch Mm-hmm, a beat next time Mm-hmm, they got all that I've been made I've been making that money I've been making it since I was ten Hey That's the main part of the chorus It's great, it's fantastic And that's how it comes out, right? You're relaxed enough, you're safe enough And it's fantastic It's goofy, it's fun And guess what? It was memorable You still remember it 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 stream of the river 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 You ready, maestro? I'm no maestro I'm not sure I'm ready All right Well, let's see if we can get it One, two, one, two, three Banjo player Dom Fuller John Flemons is here Playing this tune that he wrote With Yo-Yo And pretty soon he switches To an old line dancing song And this is a piece called Great Big Eight here And starts calling dances Now 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 And he'd go like this Great Big Eight Boy, we need one another In order to function and survive and thrive 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 There was time for one more song Oh yeah, get up! Get a harmonica, y'all Any guesses? So this would be like The national anthem for West Virginia Except that all the Geographical references are wrong People were requesting it this afternoon And it's just always like a great It's a great opportunity For everyone to sing along 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 Hello? Hey, Chris, it's Anna From the podcast Yeah I'm 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 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 and said Ain't you gotta go to work? No Yeah, yeah Yeah, so I mean What did your sister sing to her? 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 her favorite songs Yeah, Jesus on the Main Line Call him up Call him up Tell him what you want Yeah, that was one of her songs Are you having services for her? Yes, yes And I'm gonna work up until Monday anyway I know you probably think I'm crazy You can't get time off? Yeah, but I'm They only gonna give me three days So I'm gonna work up tonight, tomorrow And then Monday morning I won't go back My boss is like I never see nobody like you He said, you alright? You know, cause they worry about Me getting hurt Or something too Yeah 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 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 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 I'm just going to run it one time so you can hear it. We are almost down to the shore. Let's try it one more time. Moses died on the mountaintop. Praise the Lord, said Moses' heart. I want to end with this song that Don 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 Struthers. 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 almost down to the shore Despite it 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 Kristen. 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, fight on Children, don't turn back We are almost down to the shore 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 Ana Alvarado. Our executive producers are Emily Botin, Ben Mandelkern, Sophie Shackleton, and Jonathan Bays. Our advisors are Mira Birtwintonik, Kamaka Diaz, Kelly Libby, and Chris Newell. Music in this episode by Kathy Matea and Dom Flemings. 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 Common Nature EP, featuring Yo-Yo playing with Eric Mingus, Jen 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 Emerson Collective and Tambourine Philanthropies. Hi, I'm Cordelia, and I'm from New York City. And here are the staff credits. Radiolab is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser. Soren Wheeler is our executive producer. Sarah Sandbach is our executive director. Our managing editor is Pat Walters. Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design. Our staff includes Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gable, Maria Paz Gutierrez, Sindhu Yannasambandan, Matt Kielce, Mona Madgavkar, Annie McEwen, Alex Neeson, Sara Khari, Anissa Vitsa, Arianne Wack, Molly Webster, and Jessica Young. With help from Rebecca Rand, our fact-checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger, Ana Pujol-Mazzini, and Natalie Middleton. Hi, I'm Adina. I'm calling from Greensburg. Leadership support for Radiolab's science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Thank you for your presentation.