APPALACHIAN HOLLER

Every Friday night in North Carolina, old-time musicians gather to pick, laugh, and pass down mountain stories. Ballads like “Tom Dooley” drift through the room — along with talk of moonshine, work, and barter — the living heartbeat of Appalachian tradition.

Jenkinjones, West Virginia, was once a coal camp with a pulse. Now it’s quiet — empty houses, shuttered buildings, and a town shaped by what the mines left behind. A portrait of disappearance in Appalachia.

Deep in Appalachian coal country, company towns ran by company rules: scrip wages, company stores, company houses. Underground, roof falls killed men — and mules worked in darkness without daylight. A hard look at the coal-camp system and the people who endured it.

Off-grid in the Appalachian Mountains, Mike lives with a few animals and a fiddle. His raw playing cuts through Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee — a wild old-time sound shaped by hard places, solitude, and mountain weather.

After a tornado tears through a trailer home in Appalachia, the Hill family talks about faith, survival, guns, and bluegrass. A grounded glimpse of hillbilly resilience — the stubborn pride of standing on your own when life hits hard.

Hermann reflects on losing his gun shop and what firearms mean where the backroads run long. Beyond politics, this is about family tradition, self-reliance, and rural identity — passed down like tools, stories, and names.

Lyle Rickards plays “Pretty Pink” on mountain dulcimer — a traditional Appalachian tune with a haunting, simple pull. Between notes, he reflects on roots music and the folk melting pot that shaped mountain sound.

In McDowell County, West Virginia, the mines are gone — but the aftershock remains. Poverty, addiction, and broken systems press in, while pride still holds the line. A coal-town chapter of Appalachia in slow motion.

Known simply as Mess, a tattooed busker drifts the backroads with songs and road-worn honesty. Between rebellion and faith, he turns the open road into gospel — a portrait of wandering culture in modern Appalachia.

Under heavy rain in the backwoods of West Virginia, a Pentecostal community gathers for a farewell. Preaching, grief, and forest air blend into a quiet ritual where faith and mountain life are inseparable.

Back in the hills of Virginia, a small country store still holds a valley together. Neighbors share tools, fix what’s broken, and look out for each other — the old mountain way. A return to a rural hub built on steady bonds.

Jenkinjones is nearly empty now, but the story goes deeper than abandonment. Former miners talk land and mineral rights, danger underground, and the hard math of staying when industry disappears. A coal-town truth from McDowell County.

Galax, Virginia: a hillbilly barbershop-turned-fiddle shop where old-time music and early country were played before it traveled the rest of America.