Susan Pepper Releases New Album 'WHERE THE ISLANDS OVERFLOW'

Before country or bluegrass music became popular, immigrants and their descendants performed traditional folk songs throughout Appalachia, going back centuries. Singer-songwriter Susan Pepper became so enthralled with the culture and history of this old-time music that she moved from her native Ohio to North Carolina while in her 20s to study with local artists carrying on their ancestors' traditions. 

Now an accomplished old-time musician and teacher, Pepper has just released “Where the Islands Overflow: Traditional Song from Appalachia” (Ballad Records). The album consists of 16 of her favorite covers, performed as they were years ago, with minimal accompaniment of a gourd banjo, fretless mountain banjo or guitar. Others are performed without instrumentation, just Pepper's pitch-perfect voice, which Oxford American Magazine once described as possessing a “celestial upper range.”

“A cappella is the most traditional style for a lot of these old songs,” Pepper said. “It's funny, but some people in the mountains will say that a person doesn't do music, they just sing. It's an ancient tradition going back to Ireland, Scotland, and England.”

Though most songs on “Where the Islands Overflow” are old, some of them dating back centuries, Pepper was inspired to perform them by Southern Appalachian artists who recorded them in the 20th century, such as Jean Ritchie, Sheila Kay Adams, Ginny Hawker, Addie Graham, Frank Profitt, The Ward Family, Lee Monroe Presnell and Buna Hicks. Pepper's sources carry longstanding community singing traditions that often go back to early settlers in the mountains. Over time, the musical and cultural influences of Europeans, African-Americans, Germans, Indigenous groups and others co-mingled to give ballads and “old-time” music a distinctively American sound.

Many listeners will recognize “Man of Constant Sorrow,” which was performed for comedic effect by George Clooney in the movie “O, Brother, Where Art Thou?,” but Pepper's rendition is more somber, as originally intended.

The album also includes a traditional song from Southern Louisiana, “Tout Un Beau Soir En Me Promenant,” which was collected by Alan and John Lomax in the 1930s from a young girl named Elite Hoffpauir. In this tale, sung in French, a lumberjack is struck by the beauty of a young lady in the forest, who turns out to be a shepherdess. 

The sole contemporary ballad on the album, “O'Shaughnessy's Lament,” was composed by the acclaimed Canadian troubadour Aengus Finnan. Based on the true story of a silver miner in Ontario who tragically lost his wife and infant twins at birth, this song came to Finnan as he visited their graveside. 

Pepper has taught at venues including the Youth Traditional Song Weekend, the John C. Campbell Folk School, and the Junior Appalachian Musicians Program, and performs regularly throughout Appalachia. She also produced and appeared in the 2018 award-winning independent film “The Mountain Minor,” which featured many performances of old-time music.

From 2005-2011 Pepper apprenticed under and recorded several traditional ballad singers from Western North Carolina who were raised in the 1920s and 1930s.Those field recordings were released on her first album, “On the Threshold of a Dream: Unaccompanied Ballad Singing from the Blue Ridge Mountains,” which was funded by the North Carolina Arts Council and the National Endowment of the Arts. She subsequently released the albums “Hollerin' Girl” (2015) and “The Prettiest Bird” (2020). “Where the Islands Overflow” is her fourth album.

“It's the kind of music that I feel can transcend time and space in profound way,” Pepper said. I think it's hard to beat these old songs, and it's important to open this door to other people.”

Where the “Islands Overflow: Traditional Song from Appalachia” is available on most streaming platforms and on CD at SusanPepper.com.

 

Tracks:

1) Baby Dear, 2) The Cuckoo, 3) Rye Whiskey, 4) Pretty Saro, 5) Man of Constant Sorrow, 6) Rattlin' Bog, 7) Tout Un Beau Soir En Me Promenant, 8) O'Shaughnessy's Lament, 9) Two Sisters, 10) Swing Low, 11) God Bless Them Moonshiners, 12) Silk Merchant's Daughter, 13) Sister Thou Art Mild and Lovely, 14) Awake, Awake, 15) William Reilly, 16) Where the Sun Will Never Go Down

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