GRITS & other Southern Miscellany

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(ham country) craft: pig pillow stitched from a ham sack 

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Laura Gilpin (1891-1979). "Basket of peaches," c. 1908-1916. (1979 Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, Bequest of the artist)

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Our old trailer, “Magnolia”, Collington Island, NC

Many precious cassette tapes were ruined by leaving them in that West-facing hot window sill, melting in the heat.   

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What happened when Walmart left

In West Virginia, the people of McDowell County can’t get jobs, and recently lost their biggest employer – the local Walmart store. They describe the devastating loss of jobs, community and access to fresh food

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Fried cornbread pic from a recipe featured on a website mainly concerned with custom made turkey calls and spiritual notes.

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Eldridge Holmes - “Pop Popcorn Children” - that horn break is everything.

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Some lovely vintage Southern Living covers (before they got too wordy).

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Recipe for your scrapbook: Pralines (c.1957)

by Mrs. Harvey F. "If you want to make this famous Southern candy you will find this an easy recipe” Rostiser.

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Bus People Express - “Augusta Georgia (Here I Come)” 

This excellent little record first released in 1993 features two funky numbers (reportedly written on a bus to New Orleans) callin’ out two Southern locales—“Augusta Georgia (Here I Come)” and “South Carolina” on the flip.

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“Southern Magnolia Flowers” - a vintage linen postcard 

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Vintage Richmond: Pony Pasture in the 1970s - “The Rocks”

- photo via the Richmond Times-Dispatch Archive

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Spotted in a pile of "gently used" paperbacks, Rita Mae Brown’s Southern Discomfort

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Grits Patrol!

Photo by Greg Dupree for Shane Mitchell’s essay Kiss My Grits via Bitter Southerner. According to the feature, this marvelous "Grits Patrol" car is a 1967 Impala (originally a state vehicle used by the late U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond) that Greg Johnsman of Geechie Boy Market & Mill in Edisto Island, SC bought and restored. Honey, hush!

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MLK tribute part 2: “The Dream / It's Time” by Max Roach

Roach was born in the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp in Pasquotank Co. North Carolina. A noted pioneer of bebop style, he collaborated with many famous jazz musicians during his lifetime and made numerous musical statements relating to the Civil Rights Movement. This track is an interesting sort of duet featuring Roach drumming along with King’s famous “I Have A Dream” speech. It’s the opening track to Roach’s 1981 album Chattahoochee Red, so named after the Atlanta Child Murders of 1979-1981 when a series of murders committed in Atlanta, Georgia  claimed the lives of at least 28 children, adolescents and adults. Atlanta native Wayne Williams was arrested for and convicted of two of the adult murders, and sentenced to two consecutive life terms. The album cover is a sepia-toned photograph of Roach wiping a tear from his eyes.

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MLK tribute part 1: “God Rest His Soul” by Gregg Allman

A man lay dying in the streets A thousand people fell down on their knees Any other day he would have been Preaching Reaching all the people there Oh Lord, Lord...

But Lord knows I can't change what I saw I Say God Rest His Soul

The Memphis battleground was red Cause blood came pouring from his head Women and children fallin' down Crying For the man they loved so well Oh Lord, Lord...

But Lord knows I can't change what I saw I say God rest his soul

But Lord knows I can't change what I saw I say God rest his soul

The morning sun will rise again With all the passions growing thin What we gonna do when war is come and we're Dying Dying for the cause I know

But Lord knows I can't change what I saw Say God rest his soul

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"Bayou Country” by Gritz 

I wish we could hear more from this group. The band’s bio on AllMusic starts off stating, “Very little is known for certain about this group -- which may actually have been two groups, or possibly two incarnations of the same group...” and devolves from there into a murky timeline pocked with noted shifts in personnel, creative differences and other unfortunate turns. Despite the many mysteries that plague the band or two, or four, caught up in the Gritz continuum, one of the only solid takeaways from the linked bio is the tantalizing reveal that a whole “LP’s worth of material” cut from the same sessions this rusted, deep delta molasses-riffin’ slab of mud-bogged salt n’ pepper swamp rock comes from exists somewhere out there in the world, yet still unreleased.