Here's a reprise of Paul Brown's Breaking Up Christmas: A Blue Ridge Mountain Holiday, produced for NPR member stations and first aired in late 1996.  Across the Blue Ridge host Paul Brown directed a two-year fundraising, fieldwork and production process that resulted in the one-hour special program featuring a heartwarming musical holiday tradition in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the popular fiddle tune and song that bears its name. The program examined the tradition's history and the changes it was experiencing as social and economic environments changed.  On this week's Across the Blue Ridge we hear the same wonderful music and interview field recordings dating back as far as the 1920s and focused on the 1970s through 1990s, we hear new perspectives, and we get a sense of how the tradition's impact is still felt today.

Playlist

  1. Breaking Up Christmas
    Tommy Jarrell
    Blue Ridge Mountain Holiday
     
  2. Old Bunch of Keys
    Tommy Jarrell & Fred Cockerham
    Blue Ridge Mountain Holiday
     
  3. John Brown's Dream
    The Southern Broadcasters
    Blue Ridge Mountain Holiday
     
  4. Richmond
    Kirk Sutphin & Band
    Blue Ridge Mountain Holiday
     
  5. Tempy
    Andy Cahan & Band
    Blue Ridge Mountain Holiday
     
  6. Who's Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Foot
    The Toast String Stretchers
    Blue Ridge Mountain Holiday
     
  7. Ragtime Annie
    Slate Mountain Ramblers
    Blue Ridge Mountain Holiday
     
  8. Break 1 - Breaking Up Christmas
    Norman Edmonds & The Old Timers
    Volume 2
     
  9. Breaking Up Christmas
    The Camp Creek Boys
    Old Time String Band
     
  10. Breaking Up Christmas
    Paul Brown
    studio recording
     
  11. Breaking Up Christmas
    Benton & Larry Flippen
    Old Time, New Times
     
  12. Blue Christmas
    Elvis Presley
    Elvis' Christmas Album
     
  13. Let Me Fall
    The Camp Creek Boys
    Old Time String Band
     
  14. Breaking Up Christmas
    Benny Jarrell
    Lady of the Lake
     
  15. Breaking Up Christmas
    Fred Cockerham & Kyle Creed
    Blue Ridge Mountain Holiday
     
  16. Cluck Old Hen
    Tommy Jarrell & friends
    Blue Ridge Mountain Holiday
     
  17. Little Maggie
    Fred Cockerham & friends
    Blue Ridge Mountain Holiday
     
  18. Break 2 - Breaking Up Christmas
    Esker Hutchins
    Esker Hutchins
     
  19. Cherokee Shuffle
    Wayne Henderson, Jim Lloyd, Gerald Anderson
    Blue Ridge Mountain Holiday
     
  20. Jack Of Diamonds
    Jerry Correll & friends
    Blue Ridge Mountain Holiday
     
  21. Squirrel Heads & Gravy
    Brian & Debbie Grim & friends
    Blue Ridge Mountain Holiday
     
  22. Sugar Hill
    Nicholas & Chester McMillian
    Blue Ridge Mountain Holiday
     
  23. Breaking Up Christmas
    Tommy Jarrell
    Blue Ridge Mountain Holiday
     
  24. Stay All Night
    Tommy Jarrell & Fred Cockerham
    Stay All Night And Don't Go Home

300x250 Ad

Support quality journalism, like the story above, with your gift right now.

Donate