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Rising Appalachia

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Rising Appalachia
Sisters Chloe and Leah Smith of Rising Appalachia
Chloe and Leah Smith of Rising Appalachia in May 2008
Background information
OriginNew Orleans, Louisiana
GenresWorld, folk, soul
LabelsIndependent
MembersLeah Smith, Chloe Smith, Imhotep, Biko Casini, Forrest Kelly, Abram Racin, Dee Nalam
Websitewww.risingappalachia.com

Rising Appalachia is a musical group lead by multi-instrumentalist sisters Leah and Chloe Smith.[1] Leah performs also as solo artist under the name Leah Song. Based between Southern Appalachia and New Orleans, the sisters work with an array of international musicians and the band incorporates everything from simple harmonics with banjos and fiddles, to a wide variety of drums, kalimbas, beatbox, djembe, baliphone, congas, didgeridoo, tablas, spoons and washboard creating a full mix of world, folk and soul music.

Biography

Chloe and Leah Smith were born and grew up in Atlanta, Georgia in an artistic family. Their father Andrew Hunter Smith was a folk-sculptor and painter[2] and their mother played jazz-piano and the fiddle. After working with visual arts during her early school days Leah Smith graduated from Grady High School and moved at the age of nineteen to Mexico to study and work alongside the Zapatista movement. Before returning to Atlanta she traveled the world for four years visiting Hawaii, India, Colombia, Cuba, Bulgaria and Italy.

Chloe and Leah Smith at the FloydFest 2010

Chloe, who was then 21, and her sister decided to record their first album during one night in the basement studio of a friend. The album was meant as a gift for family and friends but they received so much support and recognition for it that they decided to officially start a band called Rising Appalachia. They began to find their own natural interpretation of Appalachian music which brought together folk, soul, hip-hop, classical, southern gospel and other styles[3] based on their upbringing on traditional Appalachian string band music, as well as on their exposure to urban music like hip-hop and jazz and the influence of roots music of all kinds which they experienced during their worldwide travels.[4]

On June 29, 2008 the group played their last show under the name Rising Appalachia during Concrete Pandemonium III at the Eyedrum Art Gallery in Atlanta[5] before it was changed to R.I.S.E. (sometimes written RISE). However, in February 2010 they announced they would reclaim the original name of the band Rising Appalachia but would incorporate RISE in the name of a supporting project, The RISE Collective.[6]

Rising Appalachia is independent from the main music industry. The sisters managed, produced and marketed the project themselves from the beginning and only later started to build up a small management team. Their first four albums have been self produced and self funded. For their fifth album, Filthy Dirty South, they raised in 2011 within one month a total of $11,180.00 on the crowd funding web site Kickstarter.[7]

Rising Appalachia has performed at many musical festivals throughout the United States but also in Colombia, Costa Rica, Canada, India, Puerto Rico, Italy,[8] Bulgaria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Ireland and Scotland.[3][9]

RISE Collective

The RISE Collective uses both lyrical prowess and diverse artistic collaborations. It consists of a crew of global performers, activists, youth educators, dancers, circus artists, yoginis, acrobatics, fire spinners, poets, aerialists, cultural workers and others who perform at music festival, rallies and street parties and hold sound education workshops at youth centers, schools, prisons and other locations.[10] Together with the music of Rising Appalachia the collective is used to support many of the Smith sisters community based projects uniting the arts and justice. Having themselves been community activists during their travels, Leah and Chloe Smith want their art to also be a source of activism, as well as of cultural development.[4]

Awards and recognitions

Sisters Chloe and Leah Smith 2010 in New Orleans
Rising Appalachia at The Ogden, New Orleans on 11. November 2011

Artistic collective members and instruments

  • Leah Song - vocals, poetics, banjo, kalimba, fiddle, boudhran, and tinky percussive things
  • Chloe Smith - vocals, fiddle, banjo, washboard, kalimba, and percussion
  • Imhotep - traditional New Orleans bass drum, m'bala, djembe, and West African percussion
  • Biko Casini - djembe, congas, and percussion
  • David Brown - guitar and double bass
  • Abram Racin - double bass
  • Forrest Kelly - beat box, hand percussion, and fire spinning.

Discography

Albums
  • Leah and Chloe (2005, self-release)
  • Scale Down (2007, self-release)
  • Evolutions in Sound: LIVE (2008, self-release)
  • The Sails of Self (2010, self-release)
  • Filthy Dirty South (2012, independent self-release)
Digital album
  • Soul Visions (2013, in collaboration with The Human Experience)[12]
  • The Sails of Self (2014, independent, digital album)[13]
DVD
  • Live at Echo Mountain (2012, independent self-release)
Contribution
  • Sunu (2013, with The Human Experience on album The Bloom Series Vol 1: Fundamental Frequencies)
Music Videos
  • Scale Down (2010, by Scott McKibben Photography and Captain Crazy Productions)
  • Sunu (2011, directed by Chad Hess)
  • Filthy Dirty South (2013, by Scott McKibben Photography)

References

  1. ^ Performer Magazine/Southeast/October 2009: Rise - Appalachian Troubadors with a global mission
  2. ^ "The Weave Shed Gallery". Hambidge Center. Retrieved 11 April 2013.
  3. ^ a b Rising Appalachia interview Questions. July 2011
  4. ^ a b Brewer, David (7 June 2007). "Rising Appalachia's New Fashioned Old-Time World Music". High Country Press. Retrieved 8 April 2013.
  5. ^ Williams, Jonathan (26 June 2008). "SOUND CHECK: Pandemonium: Share the stage". accessAtlanta.com. Retrieved 14 April 2013.
  6. ^ Official myspace page OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: NAME CHANGE
  7. ^ Kickstarter
  8. ^ "Sonic sisters of 'Rising Appalachia'". Brooklyn Daily. 25 May 2008. Retrieved 9 April 2013.
  9. ^ "Rising Appalachia: 'Say Darlin' Say'". NPR. 31 October 2006. Retrieved 9 April 2013.
  10. ^ The RISE Collective
  11. ^ Biggers, Jeff (3 December 2008). "Green Album of the Year: R.I.S.E. Evolutions in Sound". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 9 April 2013.
  12. ^ Soul Visions by Rising Appalachia and The Human Experience
  13. ^ The Sails of Self
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