Rising Appalachia

Rising Appalachia
Chloe and Leah Smith of Rising Appalachia in May 2008
Background information
Origin	New Orleans, Louisiana
Genres	World, folk, soul
Labels	Independent
Associated acts	R.I.S.E. Collective
Website	www.risingappalachia.com
Members	Leah Smith, Chloe Smith, Imhotep, Biko Casini, Forrest Kelly, Abram Racin, Dee Nalam

Rising Appalachia is an American musical group led by multi-instrumentalist sisters Leah and Chloe Smith. Leah also performs as a 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.

History

In 2005, sisters Leah and Chloe Smith, decided one afternoon to record their first album, Leah and Chloe, in the basement studio of a friend in downtown Atlanta, Georgia. 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.

Chloe and Leah Smith at FloydFest 2010

In the early days, the sisters busked, in the French Quarter of New Orleans and elsewhere. They began to find their own natural interpretation of Appalachian music which brought together folk, soul, hip-hop, classical, southern gospel and other styles 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. They released their second album, Scale Down in 2007.

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 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.

Rising Appalachia is independent from the mainstream 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.

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

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 festivals, rallies and street parties and hold sound education workshops at youth centers, schools, prisons and other locations. The Rise Collective activities include:

• Acro-yoga
• Aerial performance
• Fire spinning
• Sound workshops
• Yoga and meditation
• Youth education

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.

Tours

The Slow Music Movement and the Wider Circles Rail Tour (2015)

Leah Song coined the term "Slow Music Movement" while preparing for a TedX talk. During their Wider Circles Rail Tour, the band travelled by Amtrak train. Song connected this with the "Slow Music Movement", which she described as exploring the question as to how music can be a public service, saying:

We want to have relationships with the farmers and the food of each region and also to have a relationship with different educational initiatives and non-profits. We have a policy that at each show at least two non-profits are welcome, invited — non-profits or educational initiatives, arts justice projects — to the show to set up tables and let the audiences know, as well as ourselves, what’s going on locally.

The Permaculture Action Network and the Fertile Grounds Tour (2016)

The band chose the name "Fertile Grounds" for their 2016 tour to celebrate their new partnership with the Permaculture Action Network. In an interview, Chloe Smith stated that the band would be "hosting a series of Permaculture Action Days in association with a number of our performance dates with the goal of helping to connect our audiences with tangible on-the-ground action and education".

Artistic collective members and instruments

Sisters Chloe and Leah Smith, 2010 in New Orleans

• Leah Song - vocals, poetics, banjo, fiddle, kalimba, bodhrán, and tinky percussive things
• Chloe Smith - vocals, fiddle, banjo, washboard, kalimba, and percussion
• Biko Casini - djembe, congas, and percussion
• David Brown - guitar, double bass, and banjo

Guest musicians and past members

• Abram Racin - double bass
• Forrest Kelly - beatboxing, hand percussion, and fire spinning.
• Imhotep - traditional New Orleans bass drum, djembe, m'bala, and West African percussion
• Maurice Turner- trumpet
• Liza Garza- vocals and poetry
• Theresa Davis-poetry
• Jan Smith - fiddle and voice
• Leyla McCalla -cello
• Aurora Nealand- saxophone

Awards and recognitions

• Green Album of the Year (2008 by the Huffington Post)
• Atlanta's Best Folk Act (by Creative Loafing)

Discography

Rising Appalachia at The Ogden, New Orleans on November 11, 2011

See also: Leah Song § Selected discography

Interviews and talks

See also: Leah Song § Interviews and talks

See also

• Midtown-Edmondson, Baltimore ROOTS Fest – 2011

External links

• Official website
• Rising Appalachia at AllMusic
• Rising Appalachia discography at Discogs
• Rising Appalachia on ReverbNation
• Rising Appalachia on SoundCloud
• Rising Appalachia's channel on YouTube