Show Review: Go Tell It On The Mountain Tour

My friends at the Restoration House and in Earthkeepers arranged for the Go Tell It On The Mountain tour to drop by SouthSide Cafe one Tuesday night. The tour, sponsored by Christian environmentalist group Restoring Eden, featured a multimedia presentation on mountaintop removal coal mining, accompanied by soulful bluegrass and folk by singer-songwriter Aaron Lee Martin.

For those who aren't familiar, mountaintop removal involves blowing up the tops of mountains to access the coal beneath, destroying ecosystems and ruining air and water for the surrounding communities. This practice has been ruining Appalachia for years, so what better way to protest than with the folk music its people are famous for? Martin's plaintive melodies provided the perfect backdrop to the deeply sorrowful images and videos on the screen, though he lightened the mood with a follow-up set later on.

Since I provided the audio equipment for the show/presentation, we were able to have Aaron come perform live later that night on The Fox and the Hound. Since it was our first live on-air performance, we jury-rigged it, pointing one mic at him and the other at his guitar. Just as we expected, our listeners loved it, and we've been playing tunes from his album on the show ever since.