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An exciting, important part of Susan’s exploration
of the “Christ-haunted South” is her “immersion experience” in the region’s
music—The South has been an almost mythic source of all major forms of American
music today—it has been a remarkably diverse, rich wellspring of musical forms
that each in its own way has profoundly influenced American culture throughout
the last two centuries. Almost all of what Wynton Marsalis in Ken Burns’ series
“JAZZ” called “quintessentially American” music has its origins in the South--
from the blues of the Mississippi Delta, to New Orleans jazz, cajun and zydeco,
country music, with its commercial capitals in Bristol, Austin, and Nashville,
rockabilly of Memphis, the shape-note hymns of Georgia and Alabama, folksongs
and ballads of the Southern Appalachian mountains, the spirituals and work songs
of the fertile lowlands of the Deep South—all proudly claim their roots deep in
Southern soil.
Susan Ketchin has collected,
performed, and recorded the music of her homeland ever since her
sister first taught her to play the guitar at age thirteen. Her
group, “Ain’t Misbehavin,” with Chris Siegel, regularly performs
folk, blues, jazz, and swing dance tunes ranging from “Route 66”
to “Shady Grove” on mandolin, guitar, fiddle, dulcimer, bass, and
banjo. The Angelettes (with Brenda Linton and
Lois Douglass), who are noted for their honey-toned
harmonies, perform folk, jazz, shape-note hymns, and spirituals on
guitar, keyboard, mandolin, fiddle, and bass. The Tarwater Band
(Bill Butler, Clyde Edgerton) performed and recorded traditional and original music with banjo,
keyboards, guitar, and dobro for twenty-five years, with highlights
including a tour of concert-readings throughout the South with Lee
Smith. Susan has performed solo and with her groups at weddings,
pig-pickings, festivals, and concerts including the Spoleto
Festival, Charleston, SC, the North Carolina Museum of Art “NC
Artists” Series, Duke University’s “Summer Concerts in the
Gardens,” at the Southern Festival of Books, Nashville, TN, at the
Conference on Literature and Music, Jackson Hole, WY, and in
numerous bookstores, coffee houses, and clubs throughout the United
States. She has presented concert-readings (a combination of
lecture/talk and performance of music) and workshops (“God in
Southern Story and Song”) for educational and religious groups,
including the Keynote and seminars for Religious Emphasis Week at Agnes
Scott College, Decatur, GA, the Clergy and Spouse Conference for the
Eastern Diocese of North Carolina, and the Flannery O’Connor
Memorial Lecture, Milledgeville, GA.
She has recorded award-winning albums (A.S.C.A.P.) with Flying
Fish/Rounder Records, and Tarwater Productions. “The Devil’s Dream”
features music from Lee Smith’s novel which chronicles an old-time
country music family through several generations of love, loss, and
great music.
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