West of West Virginia drops for Dan Boner

Professor Dan Boner has more than a few things to occupy his time. He’s the Director of the Bluegrass, Old Time & Country Music Studies program at East Tennessee State University, which is a full time job in itself. On top of that, he tours regularly with The Becky Buller Band, and is developing a line of audiophile studio pre-amps in his spare time.

Dan is also a serious photographer, spends fall days in the woods hunting wild game, and plays all the instruments in the bluegrass band at a professional level.

Oh… and he has a new solo album coming up which he is promoting as well.

A first single from that album is available to radio today, written by our own Terry Herd and Tim Stafford, called West Of West Virginia. It tells a familiar story of the migration of Appalachian people to northern cities where they could find work as employment dried up in the coal towns of Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia during and after the Great Depression.

Boner says that he was taken by the song right away, as it was the story of his own family, in which his dad moved to New Jersey while his grandfather stayed behind in West Virginia during this period in the first half of the 20th century.

“I’ve never had a song resonate so strongly with me. It was as if Terry and Tim somehow looked into a window of my father’s life and wrote what they saw. This is the most meaningful song I’ve ever recorded or performed.”

It starts with Dan on triple fiddles, supported by Will Parsons on banjo, Jason Crawford on mandolin, Daniel Salyer on guitar, and David Babb on bass. Sally Berry and Salyer provide the harmony vocals.

Dan also created this explanatory video as an accompaniment to the single release. In it he and his father travel back to the old family homeplace to learn more about the place they had left behind. It really gives meat to the story related in the song to hear Boner’s grandfather explain what life was like in the mines.

West Of West Virginia is available now to radio broadcasters via AirPlay Direct, and will be offered for download purchase starting on November 8.

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About the Author

John Lawless

John had served as primary author and editor for The Bluegrass Blog from its launch in 2006 until being folded into Bluegrass Today in September of 2011. He continues in that capacity here, managing a strong team of columnists and correspondents.