This week on Inside Appalachia, we visit with Jerry Machen of Kingsport, Tennessee. When he first started making art from old carpets, his wife Linda wasn’t impressed. We also meet the devoted family and friends of Cuz’s Uptown Barbeque, who rallied behind the acclaimed Appalachian restaurant during a hard time. And, it used to be that every grocery store had a trained butcher behind the counter. But that’s not the case so much today. So the owner of a Charleston abattre had an idea.
Artists have come from the West, South, and East to make this week’s Finally Friday possible. We’ve set up a particularly interesting trio of musical concepts as we feature the hard swinging cowboy country of Wylie Gustafson, the blues-drenched slide guitar of Jeff Plankenhorn, and thoughtful commentary on Appalachia from native son Erik Vincent Huey.
Family recipes are a way to connect generations, but what happens when you’ve got grandma’s recipe, and it doesn’t have exact measurements? We also talk with Ohio poet laureate Kari Gunter-Seymour about Appalachia, poems and getting published. And we revisit a story about an attraction at the confluence of the New and Gauley rivers and the man who put it there.