"A moving and well-done musical concoction that successfully bottles the verbal rage against the machines gobbling up Appalachia's mountaintops in search of coal." - Herald-Dispatch, Huntington WV
Falling Mountain is proud to release this important collection dedicated to raising awareness about the devastation of mountains and communities in southern and central Appalachia by mountaintop removal (MTR) coal mining. Besides the music of various artists, Moving Mountains includes interviews with local residents and activists who put a human face on the devastation of MTR. Falling Mountain's own Andrew McKnight and Keith & Joan Pitzer are among the compilation's contributing artists, who also include songwriter and occasional West Virginia Public Radio host Kate Long, guitarist and songwriter Mike Morningstar, Appalachian Voices Executive Director Mary Anne Hitt, and venerable fiddler Vasser Clements.
A growing coal industry practice in the remote hills and hollows of West Virginia, Kentucky and southwest Virginia, MTR permanently destroys mountains, river and stream valleys, and small communities in mined areas. Entire mountaintops and ridgelines are literally sliced off to allow easy access to the underlying coal seam. The resulting "overburden," consisting of dirt, topsoil, vegetation, rocks and destroyed trees, is then dumped into the valleys and streams nearby. These "valley fills" have buried forever nearly 1,000 miles of rivers and streams in West Virginia alone. As a result, catastrophic flooding has become all too familiar downstream of mined areas. Local people have led the long and difficult battle in the courts and the media against large corporations and mining organizations in a state desperate to maintain its resource extraction economy. One of those citizen activists, housewife, mother, and coal miner's daughter Julia "Judy" Bonds has led the efforts to stop MTR in southern West Virginia where her family has lived for generations; she was awarded the prestigious 2003 Goldman Environmental Prize for her tireless efforts to save her community and others.
Moving Mountains was compiled by lifelong musician and activist Jen Osha, who first heard coalfield residents speak about the impact of MTR in their communities during her graduate work in Forestry at Yale. A Mountain State resident, she has devoted much of her time to harnessing the healing and storytelling power of music to help hardhit coalfield communities end the legal practice of MTR. Says Jen: "My family is very proud of its mining heritage. The men in my family have been miners back through to the early 1800s when my ancestors came from Germany. I am the first generation to be raised outside of the coalfields."
