Hello, friends and neighbors. Lately I've been wondering about something. It seems that, both presently and many years ago, musicians in rural America, particular Appalachia, have something of a bad reputation. There are many examples. Dock Boggs' wife was against him playing music for a living (possibly at all). My grandfather told me that the "old timers" used to say that if you see a man going down the road with a guitar on their back or a rooster under their arm, that person will never amount to anything. And of course, there are some people who believe that banjo playing and dancing are downright satanic. I still know people who believe that any kind of music that isn't gospel (and a very specific kind, at that) is wrong.

So I was just wondering what people's thoughts on this would be. Why the attitude came about, how it evolved over the years, etc. Personally I think it'd be more prevalent in areas where there are a lot of churches that don't allow music in the service, but that's just speculation.