"Gastonia Gallop" - Cotton Mill Songs (1927-1931)

This unique recording is the real deal; 24 songs recorded by local Cotton Mill bands during the years 1927-1931. The town of Gastonia is about 20 miles from my home and I have even driven past the old mill shown on the cover many times. At one time Gastonia was amongst the leading cotton mill towns in North Carolina. The Great Depression, as well as the increasing demands of the Unions, both combined to shut most of these mills down. When "Globalization" and "outsourcing" began in the 1980"s, it spelled the end of these mills. But what a rich history they leave behind in terms of music and storytelling!

Cotton mill workers were pretty much the victims of greedy bosses and a lack of labor laws during their time. They worked 12 hour shifts, 6 days a week, with no protection from the fibers as they spun the threads to make the clothes that were sold worldwide. The irony of it all was that, even in the heady days before the Great Depression struck, these same workers were wandering about in near rags, never making enough to buy the clothes made from the threads they spun. But they survived, in their own fashion, through song, sex and liquor. Even with the country in the grips of that great experiment, Prohibition, the supply of local "hootch" made Saturday night dances, often called "socials", the most attractive, and affordable means of entertainment.

These men and women, pictured here marching on Main Street in Gastonia during a strike on Labor Day 1934, were the backbone of the industry. They were also the ones singing these songs, and living the life described in them. From the opening number by The Carolina Twins doing an instrumental number on harmonica and guitar, to the more risqué "Get Your Head in Here", which describes some of the Saturday night pleasures available in a mill town, this album teems with the real life experiences of these men, women and children who labored so hard and long for so little.

Some of the songs are Union oriented, as in Wilmer Watts and The Lonely Eagles number "Been On the Job Too Long", as well as the "Cotton Mill Colic" by David McCarn, which describes the hardships faced by the average Cotton Mill worker.

The mills may be long gone, but the music, and stories, left behind by these hardworking men and women will live forever thanks to these recordings, which were restored and re-released in 2009.

There is an empty feeling in the air when you walk down the Main Street of an old mill town. They used to connect one town to another, but now have all been supplanted by the Interstates, which took most of the businesses to the freeway exits, leaving the Main Streets to become ghost towns. But when walking past the mill, if you lean your head just right, you can hear the spindles and looms humming away. And if you're really lucky, you can still hear the strains of the songs sung on Saturday nights at the socials.

Linthead by Wilt Browning

I moved to North Carolina 11 years ago. I had never seen a "Mill Town" before. I had been to some coal towns in the Appalachians when I was a kid with my parents. They took us to see a company coal town in 1964 around the time Lyndon Johnson was cranking out his "War Against Poverty." We went home greatly appreciative of all that we had.

Time, though, has a way of erasing and replacing the bad memories with Nostalgia.

I have seen many of the former mill towns here in North Carolina, most notably Mooresville, which was a bustling place through the early 1960's. It was a mill town, a railroad town and a farming community. All of that changed when Lake Norman was built and the Interstate came through several miles to the West about 45 years ago.

But I have walked the streets of, and worked in Mooresville for a good portion of my time here and always wondered what it was like in its' prime. "Linthead" gives me some answers.

In less than 200 pages Mr. Browning has painted a wonderful, sepia tinged potrait of the mill town of Easley, South Carolina in the 1940's and 50's. His was the last generation of true "lintheads". Lintheads were the people who worked in the mills. The carpenters, loom hands and spinners all came home each day covered in the white lint of the mill.

This was a time of Company Stores, scrip instead of cash, hog boiling time and baseball. It was also the generation that would witness the demise all these things as they were replaced by Unions,cash,chain stores and the general breaking down of the old order.

This is an unusual book written by a man who escaped working in the mills (he became a sports writer) but is clearly proud of the simple way of life which he once knew.I think that is the charm of this book- we all want to go home again- but can't. The way is filled with memories, some good and some bad. The past ways are harder to live with as we age. We have all become a bit softer, yet we want to go back to the struggles of our earlier years.

We can't and so Nostalgia is the next best thing.