Rising Appalachia is an American musical group led by multi-instrumentalist sisters Leah and Chloe Smith. Leah also performs as a solo artist under the name Leah Song. Based between Southern Appalachia and New Orleans, the sisters work with an array of international musicians and the band incorporates everything from simple harmonics with banjos and fiddles, to a wide variety of drums, kalimbas, beatbox, djembe, baliphone, congas, didgeridoo, tablas, spoons and washboard creating a full mix of world, folk and soul music.

History

In 2005, sisters Leah and Chloe Smith, decided one afternoon to record their first album, Leah and Chloe, in the basement studio of a friend in downtown Atlanta, Georgia. The album was meant as a gift for family and friends but they received so much support and recognition for it that they decided to officially start a band called Rising Appalachia.

In the early days, the sisters busked, in the French Quarter of New Orleans and elsewhere. They began to find their own natural interpretation of Appalachian music which brought together folk, soul, hip-hop, classical, southern gospel and other styles based on their upbringing on traditional Appalachian string band music, as well as on their exposure to urban music like hip-hop and jazz and the influence of roots music of all kinds which they experienced during their worldwide travels. They released their second album, Scale Down in 2007.

Appalachia (/ˌæpəˈlætʃə/ or /ˈæpəˈleɪtʃə/) is a cultural region in the Eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York to northern Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Canada to Cheaha Mountain in Alabama, the cultural region of Appalachia typically refers only to the central and southern portions of the range. As of the 2010 census, the region was home to approximately 25 million people, containing the major cities of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Knoxville, Tennessee; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Birmingham, Alabama; and Asheville, North Carolina.

Since its recognition as a distinctive region in the late 19th century, Appalachia has been a source of enduring myths and distortions regarding the isolation, temperament, and behavior of its inhabitants. Early 20th century writers often engaged in yellow journalism focused on sensationalistic aspects of the region's culture, such as moonshining and clan feuding, and often portrayed the region's inhabitants as uneducated and prone to impulsive acts of violence. Sociological studies in the 1960s and 1970s helped to re-examine and dispel these stereotypes.

In the Mesozoic Era (252 to 66 million years ago) Appalachia, named for the Appalachian Mountains, was an island land mass separated from Laramidia to the west by the Western Interior Seaway. The seaway eventually shrank, divided across the Dakotas, and retreated towards the Gulf of Mexico and the Hudson Bay. This left the island masses joined in the continent of North America as the Rocky Mountains rose.

Fauna

Dinosaurs

From the Turonian age of the Late Cretaceous to the very beginning of the Paleocene, Appalachia was separated from the rest of North America. Because of this, its fauna was isolated, and developed very differently from the tyrannosaur, ceratopsian and ankylosaur dominated fauna of the western part of North America, the geologist's "Laramidia". Due to numerous undiscovered fossiliferous deposits and due the fact that half of Appalachia's fossil formations being destroyed by the Pleistocene ice age, little is known about Appalachia, with exception of plant life. In addition, due to a lack of interest in Appalachia, many fossils that have been found in Appalachia lie unstudied and remain in the inaccurate genera to which they were assigned in the days of E.D. Cope and O.C. Marsh. Many of the various fossil formations not destroyed by the Pleistocene ice age still remain elusive to the field of paleontological study. However, some fossil sites, such as Ellisdale in New Jersey and the Demopolis Chalk Formation in Alabama, have given us a glimpse into this forgotten world of paleontology.

Appalachia or Appalachian can refer to:

See also