It's a question which is at the heart of everything we do on Southern Songs and Stories, and we always pose it to artists and bands: How does your music speak to the South, and how does the South reflect itself in your music? It can go as broadly as a 'who are we and how did we get here?' exercise in philosophy and history, on down to the more anecdotal and local 'what foods do you miss the most when you're touring far away?' variety of queries.

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A map of the Southern Section of the United States including Florida from 1816. They didn't want to count Florida all that much it seems.

With our latest podcast, we break from the deep dives into artists and bands that we have been doing for the last several episodes to pose this question to some of our favorite music professionals: Laura Boosinger, Daniel Coston, Ty Gilpin, Kim Ruehl, Stu Vincent and Garret Woodward. Their answers are thought provoking, and reveal a good bit of the unique nature of Southern music and culture, highlighting how it evolved and continues to change and expand into the larger world. 

This is part one of a two part episode, where we focus on origins and feature more of the roots end of the Southern music spectrum. Part two will continue forward in time and touch on the grittier side of the Southland as well as how music acts as a unifying element, and look at where these intersections of culture and music have been in the more recent era as well as where they may be in the near future.

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