Two Odes to Disaster
Recently while thumbing through a stack of records in our apartment, I came across this tucked away and mistakenly forgotten 7″ 45 by Cora Lee McCoy and Sharon Lynn McCoy. I think we procured this record about 5 years ago in a thrift store in Madera, CA. We’ve never heard anything like it. Ms. McCoy intones her narrative in rhythmic, rhyming cadence, accompanied on piano by the other Ms. McCoy, playing melody with her right hand, and one note, drone-like bass with her left. And, while the two events recounted here (the Buffalo Creek Disaster and the Prestonsburg School Bus Wreck) seem to serve simply as preambles to sermons about putting one’s faith in the Lord, Ms. McCoy’s descriptions of the disasters are full of morbid curiosity, and fascinating because of it.
If you yourself are curious, morbidly or otherwise, you may wish to read about Buffalo Creek on the West Virginia Division of Culture and History’s website. There is also a book by Gerald M. Stern on a lawsuit pursued against the mining company whose negligence apparently caused the disaster. As for the Prestonsburg School Bus Wreck, aka the Big Sandy Bus Accident of 1958, there is plenty of stuff. Here’s something from the Kentucky National Guard eMuseum, and something else from rootsweb. Here’s a great blogpost featuring more music about the Wreck, here’s a feature film, and here, even, is a Prestonsburg School Bus Wreck ”haunt.”
We’re guessing the date of this recording is the mid-to-late 1970s. We’re also making a guess this is Cora Lee McCoy’s find-a-grave page.
Here are the songs (listening works best with Chrome or Safari):
You come up with some pretty amazing stuff, and you don’t even need to leave your apartment to find it. That lady sounds just like all my relatives, at least the older ones. The only other place people sound like that is in West Virginia. My aunt told me about the school bus accident many years ago, and more recently her granddaughter sent me the link to the web site for the documentary. It hadn’t been released yet, so I forgot about it. It’s nice to know I can get it now. You definitely are the go-to person to find out what’s happening in Floyd County.
I would like to share this recording with my cousin, but she seems only to communicate through FaceBook. I’m sure there is a way of sending this to her, but I haven’t the vaguest idea how to do it. Clearly you are a FaceBook expert, so I’m hoping you know how to do this in your sleep and can save me needing to figure it out. She will absolutely love it.
Time for lunch soon. I will work up some dates.
Thanks, Greg