Sodom Laurel Album / Edition 1

by Rob Amberg

Overview

When photographer Rob Amberg first met Dellie Norton and her adopted son, Junior, in 1975, Norton was seventy-six years old and had lived most of her life in the small mountain community of Sodom Laurel, North Carolina, surrounded by close kin, tobacco fields, and the rugged wilderness of the southern Appalachians. Sodom Laurel Album traces the growing relationship between Norton and Amberg across the next two decades, years marked by the seasons of raising and harvesting food and tobacco and by the gatherings of family and friends for conversation, storytelling, and music.

Richly evocative images are interlaced with stories of the people of Sodom Laurel and with Amberg's own candid journals, which reveal his gradually growing understanding of this world he entered as a stranger. The book also includes a CD featuring Dellie Norton, Doug Wallin, and other singers of traditional Appalachian music. Through words, photographs, oral histories, and songs, Sodom Laurel Album tells the moving story of a once-isolated community on the brink of change, the people who live there, and the music that binds them together.

Sodom Laurel Album is the companion publication to a traveling exhibition that will open at the Asheville Art Museum in November 2002.

This project received support from the North Carolina Arts Council, an agency funded by the State of North Carolina and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807827420
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	11/04/2002
Series:	Lyndhurst Books
Edition description:	Accompanied by a music CD
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Rob Amberg is an award-winning photographer and writer who does assignment work for nonprofit organizations, foundations, and publications. He lives in Madison County, North Carolina. Dellie Chandler Norton (1898-1993) was a much-loved storyteller and ballad singer whose songs were recorded by Alan Lomax and John Cohen. In 1990, she received a North Carolina Folk Heritage Award.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Rob Amberg's images have the same durability and tenacity as the lives they depict. He is trusted well enough to be there, up close, when the women embrace in affection or when the farmer pauses in the heat. And Amberg does not betray that trust. What we see is sympathetic, not sentimental, simple but not facile. Amberg makes real what is found on the pages of the Southern novel."—Sally Mann

These photographs are suffused with a lyrical sense of beauty, rhythm, and the dignity of light. You come away with a deep understanding of the hardships and glories that made up Dellie Norton's life, her community, and her adventures in this world. Amberg's photographs of Junior transcend the document, even go beyond everyday life, and arrive at a new visionary depiction of the shared experience of being human.—John Cohen

Rob Amberg captures the daily life of this community faithfully, scrupulously, beautifully. This book is not only a priceless record of a vanishing way of life; it's a work of art. It deserves every prize out there."—Lee Smith

These photographs and texts haunt like the ballads Dellie Norton sang, and they startle with paradox, unexpected detail. Rob Amberg's pictures bring to life a world almost gone, and yet intimately connected to the present. He gives us a window on the families and lands of Sodom Laurel, far above the cities of the plain, and close as your pulsebeat."—Robert Morgan

In this magnificent ensemble of images and voices, Amberg always sees rightly and pitilessly. He lays before us a vista of place and people, not just to delight the eye but to invite praise. A luminous spirit of uncommon folk at labor, play, music-making, and love envelopes this beautiful work in an aura of strangeness."—Alan Trachtenberg

Rob Amberg has rendered exquisite portraits of Americans rarely seen, bent to their tasks in barns and tobacco fields, or singing on their porches in brief respites from their hard lives. If not for him, their stories might pass into the dust of memory. But thanks to him, they live on in these pages, and tell their stories, and their existence on this earth is given dignity and meaning and reverence."—Larry Brown

This story is not always a pretty one—it has its share of pain and conflict—but it captures the full dimensions of life in Sodom Laurel, and by doing so, it reminds us of the warmth, strength, and compassion that also marked the lives of the people who lived there. This book reminds us of the dignity and nobility that lie in ordinary places and ordinary people, without a trace of condescension."—Bill Malone

Editorial Reviews

[Amberg's] subjects are worn with the hard work of planting and harvesting tobacco, yet this book celebrates a way of life maintained through generations by the spirit of family and community, story and song. . . . Includes a memorable CD of Dellie Norton and others singing traditional, yet still vital, Appalachian music. This fine work should be included in all social history or regional studies collections and in large public collections."—Library Journal

Amberg's beautiful yet stark and unassuming b&w photos form the book's core. . . . The photos are accompanied by transcribed narratives . . . Most are grim yet immediate and compelling. . . . An exemplary example of regional documentary, the project exhibits care and concern throughout, and will draw in outsiders from any locale."—Publishers Weekly

Although books of photographs should mostly stand solely on the merits of the imagery with few, if any, words, even Rob Amberg's personal journal is unobtrusive, adding an additional level of depth to a document already deeply rich. . . . The photographs, in conjunction with the CD, weave a rich tapestry that warmly embraces you."—Journal of Appalachian Studies

A stunning achievement from top to bottom."—Southern Cultures

A flowing record of candid recollections by Amberg, Norton and her family interwoven with intimate photographs shot over two decades."—Carolina Country

Amberg has skillfully crafted the profound narrative of a community, a family, and most exquisitely, a woman constantly on the brink of change. . . . [He] has assimilated meaning into image and supported those images with the stories, interviews, and music that bind the community of Sodom Laurel together." —Appalachian Life

If we want to record the lives of the most rural mountain people, we want someone like Amberg to do it. . . . The pictures and stories illustrate [a] subtle, inevitable progression. Amberg has made a good record."—Now & Then

Readers in search of a unique and richly textured experience will appreciate the opportunity to hear [Norton's] voice—unapologetic and raw, interpreting traditional Appalachian ballads. Amberg's time spent with Norton, Junior, and the Sodom Laurel Community results in a compelling portrait of a family bound by place and united by the past."—Our State

This is the real thing! Wonderful photos, narrative, and interviews take you deep into the lives and times of the folks of Sodom Laurel. And the singing! The powerful unaccompanied singing tradition, the likes of which you rarely hear anymore, flows from the old people of Sodom Laurel like a deep mountain spring."—Alice Gerrard, Old-Time Herald

We have Rob Amberg's beautiful and respectful photos, stories, and recorded interviews and performances to thank for preserving these real 'songcatchers' and their rich and essential history for a whole new generation."—Mark D. Moss, Sing Out!

From the Publisher

Rob Amberg captures the daily life of this community faithfully, scrupulously, beautifully. This book is not only a priceless record of a vanishing way of life; it's a work of art. It deserves every prize out there.

Lee Smith

These photographs and texts haunt like the ballads Dellie Norton sang, and they startle with paradox, unexpected detail. Rob Amberg's pictures bring to life a world almost gone, and yet intimately connected to the present. He gives us a window on the families and lands of Sodom Laurel, far above the cities of the plain, and close as your pulsebeat.

Robert Morgan

Rob Amberg's images have the same durability and tenacity as the lives they depict. He is trusted well enough to be there, up close, when the women embrace in affection or when the farmer pauses in the heat. And Amberg does not betray that trust. What we see is sympathetic, not sentimental, simple but not facile. Amberg makes real what is found on the pages of the Southern novel.

Sally Mann

Rob Amberg has rendered exquisite portraits of Americans rarely seen, bent to their tasks in barns and tobacco fields, or singing on their porches in brief respites from their hard lives. If not for him, their stories might pass into the dust of memory. But thanks to him, they live on in these pages, and tell their stories, and their existence on this earth is given dignity and meaning and reverence.

Larry Brown

These photographs are suffused with a lyrical sense of beauty, rhythm, and the dignity of light. You come away with a deep understanding of the hardships and glories that made up Dellie Norton's life, her community, and her adventures in this world. Amberg's photographs of Junior transcend the document, even go beyond everyday life, and arrive at a new visionary depiction of the shared experience of being human.

John Cohen

This story is not always a pretty one—it has its share of pain and conflict—but it captures the full dimensions of life in Sodom Laurel, and by doing so, it reminds us of the warmth, strength, and compassion that also marked the lives of the people who lived there. This book reminds us of the dignity and nobility that lie in ordinary places and ordinary people, without a trace of condescension.

Bill Malone

"Sodom" or "Sodom Laurel" is the town nickname of Revere, North Carolina, an isolated community of hill-country tobacco farmers, apparently so-named by a preacher who came upon early encampments of loggers in the area. Photographer and folklorist Amberg focuses on a single member of the community, the musician and storyteller Dellie Chandler Norton (1898-1993), whom he first met in 1975. He chronicles his own experiences with Norton, her adopted son Junior, and other members of the family, and with the difficulties of independent tobacco farming. Amberg's beautiful yet stark and unassuming b&w photos form the book's core: hill roads; huge tobacco leaves growing, being harvested (usually now by Mexican laborers) and hanging to dry in sheds; Dellie Norton performing at gatherings or presiding over her porch; Junior's bizarre changes of clothing and demeanor to suit various occasions and community negotiations; the stark interiors of various dwellings. The photos are accompanied by transcribed narratives by Norton, Junior, and others, and by Amberg's own observations; most are grim yet immediate and compelling. A 20-track CD with more than an hour of hill country music by Norton and others rounds things out. An exemplary example of regional documentary, the project exhibits care and concern throughout, and will draw in outsiders from any locale, particularly anyone who loves Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly

In 1975, writer and photographer Amberg met Dellie Norton and her adopted son, Junior, and through them became intimate with their rural North Carolina community, known colloquially as Sodom Laurel. Dellie, then 76 years old, was a well-known storyteller and folk singer in southern Appalachia. This book is a chronicle, in words and photographs, of the two decades in which Amberg became part of the community. Much of the text is in the style of oral history, with excerpts from the author's journal giving further insight into his relationship to the people and place. His subjects are worn with the hard work of planting and harvesting tobacco, yet this book celebrates a way of life maintained through generations by the spirit of family and community, story and song. Published to accompany a traveling exhibition that opened at the Asheville Art Museum in 2002, the work includes a memorable CD of Dellie Norton and others singing traditional, yet still vital, Appalachian music. This fine work should be included in all social history or regional studies collections and in large public collections.-Paula Frosch, Metropolitan Museum of Art Lib., NY Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal