It's giving me a lot of patience and tolerance." "But with this process I'm doing a lot of waiting. If I want to do something, I do it right then and there," Lore says. "That's something I've never had is patience. Lore has spent a lot of time working in construction, but he says he had never considered building an instrument before. He enrolled in the apprenticeship after being admitted to the local drug rehabilitation center. One student named Shane Lore is staining the fretboard of his mandolin. So, I've got a connection to that and I think it's a great thing to give them a second chance at life," Williams says. "I lost two brothers myself to opioid addiction. He says teaching people in recovery is personal for him. He wears suspenders and has a full-faced white beard and rosy cheeks. Teacher Paul Williams helps them build guitars, dulcimers and mandolins. The walls are lined with music festival posters and beautiful stringed instruments worth thousands of dollars sit in stands.Ī group is working on their instruments today. There are two rows of worktables, with machines in the back. Inside the school there are tall shelves filled with planks of wood. And he was kind of biting his lip and he looked up at me and I thought, 'What did you do? Did you hurt yourself?' And he smiled and said, 'I can't believe it I'm making something.' " "Old Ricky was tapping in the frets on the finger board, tap, tap, tapping away. Naselroad tells the story of Ricky, a student in recovery who was making a ukulele: So far, about 40 people have been through the Culture of Recovery program. The mountain dulcimer, often heard in old-time Appalachian music, is thought to have originated there in the mid-1800s. Old time mountain music has long been played in the hills of Knott County, but there is a history of instrument building too. The Culture of Recovery program is helping the town of Hindman rebuild its identity on the backbone of its musical heritage. The apprenticeship through the luthiery school is one of the more popular choices. It is a holistic approach that offers either entrepreneurial or arts and crafts apprenticeship classes to people enrolled in the local drug court and addiction rehabilitation center. "Literally everybody and their brother has been hit hard by this situation."īecause of this, Naselroad helped start a program two years ago called Culture of Recovery. "The opioid epidemic has absolutely ravaged this community," Naselroad says. In Knott County, the drug overdose and mortality rates are more than double that of the nation's and are even higher than the average within the state. Most of the group are in recovery from drug addiction, which is common in this part of the state.Įastern Kentucky has been one of the regions hardest hit by both a dying coal industry and the opioid crisis. On this night, Naselroad coaxes several nervous musicians on stage, encouraging them to play songs they had written. He is from Kentucky, and in his work he has built guitars for country musicians like John Prine and Lyle Lovett and actress Jamie Lee Curtis. Naselroad has a head full of salt and pepper loose curls, with a matching mustache and a bushy goatee. "Now I know some of you guys have come down to play." "Who wants to come up? Come on it's just a microphone - it doesn't bite," he says. It is essentially a recorded open mic hosted once a month by Doug Naselroad, the founder of the program and the master luthier, someone who makes instruments like guitars and banjos. On a summer night, musicians warm up for the Knott County Downtown Radio Hour. Now that school is playing a role in helping the local community overcome drug addiction. Today, one of the few businesses still open in the town is the Appalachian School of Luthiery, which teaches people how to build wooden stringed instruments. People have been playing music together in the small Appalachian town of Hindman, Ky., since it was founded in the late 1800s.
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