Welcome to the myspace page for our new benefit CD!  We are happy to announce that we have contributions from Kathy Mattea, Appalachia Rising, Great American Taxi, the Lonetones, Ben Gilmer, and more.  We're shooting for a June 2009 release under Falling Mountain Music.  We're still fishing around for a good title, so for now, we're calling it Moving Mountains II.  If you have any ideas, please comment. 

We are adding a few innovations to our new benefit CD.  In addition to the CD itself, we are also creating an online multimedia companion to the CD.  The website will have maps of Coal River Valley (in southern WV), photographs, video, additional songs and interviews, and lesson plans for educators who want to use the music and multimedia in class to make things more interesting.  The website is still a work in progress, but you can see our prototype version at www.auroralights.org.

Our first CD, Moving Mountains: Voices of Appalachia Rise Up Against Mountaintop Removal, was released pro-bono in 2004 by Falling Mountain Music (www.fallingmountain.com).  In addition to becoming the label's fasting selling CD, it also inspired the creation of the program "Making Music Matter," which donates $1 from every CD sale to a local non-profit.  Most importantly, the Moving Mountains CD resulted in the contribution of $6,550.00 in direct grants and $568.00 to pay for gas and food to transport students to the coalfields and see MTR firsthand.  The messages contained in the interviews and music also reached out across the country and were played on numerous radio stations.