Whitney Kimball Coe: 

Welcome back to Everywhere Radio. I’m your host, Whitney Kimball Coe. And I’m excited to bring you this conversation with Ohio musician and humanitarian, Brett Hill. Hill recently returned from Eastern Ukraine delivering donations of medical supplies and performing for Ukrainian troops fighting on the front lines as part of the From Ohio with Love Campaign, which he co-founded with colleague Benya Stewart within the first week of the full scale invasion in February 2022. 

To date, From Ohio with Love has raised over $86,000 for Ukrainian causes, primarily through folk concerts in Ohio. Funds raised support the hand delivery of CAT Tourniquets and Advanced Bleed Control kits to mobilized units across Ukraine. Brett is a folk musician, singer and songwriter. He’s also known as Brother Hill when he performs as front man in the Appalachian folk Quintet Hill Spirits. And also is American representative of the Ukrainian Belarusian American Folk Project Slavalachia, which has allied representatives of Slavic and American folk traditions together since 2019 to promote cultural solidarity and forged new bridges for creative cultural expression.  

Brett, you are all over the map. Thank you so much for being here with us today. It sounds like your world is so big and busy. 

Brett Hil: 

I appreciate it. It’s a blessing to have some good folks across Appalachia to chat about good initiatives with. It’s what I tried to build my life around the last few years, and just finding the right people to do the right work with. So it’s a pleasure to meet you and chat with you. 

Whitney Kimball Coe: 

Likewise. Well, I want to talk about all of those things, your humanitarian efforts in Ukraine, your music, your background. So I wanted to start our conversation by asking about the From Ohio with Love campaign that you co-founded with Benya Stewart. I wanted you to draw the lines of connection for me between your music and the front lines of the war in Ukraine. How do those things come together? 

Brett Hil: 

I guess the most direct connection from the music to the front lines, is the fact that I do have a band mate in Slavalachia who is out fighting on the front lines right now, one of our Ukrainian counterparts. So that was pretty direct. That wasn’t immediate once the war began, but Fiat Halas, if you see this, brother, love you, man, I’m thinking about you. And we had begun playing music with Ukrainians back… we’d begun contact in 2019 and then went to Ukraine for the first time in January, 2020, as well as Belarus on that trip. And that was kind of where the seeds were planted of this folk alliance, as we call it, that is Slavalachia. And so we had been doing this cultural bridge building for two and a half years before the invasion. 

And then once the invasion hit, it was obvious that we had a platform with which we could support brave defenders of Ukrainian sovereignty, which we believe in. I mean, every time we traveled in the country, there’s been a war going on. A lot of people don’t remember or recognize that this war has been going on since 2014, since the Maidan Revolution and the annexation of Crimea. And so, I mean, every time we’ve traveled in Ukraine, there’s been an active war going on in the east of the country. I mean, even a year ago, it was only maybe one week to 10 days before the invasion that I, or I feel like my Ukrainian counterparts really recognized that this was actually going to happen. 

And so to the front lines, was eventually very obvious where we could send some Ohio Love from this fundraising campaign. And all of this fundraising has been primarily done through folk concerts. That’s what we have to offer. It’s what I do, I’m a folk musician, and this is sort of the platform with which we’ve been able to represent Ukrainian cultural identity to our constituents in Ohio. So it just all fits together, goes hand in hand. It makes sense. 

Whitney Kimball Coe: 

You and I have had a conversation before, and I remember you talking about… or were you bringing up the concept of solidarity? And the solidarity that you feel with your brethren in Ukraine, and also across the spectrum of music. How connected the folk traditions and music folk traditions actually are from all the way from Appalachia to Ukraine. I wanted to ask you to go a little deeper with me on the idea of solidarity. What does it look like? What does it feel like? What does it sound like to you in this moment and through the From Ohio with Love Campaign? 

Brett Hil: 

Well, this whole Slavalachia logic concept and idea is based on the support of each other’s cultural traditions from the grassroots between Belarusians, Ukrainians and Appalachian Americans. We are all in various stages of our cultural health, you might say, and the health and capability of our culture is to proliferate. And unexpectedly, I think maybe one of the biggest unexpected results of the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine has been, maybe… I don’t even know if it’s maybe anymore. It’s pretty much affirmatively, the largest and greatest boon to Ukrainian folk tradition and culture there’s ever been. 

The expectation was to disseminate this nation by bathing it in fire and hoping it would fall apart. And instead they forged it into the strongest steel they ever could have made. And it’s like fortified the stronger, more unified cultural identity. And obviously the concept of cultural identity and cultural identification has been kind of rife with some… maybe, I don’t want to say controversy over the years, that can have different implications for sort of things like nationalism and whatnot. 

But to me, our culture begins at the grassroots with folk music. And as a folk musician, I have to recognize that it’s really important to uphold and honor culture where it exists and recognize the capacity for our cultures to grow. And so I suppose something like a folk alliance in its best sense is going t be like, “You are going about your work of cultural preservation. This is what we’re doing here as well. How can we help each other do that? How can we ally together?” Not to take anything away from each other, but only to improve and strengthen each other. So I mean, the concept of solidarity is just woven right into that when you’re talking about support for each other, from the grassroots, from who you are. 

And that’s the work we’ve been doing for years now through music and cultural support. And then when you come into a time of war where one of those allies then goes to war with a neighbor. Or I should say war is brought to one of your allies from a neighbor is the more appropriate way to phrase that, then you got to show up however you can, because this is a genocidal war. There is a very large aspect to this war that is to exterminate a culture and a cultural identity that is a threat to Russian narrative. And it’s something we just have to constantly and actively recognize is that this is a war against a people and against a culture to exterminate their identity. 

And so we have to do everything we can to continuously bolster, support and uplift this idea of Ukrainian cultural sovereignty.  

Whitney Kimball Coe: 

Thank you. Thank you. So the From Ohio with Love Campaign has raised more than $86,000 to date, I imagine, and it’s primarily through your folk concerts in Ohio. And I wonder how are you that bridge to Ohioans and helping usher them into this notion of solidarity and connection to folks in Ukraine? What are your concerts look like and how do you share that message to galvanize such support? 

Slavalachia had been something in our community consciousness, I think. So to our southern Ohio community, this idea of a project supporting Slavalachia and Appalachian cultural alliance was kind of in people’s minds. And so there was naturally, I think, a sort of expectation from a lot of people in our communities that they could look to us for some kind of answer for what might be done in a time like this. 

And so that was already kind of ingrained in our communities, fortunately through the work we’ve been doing, which I feel really blessed by. I mean, I’ve always felt blessed to be affiliated with these incredible cultures. Having no Slavic group myself, having five generations of Appalachia behind me just spreading into the hills like fungus. And I mean, before that there’s just myths of where we might have come from. So all said, that’s kind of been- 

Whitney Kimball Coe: 

Yeah. So it was already baked in. 

Brett Hil: 

Yeah. Yeah. It was already baked into the community, this capability to respond in a kind of unique way, in a direct way. And so these shows have been a way to both teach people some small things about Ukrainian folk tradition. Things just as simple as the cheers or the ‘Slava Ukraini’ [Glory to Ukraine], the kind of motto, the rallying cry of Ukraine these days. And just be able to sing people some traditional Ukrainian folk material, and then show some of the Appalachian material that we’ve taken to Ukraine to support over the years. 

And just have these shows where it’s opening up this capability for people to really sink their hands into something real that’s directly tied to Ukraine in a unique way and has this capacity for direct support.  

I mean, there was quite a lot of funds raised right at the tail end in October before we left for the frontline, specifically for things like bags in our transit. Because Benny and I ended up buying a car in Warsaw to deliver these supplies in. And last time we went and we split the cost of this car with UA First Aid, the organization there that we collaborate with. 

And then we filled that car up with all these supplies, and we drove it all the way to Bakhmut, out to the front lines because there was a regiment there, the 93rd Battalion Kholodnyi Yar that was in need of another vehicle, as many frontline regiments are. So fundraising efforts like that right before we left, enabled the capacity to get on the ground and do something really effective and good with that and very direct immediately. And so this shows have many ways to support, but at the same time, they’re also ways of just keeping our community involved and informed and just actively recognizing this is still an active thing that they have to be considering if this is a cause they want to support. 

Whitney Kimball Coe: 

Yeah. What was it like to deliver these needed items to the front lines? Did you say the 93rd? 

Brett Hil: 

The experience was… I almost say intense, but I kind of hesitate to, because I mean, it was intense and especially looking back on it as intense to consider like, “Wow, that was a lot.” But I mean, I kind of learned during that experience that in a time of great stress where you’re actively hearing artillery fire and sometimes feeling a kind of tremor in the earth and seeing bombed-out, wrecked-out buildings that have been in a war zone for the better part of a year. Sounds very stressful. 

And it is to a certain degree. But I think when you get into an environment like that, there’s a certain… I’ll just speak for myself. My mind tends to not shut down, but focus really tightly on like, “Okay, what am I doing right now? What do I need to do? Where do I need to be? Do I need to be present?Yes, I do. So I’m going to be right here.” And I’m not really thinking about the rest of that. I’m not thinking about, “Gosh, I hope I get to see my family again.” Or I’m not thinking about anything like that. I’m thinking about where am I at right now and what do I have to do right here? 

And so for us, that was, get this car, get these supplies to the boys and get out into the polygon as they call it. I mean, we rolled up into a training pit. It looked like a big dugout pit with all these mounds and a hill that you could run a firing line against for target practice. And when we rolled up, they were in a troop carrier practicing loading and unloading out of this troop carrier in formation. I mean, they were in full out, full on mode preparing to go up about two kilometers away to fight in the trenches within the next few days. 

So I mean, my question to our colleagues and associates. And UA First Aid has only been mentioned in passing, but this is who we collaborate through. These are friends of ours that were Ukrainian students at Ohio University that returned to Ukraine within the first week of the war to begin running supply efforts to coordinate delivery of supplies to various battalions and units out on the front that were in need of assistance in multiple ways. A beautiful thing about Ukrainian civil society, they can really support each other. So when we collaborated with UA First Aid, they were like, “All right, you brought us the supplies, amazing. Now, we think you should come out to the front with us and deliver these supplies and play some songs for the troops, because it would really mean a lot to them.” And I’m like- 

Whitney Kimball Coe: 

Oh, wow. So you played music? 

Yeah. Yeah. We went out and we- 

Whitney Kimball Coe: 

In the delivery? Yeah. 

Brett Hil: 

Yeah. We went out and performed for these troops. And in my mind it was like, “Okay, that sounds cool and I’m down, but is that necessary? I am down to do whatever to show folks that there’s people across the world thinking about them, considering them and people ready to support them.” And we had a flag signed, a “From Ohio with Love,” Flag. Well, there’s an Ohio flag that was signed, “From Ohio with Love, around the middle. My father signed this. My people, various friends, old friends and people I hadn’t even met before signed this. 

Just messages of hope to people over yonder to these troops that this is going to be delivered to. Just like, “Take care. We’re thinking about you. ‘Berezhy sebe’:  Take care of yourself. And this was something we were ready to go present to these troops out on the front. And I was like, “Of course, I’m ready to go through whatever just to show them that we’d be there. But let me ask you my friend, Lasik, of UA First Aid, is this necessary? Are they going to care?” 

And he was very confident they would, that it would mean a lot to them. And I’m like, “All right, let’s go. I’m not going to turn away from the opportunity to support people who really need it and who it would do good for. And if you believe it would, then okay.” And we show up into that polygon, that training pit, and we’ve been driven over there in a vehicle with a couple soldiers, friends of ours who were kind of on a two week break. And we open up the back of the car, Ben and I, and there’s like a guitar, a mandolin and a drum, the bar and Iris drum that I play, on top of a Kalashnikov rifle, some body armor, some helmets and some magazines. 

And so we’re kind of setting this aside to take up our instruments, and Ben and I look at each other, we’re like, “We’re doing this? Ain’t got no other choice now. Here we go, man.” So we walk out into the polygon and this great commander, this incredible fellow who they called him, Achilles, he’s a noted and legendary commander out on the front. He’s, “Timeout boys. There’s these Americans that are going to sing for you now,” while there’s just this constant rattling of artillery fire in the background. And we’re like, “Ooh, here we go.” So they paused for about 15, 20 minutes and we sang a couple of Ukrainian tunes that we’d learned and sang an old Appalachian protest song, Which side Are You On? Which we adapted back in 2020 for the Belarusian protests that broke out. And we kind of modified this Appalachian protest song, which was coming from Harlan County, Kentucky. 

It’s a legendary tune. A lot of people across Appalachia are familiar with. I was familiar with it from my youth. I remember recordings of Pete Seeger singing this song. And I come from three generations of union workers on either side, my father’s hand, mother’s side. So this kind of idea was just ingrained in my being, though not a union worker myself. I’m a musician. And so the adaptation of this song to represent both Ukrainian and Belarusian struggles is perfect too. In this situation, really focus in on the Ukrainian and sing this song In Donbas, a really contested region with a very contested history. Yes, there’s been a lot of Russian history in that region. There’s a coal region for the Soviet Union, and so there’s a lot of Russian speaking around there, but it’s part of Ukraine. It’s a part of a sovereign territory of Ukraine. And so there’s this kind of contested- 

Whitney Kimball Coe: 

I’m just getting chills- 

Brett Hil: 

It’s a contested identity on the land of in Donbas in the coal region of Ukraine. And so taking a song like, Which Side are you on? Written by the daughter and husband of this Florence Reese. Her husband and her father back in the 1930s were both coalworkers. And they had to rally the people that asked this question, “Which side are you on?” And we’ve got this whole battalion then singing this song and crying out on the land of Donbas, “Which side are you on?” And the power of that, and hearing us all singing together. I mean, the response from some of these soldiers, not many of them speaking superb English, but some of them speaking good enough English to get the point across. 

 This isn’t just medicine for our bodies, it’s medicine for our souls. The capability of feeling whole and human again after you’re so numbed. I was describing this numb feeling. You kind of have to take on being in those environments to keep your head on straight. And these boys have been in this for months, sometimes years. And having that numbness, that drone of the reality of war, just constantly battering at your mind. To then have the capability to sing with people, especially when a lot of these boys on the front lines might not think that anyone else outside of Ukraine gives a damn about what they are doing or who they are or what they’re fighting for. And then to see some folks from some mountainous region in the United States show up with a flag from their people that says like, “We’re here. We’re thinking about you.” And sing songs of solidarity together meant a lot. 

And the soldiers were taking the watches off their wrists. And the commander is taking the Bender Rivka, this Ukrainian commander’s hat off his head to hand it to me to say, “Thank you. Thank you for coming.” And God rest his soul, he passed away three weeks after that on the frontline fighting. And so that’s why this work has got to go on, because if unfortunately our close comrades there pass away, then it’s got to be the next generation that knows, “Yo! Folks are still here for you. We’re still doing what we set out to do, which is support you in your time of need as an ally.” 

MUSIC/BREAK 

Whitney Kimball Coe: 

I want to pivot for a moment and ask you, who are you, Brett? Who are you? Brett Hill? And what are the primary influences that led to you becoming a folk musician in Brother Hill? 

Brett Hil: 

I grew up in Dayton, Ohio with a good church-going family. And my mother would be driving meet to school when I was a kid, and she’d be practicing her solos that she’d be singing in church that following week. 

And so growing up, I kind of learned harmony and singing, just listening to my mother’s sing. Eventually I recognized that I’d collected enough material and played with enough bands and whatnot, and written enough songs. Like, “I should start recording these.” So Brother Hill began. And then, I mean, I had moved down to Athens, County from Dayton in 2012 and begun playing with Appalachian folk musicians. 

 I had heard folk music growing up and had listened to Pete Seeger and things like that, but hadn’t really fully engaged in creating that kind of music. I just remember the songs my grandpa would sing and things like that, these old kind of hill songs, and being from Tennessee. I never want to lay claims on that as if, “I grew up in the hills singing these songs my whole life through.” 

 I wasn’t blessed with that specific reality. But I do know that my grandparents, great-grandparents, all coming from different parts of the hills across Appalachia, had songs that were sung them when they were growing up. And when their generation moved to the cities looking for work, both my mother’s father and my father’s father, both moving to Dayton, Ohio for union work and leaving the hills and leaving all that hill memory behind because they don’t really want to be affiliated with being a Hillbilly anymore. 

It’s an unfortunate reality across a lot of Appalachian storylines and timelines. And so in my mind, it would be a tragedy for this to stop with my parents’ generation, my grandparents’ generation. And for me not to be able to access any of that memory of these songs that have been sung across the generations of my family. And so for me, it’s really important to help bolster and uplift that and hopefully, redeem some of the shame that had been put over all of this beautiful music and cultural tradition. 

 And me, I’m a boy that did grow up in the city, grew up in Dayton, Ohio, and then I moved out to the sticks into the woods and started singing with the Appalachians, singing songs of my old family. And so I kind of find myself straddling that line between the city and the country. No matter what country I go to, I like to kind of straddle that line because I think they’re both important and necessary. And I love Ohio. I love where I’m from. 

It’s a really good life worth upholding, worth living, and worth helping other people defend their capability to have that same thing in those hills outside of Lviv getting towards the Carpathians. 

That connection spans so many places like this idea of place and time and recognizing who you are in that place and time and how you can help improve it. And yeah, I think that all kind of comes back to the point of being a cultural advocate. I’m a folk advocate. I’m a real advocate for the idea of being proud of the place and time that you’re in, using it to the best of your capabilities to impact the community around you. 

Whitney Kimball Coe: 

That’s beautiful. You are a connector, it sounds like. And have a way of integrating stories and experiences and relationships and music into something really special. And for folks who want to get involved in From Ohio with Love, is it open to folks beyond Ohio in some way? 

Brett Hil: 

Of course. Of course. Absolutely. 

Whitney Kimball Coe: 

Yeah? 

Brett Hill: 

And actively, I’m constantly thinking of how we can expand this to any way that people can feel comfortable supporting. And I would never want the name From Ohio with Love to make people think that it’s just narrowed down to that. Of course, this is just- 

Whitney Kimball Coe: 

That’s right- 

Brett Hil: 

The reality- 

Whitney Kimball Coe: 

This love has borders. 

Brett Hill: 

Exactly. As in… precisely. A good way of phrasing it. Yeah. So for us, this is just where we’re coming from. This is the capability we have to represent who we are. And of course, this is open to anyone. We just had a very generous donor from New York contribute, make an awesome, amazing contribution to us to help support the work. And so this is open to folks from anywhere who want to have a direct impact because the whole idea of this being a grassroots campaign is your one degree of separation as a donor to where this is going. 

These are what we listen to and deliver. This is a CAT tourniquet made by North American Rescue in Greer, South Carolina. And these are gold standard tourniquets across the world. This is the specific tourniquet that is desired and needed. And so we have a relationship with North American Rescue that we can purchase these at a good cost and fill up duffle bags full of them and deliver them right to the frontline. 

Most of this money, this 86 grand, has been raised through individual donations of people tossing in what they got at the time. We threw a show in Columbus last weekend, people tossing us $20. We’re like, “Yo, that is a tourniquet. That gets one of these for a soldier out on the front lines.” That simple $20 could save a life. It’s simple as that. 

Whitney Kimball Coe: 

Yeah, Yeah. Well, we’ll make sure and put all the information about the campaign on the website alongside this episode. And we definitely want to share your music as well. Before I let you go, I’d love to ask everyone who’s on the show, what are you listening to or watching or reading that is making you happy or challenging you perhaps or inspiring you? 

Brett Hill: 

Wow. Wow. That’s a big one. What am I listening to? Shoot. I’m listening to so many things right now. As I have been for the last few years, I listen to quite a lot of DakhaBrakha. This is an amazing Ukrainian band. They’re from Kyiv and based out of this doc theater, which is a kind of legendary theater in Kyiv, which has incubated a lot of artists. And they’re doing some amazing, amazing work representing Ukraine across the world right now as artists. So they’re an incredible Ukrainian band to check out, DakhaBrakha, D-A-K-H-A-B-R-A-K-H-A.  

Also, Fiona Richie’s Wayfaring Strangers, awesome book about Appalachian folk history coming from the Scott’s Irish. And kind of drawing that line of connection between the origins of these songs over in Ireland and Scotland and England and how they came here to Appalachia. And these are a lot of the songs we sing, go back hundreds of years in the ancestral memory of Ireland, Scotland and England, and Africa, of course. It’s something I like to constantly highlight how much of Appalachian folk history and cuisine and culture comes directly from Africa, even the banjo. Great, great book. Wayfaring Strangers. Highly recommend it. 

Whitney Kimball Coe: 

Yeah. Those are all great recommendations. Thank you so much. 

Brett Hill: 

Of course, of course. 

Whitney Kimball Coe: 

Those are really great. 

Brett Hill: 

Great. 

Whitney Kimball Coe: 

Well, we could keep talking. I know, but- 

Brett Hill: 

I would talk all day. I enjoy- 

Whitney Kimball Coe: 

We want people to go experience, I want everybody to go experience your music and check out all this work you’ve got going on in the world. Thank you for bringing us into it. 

Brett Hill: 

Oh my gosh- 

Whitney Kimball Coe: 

Really appreciate it. 

Brett Hill: 

Thank you so much for having me.