TOKENS PODCAST: S6E5
Bourbon, bluegrass, and the Bible?
The great writer Flannery O’Connor was once accused of being a “hillbilly nihilist,” to which she ironically responded, “I’m actually a hillbilly Thomist.” She claimed this title for herself because of the strange clash of worlds in which she found herself. As a Catholic intellectual grown by the grit of the deep south, her work is surprising to many, being simultaneously high-and-holy while unashamedly down-home.
And it’s this same mixture – bourbon, bluegrass, and the Bible – that lives on in the Hillbilly Thomists, a Billboard-charting bluegrass group made up of Catholic Dominican friars who take their name and much inspiration from O’Connor.
“A Thomist is someone who follows the thought and theological teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas, who was a Dominican as well,” they explain. “We combine it with a little bit of humor about our human condition, and a sense of the kind of celebration and joy of life which is present in American folk music.”
Clad in their white tunics and rosaries, they piled into the Soultrain Sound Studio here in Nashville to play some of their songs, talk about theology and their vocation, and tell stories that showcase what it’s like becoming touring musicians after taking a vow of poverty.
This session was one of my favorite memories from the past summer, and one of my favorite episodes to date. Enjoy!
ABOUT THE GUESTS
The Hillbilly Thomists are a band of friars of the Order of Preachers.
After playing music together for several years, they released their eponymous debut album in 2017, which reached #3 on the Billboard bluegrass chart and mostly consisted in bluegrass standards and Americana favorites.
Since then, the friars in the band have been doing what Dominican friars do: contemplating, studying, and preaching.
They’ve also been writing songs. In 2021, they released their second studio album, Living for the Other Side, released on the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas (the original Thomist).
A year later, they published a third record, Holy Ghost Power (released July 7, 2022), which peaked at #5 on the Billboard bluegrass chart.
In the wake of the release of Holy Ghost Power, the friars embarked on The Old Highway Tour (July 23–August 4, 2022), taking them through eight cities, from NYC to Cleveland, OH, including a stop in Nashville to perform at The Grand Ole Opry House.
Proceeds from album sales, donations, and merchandise sales support the formation of friars at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C., where the Hillbilly Thomists first came together.
ABOUT TOKENS SHOW & LEE C. CAMP
Tokens began in 2008. Our philosophical and theological variety shows and events hosted throughout the Nashville area imagine a world governed by hospitality, graciousness and joy; life marked by beauty, wonder and truthfulness; and social conditions ordered by justice, mercy and peace-making. We exhibit tokens of such a world in music-making, song-singing, and conversations about things that matter. We have fun, and we make fun: of religion, politics, and marketing. And ourselves. You might think of us as something like musicians without borders; or as poets, philosophers, theologians and humorists transgressing borders.
Lee is an Alabamian by birth, a Tennessean by choice, and has sojourned joyfully in Indiana, Texas, and Nairobi. He likes to think of himself as a radical conservative, or an orthodox liberal; loves teaching college and seminary students at Lipscomb University; delights in flying sailplanes; finds dark chocolate covered almonds with turbinado sea salt to be one of the finest confections of the human species; and gives great thanks for his lovely wife Laura, his three sons, and an abundance of family and friends, here in Music City and beyond. Besides teaching full-time, he hosts Nashville’s Tokens Show, and has authored three books. Lee has an Undergrad Degree in computer science (Lipscomb University, 1989); M.A. in theology and M.Div. (Abilene Christian University, 1993); M.A. and Ph.D. both in Christian Ethics (University of Notre Dame, 1999).
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