Cole Chaney’s Appalachian Storytelling Isn’t What You Might Think, And That’s A Good Thing

Last summer, Kentucky singer/songwriter Cole Chaney played Tyler Childers’ Healing Appalachia music festival. On stage at the Boyd County Fairgrounds, which were built on top of reclaimed coal strip mines — and the very same land where Chaney’s fellow teenagers used to go to run trucks, light bonfires, and mess around away from adult supervision — Chaney performed his song “Shadow of the Mountain,” the title track from his 2025 sophomore album:

I was barely a boy when the devil crept in
First he took my Pa and then hе took my friends
Be it by way of a pill or by way of a mine
Thеre were many good soul would be relieved of their life