Almost Heaven, West Virginia?

We left Ohio and cut through West Virginia. About all I knew about West Virginia until very recently, was that Bobby Bowden coached at one of their universities before establishing his dynasty at Florida State, and that "Devil Anse" Hatfield, of the notorious Hatfield/McCoy imbroglio, and my ex-wife's husband were from there (no relation, as far as I know). My impression of the music scene, before I bothered to look into it, was that the following video was typical of the State:



Turns out I was wrong. We decided to stay overnight in West Virginia, because it is about half way between Lewiston, Michigan and home. We had a tough time getting a room. The place was pretty, and all, but we were perplexed. Turned out that the hotels were packed because the massive storm that bedeviled the East knocked out the power for about 120,000 West Virginians, and as many as could we trying to get away from the stifling heat. We talked to a few of the locals, and they were prayerful, pleasant and long-suffering, and I liked and admired them.

Musically? In addition to John Denver's ode to West Virginia, Country Roads (I was gonna put a link here, but blogspot changed the format on me, and I'm not sure how to do it. Anyway, YouTube's got it), there are a couple of amazing artists from The Mountain State: Country star Brad Paisley shouldn't be a huge surprise, but Bill Withers? Yep, R & B legend Bill Withers is from West Virginia.