New role for veteran Peters musician
Tom Breiding performs at the Fairness at Patriot Rally in the shadow of the Peabody headquarters in St. Louis. The rally was aimed at pressuring the company to pay promised pensions and benefits to former Patriot Coal employees.
Tom Breiding is shown in front of the historic Wheeling Suspension Bridge.
Tom Breiding talks with students visiting from Santa Clara University as part of his work with the Appalachian Institute at Wheeling Jesuit University.
If you need a good example of just how much a life can be shaped by simple twists of fate, Tom Breiding can provide one.
The Peters Township resident and veteran musician was on a flight home from California a few years ago when he found out there was a group onboard from Wheeling Jesuit University in Wheeling, W.Va., his hometown. After striking up a conversation with one of the university’s administrators, Breiding took his contact information, thinking it would be a way to line up some concerts at the school.
Breiding lost the phone number, but was able to track down his contact after conducting an Internet search. When Breiding got in touch, he didn’t get just a gig – he got a job.
After some additional conversations, Breiding became the immersion trips coordinator at Wheeling Jesuit University’s Appalachian Institute. The program takes groups of students around West Virginia, showing them some of the crossroads that were pivotal in shaping the Mountain State’s history and culture, and also informing them about issues related to rural services, health and the environment.
One of his qualifications for the job is, “I was used to traveling and sleeping in accommodations that weren’t always the best,” Breiding said.
But another is his deep knowledge of West Virginia, particularly its coal miners and steel mill workers, and the tumultuous labor history that surrounded both industries.
Following the path blazed by Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie, he has crafted topical songs that speak to the concerns of working people throughout his career, most specifically on his 2007 album, “The Unbroken Circle,” and has done so again on “Rivers, Rails or Road,” his most recent disc, which was released in October.
“Rivers, Rails or Road” marks a return to the musical landscape Breiding knows best, since his last outing, 2011’s “Beauty in Paradise” focused on his family and journeys to California and Italy. There’s also a DVD enclosed with “Rivers, Rails or Road” that contains a 17-minute documentary about Wheeling and how the economic fluctuations it has endured has influenced his music and outlook.
“Industry throughout Appalachia is boom or bust,” Breiding said. “It happened with the steel industry, it happened with the coal industry. When the bust comes, there’s nothing left behind.”
Breiding is a musician in residence for the United Mine Workers of America, and appeared at rallies of mine workers who were struggling to get health and pension benefits following the bankruptcy of St. Louis-based Patriot Coal.
“I was telling their story,” Breiding said.
Aside from his own work as a musician, Breiding has been a producer for such regional acts as the Weathered Road, Rick Malis and the Mavens and the Turbosonics. Breiding has worked with them at AmeriSon Studio in Peters, a 24-track studio located in his home.
Working both as a troubadour and at Wheeling Jesuit University hasn’t left him feeling drained or stretched thin. Instead, Breiding said it has inspired him.
“If anything, it’s been a catalyst to my creativity,” he explained. “As immersion coordinator, I see firsthand, and work with those who work in and are affected by the extraction industries, especially the coal industry. The stories of miners and community members left behind by the coal giants are very moving.”