The Search for the Perfect Jam

Our strategic location of Claytor Lake State Park not only allowed us to enjoy the facilities of the park, but it also put us within reasonable reach of two different events listed in the Mts. of Music Homecoming booklet. There was an Appalachian farm market with music in the nearby town of Pulaski, and there was a traditional “old time” jam at a Mexican grill in the not-too-nearby town of Pearisburg.

 

I was able to spend about an hour kayaking around on Claytor Lake in the morning, before the thunderstorms moved in. I loved it.

 

We headed off toward the town of Pulaski to experience that Appalachian farm market with music. When we got there we found that it was … meh. There wasn’t much on offer from the farmers’ market, and the band was nothing to write home about. It was not something we wanted to spend our whole evening on. So, we did what we could. We headed for the “old time jam” at that Mexican grill in Pearisburg. Our GPS led us to … the Walmart!

 

We were a bit mystified. There was supposed to be a Mexican grill here, with jamming, but we didn’t see one. I drove around the parking lot, and lo and behold – a Mexican grill. We entered with some trepidation, because there were only a few cars in the parking lot, and we couldn’t hear any music. But when we got inside we found three gentlemen and a lady off to one side singing and playing instruments. They welcomed us warmly, and immediately asked if I had an instrument. When they heard that I had a guitar they enthusiastically encouraged me to bring it in and join the fun.

 

The songs they were doing were all over the map. Some folk music, some country music, some bluegrass, an occasional gospel song, and some originals that one of the fellows had written. These folks were salt-of-the earth people who were simply gathered together for a fun night of making music together. I contributed quite a few songs, which is really not what I usually do. I just felt comfortable doing so, and it was easy to do. They brought us right into the circle. During the course of the evening I got them to introduce themselves and tell me a bit about who they were. Here are two of them: T-Baby Reed – the guitar man and Earl Thornton with the baritone uke:

 

And here is Addison Dobbs with his mandolin (He’s really the only one who consistently lead bluegrass tunes):

 

 

And here I am joining in:

 

It was a really unusual evening, and much different than I had anticipated. But it was a great, authentic, Appalachian music experience. This is what we came here to find.

I Finally Learn (Some) Flatfooting!

The Mts. of Music Homecoming event that was close to us today was a flatfooting workshop at the Blue Ridge Music Center. Even though we have been to this location a few times now, the prospect of learning flatfooting was an irresistible draw. I’ve been watching people dance for the past couple of weeks, and I really want the mystery of what they are doing to be removed. (I tried a flatfooting workshop at a festival a couple years ago and got absolutely nothing out of it. But hope springs eternal, and I once again thought it would be worth trying.) So we headed out to the Blue Ridge Music Center again, prepared to learn dancing, and prepared to enjoy music by the Buck Mountain Band.

 

The teacher of the workshop, Mary Ann Kovach, was excellent. She convinced us that we couldn’t do it wrong, and she broke down several of the steps into their essential elements so that we could imitate her. The band provided great music, and I managed to “get” a couple of the steps. I also took notes on the steps that were a bit beyond me, and maybe I will be able to figure them out on my own.

We also did some square dancing, and we thoroughly enjoyed having a couple of pre-adolescent girls as our square partners.

After the dancing lesson we headed north to camp at Claytor Lake State Park. This park is in the vicinity of several Mts. of Music Homecoming events, and we thought it would be a good place to locate ourselves for a couple of days.

Feastival!

At this point in the trip we faced a fork in the road, and we took it. Our original plan had us heading to the Asheville area and focusing on non-musical interests. There were no more Blue Ridge Music Trail events closeby. However, a few days ago E discovered that Virginia’s Crooked Road (which we explored pretty thoroughly in 2015) was holding a 10-day, Mts. of Music Homecoming celebration. There were all sorts of events going on all over southern Virginia from June 9 through June 17. We found that we would be able to catch quite a few of these events if we headed back up to Virginia at this point. This decision was a no-brainer.

 

The first event we decided to attend was billed as a “Feastival.” It was a catered church-picnic type of event, with a bluegrass/gospel band, a couple of highly accomplished musicians, and talks by two local authors who have written books about the food in Appalachia. E had already heard of one of these authors, and had recently placed a hold on her book at the library, so when she saw that we would be able to meet this lady and hear from her, it seemed like a great opportunity.

 

The event was being held at the Dinwiddie Presbyterian Church, outside the town of Hillsville, VA. A couple miles short of the destination our GoogleMaps directions brought us to a dirt road with a dark, forbidding entrance, low-hanging branches, and prospects of hills and switchbacks that I just wasn’t willing to face. I phoned our contact person at the event, and with some help, we were able to come up with a better route. The only problem was, now I had to turn the trailer around on this crooked road. With E’s help, and our pair of walkie-talkies, we made it happen. We arrived at the Feastival about 20 minutes late.

Fortunately, the eating hadn’t started yet. We missed some music, but there would be much more of that later.

The authors (Ronni Lundy and Libby Bondurant) told interesting stories, and they helped us understand more about the culture of Appalachia. I have become more and more convinced that the people of this area are judged very unfairly by outsiders. The stereotypes are hurtful, and for the most part very untrue.

The music was provided by a band named Changing Lanes, and they were joined by a guitarist named Mac Traynham and a banjo-player named Edwin Lacy. Evidently these two fellows are well-known mountain music “sages.” (Keep that name, Mac Traynham in mind as you read future posts in this trip of ours. We were to learn more about him later.) The music was good, and most of what they played was gospel. I love the fact that gospel music plays such a big role in traditional mountain music.

Oh! We found an RV park just a couple miles down the road from the Dinwiddie Church. Good thing, because it had been a very full day!

A Warm Embrace

Back in the summer of ’96 the US Forest Service had decided to permit clear-cutting of the lumber on Bluff Mountain, just above the North Carolina town of Hot Springs. What the Forest Service did not take into account was how the local people would react to this decision. When the locals found out about it, they staged a protest. The protest took the form of a fund-raising, old-time music and dance festival. A year later a lot had happened. The Forest Service changed their plans and suspended consideration of Bluff Mountain for clear cutting. The folks in Hot Springs held a celebration. The celebration turned out to be the Second Annual Bluff Mountain Festival. Everyone had such a good time that they decided to do it again the following year, and every year since then. We attended the 22^nd annual Bluff Mountain Festival on Saturday.

The Bluff Mountain Festival is still a fund-raiser, but now it is a fund-raiser for the Madison County Arts Council. There were performances all day long from bluegrass and old time bands, a storyteller, cloggers, ballad-singers, and others. One of the performers was a band that included a fiddle-player named Laura Boosinger. I had become acquainted with this woman a few different times during my preparation for this trip. Most recently, we had learned that she was one of the 2017 inductees in the Blue Ridge Music Hall of fame (in the Wilkes Heritage Museum that we had visited briefly on Wednesday.) I was surprised to see her here today, because today is the induction ceremony in that hall of fame. When they introduced her they said that she would be leaving immediately after the performance to drive to Wilkesboro for the induction. I was able to snag her for a photo and a brief congratulatory “Thank You” for the work she is doing to promote and preserve Appalachian culture.

The performances at the festival all day long were wonderful. I sat back and let myself feel completely embraced by the warmth, hospitality, and art of the people of North Carolina.

 

Class I and II???

Today was to be a transition day; a day between musical events. We had to drive a bit more than a hundred miles west, to the small, high-mountain town of Hot Springs. The campground is on the French Broad River, a river known for its whitewater rafting. I learned that the “wild” class III and IV rapids are upstream from the campground, and the section downstream from the campground has several miles of flat water with “some class I and class II rapids.” I felt that this would be ideal for me and for my level of skill with the kayak. I begged E to help me out with the driving so that I could put in at the campground, paddle down stream to a park several miles down, and have her pick me up there. (Since she hadn’t yet driven our pickup truck, this was a BIG sacrifice on her part to be willing to do this. I greatly appreciate her for doing this.)

I put the kayak in the water just outside the campground, and I immediately found myself in white water. It was “whiter” than I’ve experienced before. I’ve been in class I and class II rapids before, and really enjoyed it, but this seemed more … exciting … than I remember. There were some pretty sizable waves, and some of them did manage to find their way inside the boat. When I got through this section of rapids, I pulled in to shore and beached the boat. I took a walk back upstream to take a photo:

Is this Class II rapids?

The rest of the paddle was pretty exciting too, because during the stretches of flat water I could hear the sound of rapids that I was approaching. After my first experience, I was unsure of just what I would find in the next set of rapids. It was an experience made for a Hollywood movie: moving downstream with the increasingly loud sound of an approaching area of rapids. All that was missing was the dramatic musical background score. If the people who recommended this stretch of river considered what I had just been through to be mild and friendly (which is what they said), then would I be riding rapids like that all the way down to the park? The answer is, yes. Almost every set of rapids was just a little bit more than I had bargained for. By the end I was getting more comfortable and more confident. I guess the only way to learn something like this is to experience it, but I probably would have benefitted from doing it with a guide. In any event, this experience was one of the highlights of this trip for me, and again, I greatly appreciate my wife’s willingness to drive the truck for the first time and pick me up when I completed my run.

The Banjo-Master, and a Great BBQ

We had originally planned to visit a place called the Sims Country Barbecue today. This place is written about as if it is some sort of mecca for mountain music people, good food, and great performances. After yesterday’s disappointments, I decided it would be best to phone ahead to make sure of their availability. (I did phone the Orchard yesterday, several times, but they weren’t answering their phone.) I managed to make phone contact with Sims, and was greatly disappointed to find that they are not open on Thursdays any more. Well, at least we found this out before driving all the way out there.

 

Another stop on our planned tour was to be the Earl Scruggs Center, in Shelby, NC. We were planning to stop there at the end of next week. However, we found that we were only about an hour away from there at our current campground, so we decided to go there today instead.

 

Shelby was a nice town, and the Scruggs Center was absolutely wonderful. The entire (small-ish) museum is a tribute to this 20^th century master of the banjo. We learned all about him through a variety of interactive exhibits. I will confess that the banjo has always mystified me. I cannot visually process what banjo players are doing with their fingers to produce all of the notes that they produce. There was a very helpful exhibit in the museum that showed me the difference between claw-hammer strumming, two-finger picking, and three-finger picking. I feel that I finally have a beginning of an understanding of the banjo. I’m still pretty intimidated by the instrument, however.

While we were at the museum, E was peppering the docents with questions about BBQ. Since we were not going to be going to Sims, she wanted to find the best place here in Shelby for good, authentic, southern BBQ. She has been asking several people for explanations of the difference between “Eastern” BBQ and “Lexington” BBQ. We received strong recommendations to go to a place called Red Bridges Lodge. They are said to have the best in town. So, off we went in our quest for slaw (red), beans, meat, and sauce.

 

I’m glad we did! The food was delicious, and now we can say that we’ve had the best BBQ Shelby, NC has to offer.

 

A Bust. In a Way.

When you make plans for a trip like this one, there are certain days and places that are like keystones in a stone arch. They hold a lot of pieces together. Today was to be one of those days. I selected our overnight campsite destination (for two nights) on the basis of its location mid-way between two music venues that we wanted to see. The campsite was expensive, but because of its central location I was willing to pay for it.

 

On our drive to the campground we found ourselves in Wilkesboro, NC. I had read that there is a small museum there with a Blue Ridge Music Hall of Fame. We thought it might be worth a few minutes to take a look, even though we were on a tight schedule. We found our way to the museum and explained to the attendant what we were interested in. She took our money for admission to the museum, and told us that the admission includes a guided tour of the Wilkes County Jail. This is the jail where the legendary Tom Dooley was imprisoned before he was hung. (Tom Dooley; of the folksong “Hang down your head Tom Dooley.”) Well, we had to see that! The only thing is, this was a guided tour, and our tour guide also wanted to tell us about every historical event that ever happened in Wilkes County. We got to see Tom’s cell, and we got to hear the whole story of his crime (or supposed crime; there is some ambiguity about whether he was truly guilty). But when all was said and done, this stop cut about 2 hours into our tight schedule. We were destined to be late getting to the music events that we planned for later in the afternoon. Ah well. At least we saw some interesting stuff.

The Cell Where Tom Dula (“Dooley”) Was Held

We got to the campground and almost immediately headed for today’s music destination. The Orchard at Altapass was billed as having Wednesday afternoon jamming and free live music Wednesday through Sunday nights. We planned on staying for both the jamming and the live music. After the 45-minute drive, we arrived at the orchard, to find… no musicians. No one was jamming! Even though we arrived about an hour after the jamming was supposed to start, there was no one there. I asked, and was told that usually no one shows up. And they don’t have any musicians on hand to lead the jam if no one shows up. Well. That’s disappointing. But what about the live music on Wednesday evenings? What time does that start? “Oh. that’s not going on now. We close at 5:00 today.” What? No jamming and no music in the evening? So all our efforts to get to this destination were for nothing? I guess sometimes you just have to accept defeat and move on to the next thing.

The Sign Says, “Parking for Musicians Only.” There were none.

 

Since we had to use the Blue Ridge Parkway to drive back to the campground, we resumed our quest for mountain wildflowers. The Mt. Laurel was everywhere. We also saw some flowers that we couldn’t identify.

We took a short hike near Linwood Falls, and we saw some flame azaleas.

So. No music today, and a lesson in how to handle disappointments.