By MARSHA MERCER
“Loitering allowed,” the sign outside The Floyd Country Store in Southwest Virginia reads, and
that’s good because nobody is going anywhere.
It’s 4 p.m. on a Friday, 45 minutes until tickets
for the store’s Friday Night Jamboree go on sale at $5 a pop, and people are itching
to get in line. Every porch chair is taken. Inside, people sit in worn wooden booths,
eating sandwiches, ice cream and slabs of carrot cake. Others fill paper bags
with hard candy from barrels and browse bluegrass CDs, goat milk lotions and Carhartt
work pants.
Floyd, population 432, on the Blue Ridge plateau about
an hour’s drive southwest of Roanoke, may have just one stop light but it’s a
major venue on the Crooked Road, Virginia’s musical heritage trail. On Friday
nights and other times a week, Floyd blossoms with bluegrass and old-time
music.
“Floyd on Friday nights is transcendent,” said my
friend Mary, who made the trip from Pennsylvania to Floyd last year. I was
skeptical, but Mary was right.
Something extraordinary is happening in Floyd and
other out-of-the-way places as the world beats a path to see people play
traditional tunes on instruments they love. Appalachian music, crafts and
outdoor recreation are helping to build a new, creative economy in a region
that no longer can depend on coal, furniture and textiles.
“This is a place where there’s indigenous music
alive in just about every community,” said Jack Hinshelwood, executive director
of the Crooked Road, a 330-mile route from Rocky Mount to Breaks Interstate
Park with eight other major venues, including the Birthplace of Country Music
in Bristol, and 60 affiliated festivals and venues.
The Crooked Road was
incorporated a decade ago to support tourism and economic development around
the region’s musical traditions. A sister operation, Round the Mountain,
supports crafts. Local, federal and state officials, including Gov. Terry
McAuliffe, and business leaders are scheduled to speak Sept. 21 and 22 in
Abingdon at a conference aimed at celebrating the creative economy.
Tennessee, North
Carolina and Kentucky also have strong musical traditions. In Alabama, the
Muscle Shoals area is called the Hit Making Capital of the World and in May the
birthplace of W.C. Handy, Father of the Blues, in Florence received a marker on
the Mississippi Blues Trail.
I met Hinshelwood at a Thursday night open bluegrass
jam session at Heartwood artisan gateway in Abingdon. The non-profit center opened four years ago to showcase regional crafts,
foods and wines, including home-smoked meats, and music. An accomplished bluegrass musician himself, Hinshelwood explained that
most players on the Crooked Road never had formal music lessons and most have
day jobs.
“This is a place where music by and large is recreational
and cultural. It’s not about people who make their living from music. It’s very
much about a recreational way of life,” he said.
Rarely have I seen shows where the musicians and the
audience have such good clean fun. The Floyd store operates on “Granny’s
rules”—no smoking, no drinking alcohol, no bad language and no conduct
unbecoming a lady or gentleman.
At 6:30, the evening begins with a prayer and gospel
bluegrass. Recently, Janet Turner & Friends – among them her daughter Leona
– played for the gospel hour. Turner, who is from Floyd, is a tiny
woman with a froth of white hair and a strong voice. Her Facebook page – yes,
she has one – says she has been playing bluegrass music more than 30
years.
Everyone
sat quietly on folding chairs until 7:30, when the Friday Night
Old Time Band took the stage. Little kids, their parents, grandparents, couples
and singles practically ran to fill the wood floor, all flat-foot dancing,
some with taps on their shoes, some barefoot. A third band, 2 Young 2
Old, kept the crowd on its feet until 10:30 p.m.
In fine weather,
fiddlers, guitarists, banjo and mandolin players spill onto the streets of
Floyd, playing impromptu concerts on street corners and alleys.
A highlight of the evening is seeing who has
traveled farthest. A pull-down map magically appears and Stewart Scales, who
teaches geography at Virginia Tech and plays banjo with Turner, determines the
winner. The other night, a young man from Paris – France, not Texas – edged out
contenders from England and Wales. It’s not unheard of for travelers from China
to find their way to Floyd.
Along the Crooked Road, musicians jam in barber
shops, cafes, grocery stores and festivals. Free Midday Mountain Music performances
take place every afternoon on the breezeway at the Blue Ridge Music Center on
the Blue Ridge Parkway near Galax. Nationally known bands play in the
amphitheater.
The center’s Roots of American Music Museum, whose
exhibits were curated by the late folklorist Joe Wilson, author of “A Guide to
the Crooked Road,” includes historic audio and video clips and is first class. The
center is open May through October.
Several veteran pickers entertained on the breezeway
the other day, links in a musical chain that began years and years ago.
“You rosin the bow the same way and play the same
tunes your great-great granddaddy played,” Hinshelwood said. “In this
fast-paced world, there’s something anchoring about that.”
And, yes, transcendent.
©2015 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
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