the crooked road
is a concoction of virginia tourism to lure musical tourists such as myself to the south-west corner of virginia where a good chunk of american roots music originated - the carter family, the stanley brothers and many others were from here - some of the first recordings of 'hillbilly' music were done in bristol virginia (on the tennessee border) - both the carter family and jimmie rodgers recorded there in 1927
the area has a rich history of american traditional music, among other things - the place names tell the story - clinch mountain, big stone gap, carroll county, galax virginia, cumberland gap - franklin county at the eastern end of the crooked road was the moonshine capital of the appalachians during the depression, recently depicted in the movie lawless
to this day there is an inordinate number of traditional musicians and luthiers living, playing, and building in the area - so it was natural for me to want to visit - in fact this area was to be the highpoint of the trip along with seeing my family at my nieces wedding in niagara-on-the-lake
but things rarely go as planned, in this case the fly in the ointment was the weather - heavy rain limited my stay on the crooked road to 3 days - i had planned a much longer visit camping at the many beautiful state parks in the blue ridge mountains - but i'm just too old to put up with camping in the rain, so i decamped to the motel 6 in wytheville VA, a very reasonable $40/night run by a friendly south-asian family - it even had a pool which i never used because of the weather
but i did manage to drive much of the eastern portions of the 250 mile crooked road - hilights include galax VA - i missed the prestigious week-long galax fiddlers convention by one day, poor planning on my part - driving thru galax i could see the remnants of a huge camping area (almost all RVs) right in the center of town - i later found out that the campground jamming had also been adversely affected by the heavy rain
another hilight is
the blue ridge music center
on the blue ridge parkway about 20 km south-east of galax - i came within a hare's breath (hair's breadth?) of hitting a full-size deer on the blue ridge parkway, and the fog obscured the spectacular views for which the parkway is known
one of the 3 jams i went to was at the blue ridge music center - this was the least satisfying of the jams mostly because of the participants and the obscure old-time repertoire
- but like all jams in the area it was open to all, welcoming - i think people in the area accept the crooked road as a healthy way to induce tourism in this poor area of basically music and coal mining - its well advertised, numerous road signs, there is even a book about it - strangely enough, at all 3 jams i went to i was the only 'crooked road' tourist - everybody else was local
the best jam turned out to be the first one on saturday night at
capo's music store
in abingdon VA - only 6 of us - again i was the only non-native participant but made welcome - the repertoire was traditional roots and country songs - everybody sang - i was the youngest - it was great
- the hilight for me was bill - i found out later from the store owner that bill was 89 and had known the carter family - he's one of the voices on the rear view video soundtrack - i inadvertently left my camera battery charging at the motel so have no pictures or video of the jam, but i had my sony voice recorder
i was most impressed with bill and his music - when i asked gill the store owner how i might get another chance to play with bill he told me about a weekly gig he does at a seniors dinner in abingdon - i got directions and planned to drop in 4 days hence but by that time the rain had driven me from the area - bill played guitar, banjo, viola and sang like levon helm
the other jam i went to was the sunday afternoon jam at
the floyd country store
in floyd VA
- here the genre was mostly bluegrass - the hilight was an old guy who sang gospel songs and played fiddle - i realized on this trip that jams have the same problems everywhere, playing too fast, not leaving room for breaks, sloppy timing, not listening - in this case the old guy insisted on taking all the instrumental breaks himself on fiddle - he sang beautifully though - its on the crooked road videolog
another reason to visit the crooked road was to visit some luthiers - the crooked road literature (i bought the book before leaving vancouver) implies that such visits are welcome, contact information provided - fellow musicians at the jams all said as much - in particular i asked about the feasibility of visiting
wayne henderson
in mouth of wilson on the crooked road - everybody said no problem, mind you they were all locals who knew him - wayne is easily the most well-known luthier on the crooked road, famous for his martin-copy guitars, in particular a triple-O made for eric clapton, there's a book about it
- there were also plenty of violin makers listed in the crooked road literature which jibed nicely with my current projects
alas, the rain had got to me by the time i got around to thinking luthier visits and i left them for another time - i also missed the highly recommended
smyth county jam that took place that evening
- i headed north via the cumberland gap, through kentucky for the next stop, madison indiana on the ohio river, where the weather was better - and i stumbled on a funky motel with an amazing view of the ohio river and the bridge to kentucky
