As the Crooked Road Welcomes You to Southwest Virginia and the Third
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s The Crooked Road welcomes you to Southwest Virginia and the third annual Mountains of Music AHomecoming, we are celebrating that most basic means of musical expression – singing. Folk song collectors, sometimes referred to as “songcatchers,” have wandered the mountains of Southwest Virginia for over a century in search of traditional singers. The region’s wealth of songs and singers has been well documented in the work of folklorists like Olive Dame Campbell and Englishman Cecil Sharp, who published English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians in 1917. The Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution have been here too, extracting from the area’s song tradition like miners digging the coal. Fast forwarding 100 years, the region is still a treasure trove of singers preserving the songs that represent a connection to the cultures that settled the region as America came into its own as a new country. To celebrate these traditions, ballad singers from Ireland, Scotland, England, and America will perform in three concerts and one workshop during the Homecoming, providing a remarkably international perspective on this ancient art form. A focus on great singing continues with artists like Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, who have set the standard for great bluegrass and bluegrass gospel harmony singing for decades. Influential new voices like Amythyst Kiah and Dori Freeman, who are raking in accolades from music critics nationwide, are also presented this year. Each year the Homecoming features a specific musical tradition besides our own, and this year we feature the music of Scotland with Alasdair Fraser, one of the finest fiddlers Scotland has ever produced, along with cellist Natalie Haas. Add in revered Scottish folk and ballad singer Archie Fisher from Glasgow and we have a great sampling of a music and culture that has profoundly shaped our own. It’s called “The Crooked Road’s Old Time Music & Dance Spectacular” and the name is not hyperbole. When you bring together some of the finest old time musicians and dancers from an 8,600-square mile region known for its old time music, what else would it be? These dynamic artists breathe life into every facet of old time music – ballads, fiddle/banjo duets, Carter Family music, banjo contests, flatfoot dancing, and old time string band music in two concerts. The 2017 Homecoming includes three culinary-based Feastival events, each featuring delicious traditional and farm-to-table cuisine, live musical performances, works by a local artist or craftsperson, and a presentation by acclaimed food author and Appalachian cultural ambassador Ronni Lundy. The Feastival events illustrate the ways in which Appalachia inspires creativity, whether you’re a chef, musician, writer, or artisan. From Jerry Douglas and the Earls of Leicester at HoustonFest, two concerts of Crooked Road Guitar Masters, Ralph Stanley II and the Clinch Mountain Boys joined by Ricky Skaggs and Larry Sparks in a tribute to the Stanley Brothers, to Mark O’Connor featuring the O’Connor Band fresh off their Grammy win, you can’t go wrong at the Homecoming. And if that’s not enough, join us for Scots-Irish genealogy workshops, jam sessions, “canorkling” in the Clinch River, the Wayne Henderson Music Festival (one of several festivals), a community meal and gospel sing, or take flat foot dance lessons. Relax, take your time, see what’s around the next bend of The Crooked Road, and make some new friends at the Mountains of Music Homecoming. See ya! - The Crooked Road Board of Directors June 9-17, 2017 • 2 Introduction: The Year We Sang ............................................................ 2 Sponsors .......................................................................................................... 4 Wayfaring Strangers .................................................................................... 6 Buying Tickets ............................................................................................... 7 Homecoming Overview .............................................................................. 8 Travel Information ........................................................................................ 9 The Birth of The Crooked Road .............................................................. 13 Mission Statement & Staff ....................................................................... 14 What’s That Buzzing Sound ..................................................................... 16 TCR Merchandise ......................................................................................... 17 What’s Happening At The Major Venues ............................................. 19 Area Traditional Music Concerts ............................................................ 21 Jam Sessions ................................................................................................ 22 The Stanley Legacy .................................................................................. 23 Appalachian Cuisine .................................................................................. 25 West Zone: Crooked Road Concerts ................................................... 27 Scottish Culture ......................................................................................... 32 West Zone: Cultural Experiences .......................................................... 36 An Outdoor Paradise ................................................................................. 38 How to Talk Like a Southwest Virginian ............................................. 42 Central Zone: Crooked Road Concerts .............................................. 45 Central Zone: Cultural Experiences ....................................................... 51 Craft ............................................................................................................... 53 East Zone: Crooked Road Concerts ..................................................... 57 East Zone: Cultural Experiences ............................................................ 63 Ballads ............................................................................................................ 65 3 • mtnsofmusic.com MountainEscapes Leisure, Adventure, Festivals & More David & Judie Reemsnyder Bank of Marion Abingdon Rotary Club Bolling Wilson Hotel Chantilly Farm FocusOne Integrated Financial Planning Electric Hardwoods Hicok, Fern & Company Forestland Group, LLC Holiday Inn Express & Suites Christiansburg General Francis Marion Hotel Inn at Wise ¡Go Technology Karen Sorber SWCC Educational Foundation Mountain Lake Lodge Walt & Janet Crickmer June 9-17, 2017 • 4 SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA HERITAGE My home’s across the Blue Ridge Mountains My home’s across the Blue Ridge Mountains My home’s across the Blue Ridge Mountains And I never expect to see you anymore. hey must have felt that way once—more than a century before that song was Twritten—when the settlers rolled down the Great Wagon Road that followed the valleys between the wall of mountains that stretched on forever. When the settlers reached the middle of Virginia—about where Roanoke is today—some of them headed west on the Wilderness Road, ending up on the 18th century frontier, in southwest Virginia, east Tennessee, eastern Kentucky, and western North Carolina. They, or their recent forebears, had already made one perilous journey, across the Atlantic from Scotland or Ireland or England, to settle in the New World, but the eastern seaboard was already getting crowded by the late eighteenth century, mostly full of the people they left Britain to get away from. So they ventured deeper into the mountains, looking for a place that felt like home. They never knew how close they were to being back home; nearly two more centuries would pass before geologists put together the ancient puzzle of earth’s Triassic period to discover that millions of years ago the Appalachians had been part of those same mountains in Britain from which many of the settlers themselves had come. The new people brought what they could from home—not material things, because the ships were small, so you had to pack light—but they carried with them everything they could fit into their heads, because memories were all they had left of the places they’d come from, and they treasured them. They handed down these memories to their children and grandchildren, which is why in 1916 musicologist Cecil Sharp found the traditional folksongs he was looking for, not in Britain where they had originated, but in the southern Appalachians, where they were cherished remnants of the past. Things changed a bit in the new world. If you came over with an unusual name—Rhys (Welsh) or O’Laoghaire (Irish) or McDiarmuid (Scots)—sooner or later some census taker would standardize you to “Reese,” “O’Leary,” and “McDermott.” The songs and stories got naturalized, too. “The Wexford Girl” became “The Knoxville Girl,” and the Child ballad “Lady Margaret” was demoted to “Little Margaret” over here, but the plots of the songs stayed the same, and the tunes were still recognizable. When “The Lily of the West” was composed, back in Ireland, the “West” was the coast of Ireland: Galway or Connemara. Many years later when people sang the song in America, the “West” they pictured was Kentucky (“When first I came to Louisville, some pleasure there to find…”) You never know when the family resemblance is going to peek out at you. Years ago, I took a newly-arrived Scottish professor to an Appalachian storytelling festival. The speaker