Following the Music: Burton High Senior Builds on Traditions

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print Following the music: Burton High senior builds on traditions by JEFF LESTER • NEWS EDITOR 11.24.15 - 12:04 am NORTON — Listening to a musician such as Thomas Cassell reinforces the hope that Appalachian music traditions are in good hands.

Cassell, a senior at J.I. Burton High School, makes his Kentucky KM-850 mandolin sing as if it was born for his hands.

He’s one in a growing local force of young musicians who have embraced the home music of the mountains and filter it through their own world- spanning cultural influences.

Cassell’s talent and dedication to musical craft brought him a special honor in September, when he won the mandolin contest during the third annual Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion Youth Music Competition. The competition, sponsored by Capo’s Music Store in Abingdon, also features fiddle, guitar and banjo contests for ages 5-18.

The Sept. 19 competition was Cassell’s first visit to the Birthplace of Country Music Museum, where 10 to 15 other youth gathered to perform for three

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judges.

Each competitor played two tunes, unaccompanied, he explained in a Friday interview. He played a fast-flowing medley of “Brilliancy,” a traditional fiddle tune modified for mandolin, and “Clinch Mountain Backstep,” a modified Ralph Stanley banjo tune. In the audience were contestants’ family members, competitors and other spectators including some of the people involved with producing BCMC’s critically acclaimed “Orthophonic Joy” album of tunes recreated from the legendary 1927 Bristol session recordings.

For his win, Cassell got a check for $100 and several free passes to Rhythm & Roots performances. “It was a good day,” he said with a chuckle.

Cassell also got a taste of victory in May, winning the youth mandolin contest at Gathering in the Gap and taking second place in the youth guitar competition.

Among his next goals is to win a role in the “Orthophonic Joy” film that will be a roughly 30-minute documentary of the Bristol sessions with numerous re-enacted scenes. Cassell returned to BCMA on Nov. 13 to audition along with about 100 other musicians who played, sang and were interviewed by filmmakers. They asked him if he would be available for shooting in early December.

Cassell said he hopes to learn “any day now” whether he made the cut for film casting.

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BEGINNINGS, PLANS

Cassell, who also plays in the Burton High Raiders band, took up the drums at age 6. He grew up around homegrown music with parents Tim and Stephanie Cassell. Tim plays guitar, as does Cassell’s older brother and his uncle Don, a semi-professional musician in the Knoxville area.

Cassell said he’s always listened to and appreciated bluegrass, old-time and other roots music. He remembers begging his parents to take him to shows by world- renowned mandolin artist Sam Bush.

He took up the guitar about three or four years ago and started with the banjo about a year later.

Cassell’s nimble, intricate fretwork on the mandolin belies the fact that he started playing the instrument only about a year ago with uncle Don’s help. His instrument was bought in a Lee County pawn shop and lovingly refurbished by Knoxville music instrument repair craftsman Clayton Knight.

As if he didn’t have enough going on with competitions and high school band, Cassell’s been cultivating another outlet for his musical interests. Around June, he and friends formed Fox Run, a band that has played three local shows and is booking gigs at upcoming holiday parties. Along with Cassell’s mandolin and guitar work, the band includes Maggie Gatley of Kingsport on fiddle, with which she has already been making her own mark as half of the Buttermilk Girls duo, along with Peyton Kendrick of Norton on guitar and vocals and Sam Shortt of Pound on upright bass.

The band plays some old-time and some bluegrass — “everything from Bill Monroe to New Grass Revival,” Cassell explained — along with jazz in the Django Reinhardt style and country blues influenced by Doc Watson.

It should be no surprise that Cassell intends to make music his life’s work.

He has applied to the Berklee College of Music in Boston and to East Tennessee

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State University’s old-time, country and bluegrass music program.

After high school graduation, he’ll move on to one or the other: he’s already been accepted to ETSU’s program, which boasts an ever-lengthening list of notable graduates on the music scene.

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