North Carolina’s Traditional Music Trail

In the mountain hollows and valleys, along piedmont country roads the traditional music lover can find a variety of music styles performed just about any weekend by old-timers and new-timers along the Music Trail. From ever-popular bluegrass banjo-pickin’ and grinnin’ to fierce fiddling the devil himself can’t catch, from gospel singing to the good ol’ belly-up blues, traditional music in North Carolina still being traditional just about everywhere you look.

There are many outdoor festivals all summer and through the fall, but the music doesn’t stop when the weather gets cold. The Blue Ridge Music Trails website offers a searchable database of events from the southern mountain counties of North Carolina all the way up the blue ridge through Virginia identified by folklife fieldworkers in the region.

The styles of music and dance came to the region along with the settlers moving west to the mountains and beyond via the great Valley Road. It began with the Germans, followed by English, Scotch-Irish, French, Irish, and Welsh settlers and African American slaves. The fiddles came from Europe in the late 18th century, the banjos came from west Africa. The eclectic mix of people spawned a multicultural breed of musicians not shy of borrowing tunes and styles, and by the Civil War the musicians were learning from the rest of the south and sometimes from northern musicians too.

In the late 1800s large scale mining and logging of the mountains brought more African Americans into the region along with newer versions of their musical styles and expanded instrument preferences. By the time the sound recording industry was born in the 1920s and ’30s, Blue Ridge music was introduced to a national audience. It proved very popular all over the country in rural enclaves with a fondness for the string band, “old-time” music sound.

Western North Carolina’s Blue Ridge counties are alive today with Bluegrass bands old and young, singers of the older Anglo-Irish ballads, and historic forms of gospel singing music still survive. There is a vigorous trade in handmade musical instruments as well, including fiddles, banjos, guitars, mandolins and dulcimers.

You can check out the map and contact list at the Blue Ridge Music organization website to plan your weekend outings, or just check in at the local Chambers of Commerce in towns and cities in the area you wish to visit. Most are familiar with their local mountain music venues, and might even know right off the top of their heads who’s playing where on Friday and Saturday night, or singing on Sunday!

At many local venues, such as the Mountain Music Nights in the town of Old Fort, you can sit or dance inside or linger unobtrusively in the downtown building’s forecourt to catch some of the on-the-spot jam sessions that go on as old friends and new friends play a sort of “Pick-Up Bluegrass” sport forming bands right there before taking over the stage. There’s coffee and sodas for a quarter, fresh homemade pies and cakes just fifty cents a slice, and admission is free for all!

If you love old-time music, can’t be sad at the sound of a banjo, long to hear some good ol’ Irish reels and kick up your heels, make some plans to check out the venues along the Blue Ridge Music Trail. You might get hooked on the music, start coming back on a regular basis for more!

Links:

Blue Ridge Music Trails

The Music Trail

UNC Press: Blue Ridge Music Trails

Mountain Music in Old Fort

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Filed under Carolina History, NC Trails, Family Activities, Blue Ridge, Music, North Carolina |