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Published: October 26th 2016
Well it's been almost a week since I've managed to add a post here. I have been far too busy enjoying my holiday to share with you lovely folk! But now I can catch you up on a week's worth of japes.
We left Washington DC bright and early on Tuesday morning in our Jeep Cherokee and, having set up the Go-Pro on the bonnet of the car we were good to go. Our first leg was about a 1.5hr drive from DC to Fort Royal where we stopped for a diner breakfast before turning into the Shenandoah National Park and the top of the Skyline Drive. Well. Wow. It was a glorious, hot and sunny day and we wound our way for a few hours along a road that takes you through the park. It was beautiful. Due to the unseasonably late warm weather, which we saw over in the UK as well, the leaves were on the turn but not yet fully gone. Greens, yellows, oranges and bright reds for miles - you could tell when we reached higher parts of the road as the leaves were more colourful - but even so it was spectacular for the majority. Buzzards flying overhead, several stops to check out vistas of the Shenandoah valley and the Virginian countryside. Top marks for this trip all around. As the top speed limit is 45MPH it was a leisurely trip and we were lucky to be doing it on a week day so there weren't too many other cars on the road.
The end of the Skyline Drive marks the beginning of the 469mile Blue Ridge Parkway which is a similarly dedicated scenic drive through the Blue Ridge Mountains and down into the Smoky Mountains. We wound our way along this extended visual feast for another few hours to our stop for the night - Roanoke, VA. Not too much to report from Roanoke except an uber ride in a fancy BMW SUV, driven by Alberto - who had lived in Brixton and ran a latino nightclub there for a few years and our first burgers of the trip (which were, I might add, excellent). A few beers and it was time to get some beauty sleep in our motel.
Wednesday saw us rise and jump back in the jeep to continue our journey on the Blueridge Parkway. Trees, colours, beautiful, glorious, scenic etc etc etc. A slightly odd trip down a back road (as per the guidance of our sat nav) and a decision to skip the back roads and stick to the signposts resulted in arrival at the Blue Ridge Music Centre. This inconspicuous, barn-like building houses a state-funded small museum, dedicated to the music and musicians of the blue ridge mountains. We wandered briefly around the exhibition - learning about the instruments making their way from European immigrants (fiddles, dulcimers) and African slaves (banjos) and how the blending of these instruments and the traditional folk music gave birth to the unique sound of Appalachian folk which then became the beginnings of almost all American music. Our trip traces much of that history in vaguely chronological order so it was a nice way to start (gospel in DC aside!). Each day from May-October there is a free concert of traditional music and we were treated to a lovely set played by Bill and Maggie Andersen - a couple who met via folk music and have followed their hearts from New York to the mountains in the last decade. They sang a few traditional numbers and a few originals - a particularly beautiful one they had written in dedication to Maybelle Carter (more on that later) following her death. Maggie is a champion dobro player and her husband very proudly told us she regularly beats mainly men in folk competitions. The dobro is played on the lap with a slide - some of you may have seen Fog playing the electric version - the lap-steel guitar and Maggie very aptly played a lovely tune to demonstrate her abilities and the sound of her instrument. It uses a steel cone built into the hollow of the instrument to amplify the sound and give it a lovely 'twangy' vibe that often accompanies traditional country music.
Free concert seen, we then hopped back in the car to finish the short drive to Galax, Virginia, population 7000. Unsurprisingly, it had a very different feel from both DC and Roanoke, and it certainly felt off the beaten track. Although it is a quiet town, it hosts an annual fidllers convention that attracts 40,000 odd musicians from across the world, competing for the title of world fiddling champion. It has now extended to a range of instruments (including the aforementioned dobro) and folk vocalists to boot, thus giving it the subheading on the town sign 'World's Center of Old Time Mountain Music'. Wednesday was a rest night for us so we sat in a local bar, sinking some (more) beers (I'm definitely coming back from this trip a dress size larger) and then headed to the Galax Smokehouse - proud recipient of several national BBQ awards and home to an unfathomably large collection of porcelain, wooden, plastic and other assorted material pigs (including a set of 13 porcelain pigs on keyrings, some blue, some pink, each representing a member of the family who ran the business). Glam it was not. But we managed to see away some extremely tasty ribs and brisket between us and roll ourselves up the hill to our motel for bed.
Music mountain vibe:
Thursday morning saw an early rise and a trip off the Blueridge Parkway but continuing through the mountains, winding past tiny towns, countless 'Trump/Pence 2016' pickets in lawns, endless numbers of baptist churches, gleaming white in the hot autumn sunshine and promising hope and salvation from their black and white boards. We paused briefly for a pit stop in the somewhat humourously named 'Blowing Rock' - a town somewhere towards the high end of the spectrum between 'charmingly picturesque' and 'outrageously twee', but which provided me with a lovely clean loo and a banana to stem the rapid onset of scurvy resulting from my previous day's attempt at 'nutrition'.
After an unplanned extended trip, we arrived at the daunting front of the Grove Park Inn in the leafy hills of beautiful Asheville, NC. This was a bit of a treat courtesy of Leo, who had frequented the establishment a few times before, and wowee what a treat. The building is made from large slabs of local granite and looks a little like something out of 'The Flintstones'. It was built 113 years ago by the Vanderbilt family and has had two huge extensions since then. We signed our car off to valet parking (when in Rome...) and headed into the grand lobby - a huge hall with fireplaces at either end, rocking chairs in front of the fireplaces, large soft sofas across the room and hotel staff pushing golden luggage carts around. Our room wasn't quite ready so we grabbed a sandwich from the in-hotel market place (!) and sat outside in the sunshine - with breathtaking views across the valley. Trees, colours, beautiful, glorious etc etc etc. It was, once more, an unseasonably hot day with the sun beating down 27C and an exceptionally pleasant way to spend an afternoon. That evening, we sat watching the beginning of the sunset with Leo and enjoying a cold beer (for me, soft drink for Fog) before grabbing our car from valet (tee hee - so fancy!) and nipping across to Marshall, NC, an unassuming town on the edge of the mountains. This town is the home of grammy award winning fiddle player Bobby Hicks, now 83, who hosts a weekly jam at the Zuma coffee house in town. We sat for about 1.5hours taking in the western swing played by several local musicians (a few fiddles, a couple of guitars, various vocalists, a mandolin and a double bass). It was really lovely - people who almost certainly had normal day jobs, who weren't professional musicians (Hicks aside), who had not rehearsed a planned set together, but who complemented each other beautifully, swerving elegantly from playing lead to supporting others, adding musicians in when they joined half way through the jam and playing a range of beautiful traditional folk songs. A real treat which culminated in Fog being offered a room and a chance to play if we were to return. We just may do that.
Friday saw us take the freeway back up to Galax (for such a small town we really made the most of it!) and a trip to the Rex Theater. This small theatre hosts a regular Friday night gig which is broadcast live on Virginia WBRF 98.1FM and focuses on old-time and bluegrass music. We were really lucky that our visit coincided with a gig by the Whitetop Mountain Band. I can't even begin to describe how much fun these guys were. A largely family band (Martha Spencer and her parents Emily and Thornton along with Debbie Bramer on bass and Ersel Fletcher on guitar/vocals) they played fast-paced old-time mountain music, littered with 'whoops' and squeals and yodels, Martha swapping effortlessly between instruments and even treating us to a particularly energetic bout of flat-foot dancing. A good number of folks headed to the front of the theatre to engage in flat-foot dancing (somewhere between irish dancing, tap dancing and drunk uncle at a wedding dancing) and two-step for the slower numbers. The music was interspersed with adverts for local businesses (including a gun shop and a local insurance provider) and the rapid, even-toned compering of the local radio DJ. The band regularly play UK gigs and they are well-worth catching - if only for their witty stage banter: 'This next song is a real tear-jerker... it's called 16 chickens and a tambourine'. We sat next to Ersel's wife at the back of the theatre who was impressed by Fog's knowledge and said it was a shame he didn't have his guitar with him as they would have invited him for a jam if so.
