The Blue Ridge Music Center is a product of the Blue Ridge Parkway. The verdant hills slope into the newly built structure, marked by Milepost 213. The building may be new, but the idea of it has been in the making for the last two decades.
The parkway, conceived of by Congress as a national park and constructed during the Great Depression to employ locals, is charged to "interpret and preserve the natural, cultural, and historic features" of the Appalachian mountains. Music is one of the cornerstones of local culture, and so the Music Center is a logical extension of the Blue Ridge Parkway. The idea needed a formal place to showcase the rich tradition of music in this area, instead of just music camps and campfire meetings. The National Council for the Traditional Arts partnered with the project, and the finished exhibits opened this past May.
The exhibit goes through the history of mountain music, starting with the immigration to the New World in the 16th century. Janet Bachmann, a park ranger originally from upstate New York*, said "[It is] central to the story that people understand that the music is a combination of several influences, but there's two really big influences: that's the fiddle, that came from Europe, and it's a portable instrument––you know, you couldn't load a piano up very easily on a boat––. . . . The instrument that we call the banjo really comes from Africa." She pointed to one of the exhibits, which included an early fiddle and the original banjo. "You can see here that this is an African ekonting, and the thing that is so interesting in this exhibit is how the banjo changes through time."
Mountain music, and its associated instruments, is a combination of the music of European settlers and African slaves. One exhibit tells humorously of how a tutor became frustrated with his pupils because they kept slipping into the slaves' quarters to dance and play their music––which was not to be done by the sons of a landed gentleman. Mountain music continued to change with the times and technology. Bachmann continued, "We think of American music, and we think of guitars. . . . They didn't come in until after the Civil War. . . . The big surprise for a lot of people is that people made all this music, and guitars were not a part of it initially." Bluegrass is one of the newest forms in the exhibit, coming in only in the late 1940s with the microphone, since it is primarily a performance genre**. The purpose of the Music Center is to inform visitors to the Blue Ridge Parkway of the true history of mountain music.
Erynn Marshall, the program manager, is an asset to the Blue Ridge Music Center. She is originally from Canada*** , but fell in love with the music styles in this area and chose to complete her Master's degree in ethnomusicology with a study of local, old-time string music. Marshall organizes for players to come in for the Midday Mountain Music, where the different bands––for example, Willard Gayheart and Bobby Patterson played June 12––make music from 12pm to 4pm everyday.
"We have concerts typically on Saturday nights. It's just beautiful," said Marshall. "The sun sets over the stage, people bring their lawn chairs, picnics, friends and family, and they sit out there and enjoy a concert." The amphitheater has featured such players as the late Doc Watson––which drew a crowd in the thousands––and regularly attracts a large and varied crowd. Marshall has seen visitors from England, the Czech Republic, Germany, and Japan, and she knows of a newspaper article from Germany that details the Crooked Road because of all the German visitors that have traveled to it. "This is a very famous part of the world. Often people don't realize––who have grown up here––how well known their music is outside of this area. Allen Lomack said this is the richest breeding ground of traditional music."
The Blue Ridge Music Center is non-profit, but appreciates donations to support their free programs. Come visit the Music Center, the place to which people have moved and visited from all over the world and country. For more information, call (276) 236-5309 or visit http://www.blueridgemusiccenter.org/.
This piece was originally written for publication in the Carroll County News. All additions are by the original author, marked by endnotes, and may be purely and quite informally for snark's sake, since the local paper would not appreciate them.
Endnotes
* (I don't know how she ended up down here)
** To those who have never heard bluegrass . . . I do not like it. When I spoke to Bachmann, I summarized bluegrass as a music genre "that is really quite new, but with the façade of an old one." There is too much twang and nasal singing involved. However, old-time string music, I adore. I went a little nerdy while walking through the exhibit, and I want copies of the string music they have recorded.
*** (I caught her saying "oot" a few times; don't kill me, but I love Canada)
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