When it's Picking Time

Stoney Creek Bluegrass Band at the recent Pickin' in the Panhandle Festival in Martinsburg

 

12 September 2012: Home.

I do my best thinking in my garden. I can commune with the squirrels who are eating the last of my sunflowers. They think they're getting away with something. They don't know I've planted them for their benefit. I'm watching five or six huge pumpkins develop - going from the green phase to their bright pumpkin-orange Halloween phase. They remind me of the turning of the season. The loss of summer days and nights. I don't do well when the thermometer goes below 70. Most of my friends know I'm a hot weather, high humidity, sun-freak. It's Harvest-Time. Shine on Harvest moon for me and my Gal. This time also ushers in a whole new phase of bluegrass for me.  It ushers in a whole new phase for the local talent, too. It's the start of the local farms to mount weekends dedicated to selling their harvests. This weekend I'll be back up in Martinsburg covering the Orr's Farm "Farm and Fun Days." On Saturday, Patent Pending and Stoney Creek will be featured. Then on Sunday the Back Creek Valley Boys will be playing. I wish I could just set up a tent and stay there, but I don't think the property owners would appreciate it. In our own area several farms each year feature bluegrass music as part of their 'farm weekends.' All you have to do is check your local merchandising papers to find them - you know, those little local papers that mysteriously get thrown in your driveway. And of course the internet is a valuable search tool to find out what's happening in your local area. We've got so many going on here in northern Virginia and central Maryland that it's hard to make a choice. I research them all to see which band is playing where. I've come up with some amazing surprises. Bands I've wanted to hear but somehow the scheduling never worked out, sometimes show up in the most unlikely venues.

My friends are funny. They tell me things like, "You're always out there following bluegrass. I wish I could. How do you find this stuff?" Here's another good one: "I really like that music. Take me with you the next time!"  Several calls and e-mails later and it's obvious they weren't really that serious about the music. They come up with the flakiest excuses for staying in their easy chairs propped up with potato chips in front of a TV set - or worse yet, the ultimate degradation as far as I'm concerned, a golf-date with a couple fellow club members. Yeah, life's grand at that 19th hole. I'd rather be around live people who are trying to make a living growing things or stringing a banjo. I'll do more interesting networking at a farmers' market than my friend out on the links- and by the way, what are "links" anyhow? Just some more of that esoteric golf-speak. I can always slink into my own smugness by acknowledging that I at least understand the musical concepts of a Lester Flatt G-Run. At Orr's Market this weekend I'll have to conceal that kind of bluegrass snobbery. My buddies in the Back Creek Valley Boys Band won't stand for it.

There's no mystery about how I find this stuff. It's all around us here in the long shadow of the Blue Ridge foothills. Some of the most authentic musicians you'll ever hear are waiting for you to come out and spend some time with them between now and October 31st at any of the numerous local farms or farmers' markets.

Almost Heaven . . .

11 August 2012 - at the Berkeley County Youth Fair in Martinsburg, W. Va.

The Back Creek Valley Boys pose with Alicia Pownall

It's the toughest place to play this kind of music. There's a rock and roll show blaring from a covered pavilion to the left. Behind them is a demolition derby going on. There's no actual performance area so people are lollygagging all over the place while a couple hundred feet away are the lights and overwhelming noise coming from the carny rides area. Why am I here, I ask myself. I want to get something to eat but the choices look absolutely disgusting. Two people stroll by with huge paper plates piled high with potato chips covered in melted velveeta cheese. I guess I can wait to get something to eat when I get back to Virginia. Things change once the Back Creek Valley Boys start playing. The strollers stop. Young mothers with babies and toddlers stop so their kids can actually get to witness men making live music with acoustical stringed instruments. You see the mothers and some fathers pointing out the instruments to their kids. "See? He's playing that thing. That's a banjo!" The parents seem proud that they can pass this adult knowledge on to their young ones, as if it were some sort of mystical and privileged information. The kids are mesmerized. I love to watch the parenting when an audience runs right into the real thing. They may not realize it, may not even be thinking about it, but they're eye-witnesses to an Appalachian heritage. Maybe the young ones may never forget the moment, may never forget that once they heard a banjo ring, or saw a guy who did amazing things by magically sliding his fingers all up and down a guitar fret-board, and he did it without the help of computerized animation or any kind of programming.

At my time in life I'm beginning to remember the little instances that had a profound effect on the way I look at things. I was maybe 9 or 10 years old and I went on a school field trip to the museums in Pittsburgh. I remember very clearly that I saw my first collection of "modern art" and there was this painting called "The Swimmers." I stared at it for what seemed the whole afternoon because I knew it was different and stood out from all the other paintings. I still have memories of seeing my first stage-play in elementary school. It was "Jack and the Bean Stalk." I remember not being scared of the Giant because it was just a story being played out by actors.  I also remember laughing at my Dad behind his back when he switched on the radio and played this God-awful stuff we used to call Hillbilly Music. I hadn't a clue that I was listening to cultural history, and here I am at his age listening to the same thing. I feel fortunate enough to now have the time to retrace those years and truly investigate just what it was Dad was listening to on WWVA, The Opry, and a few other stations. I failed to appreciate it then, now I have the time to fully appreciate it for what it is.

I'm watching a truly good band do their magic with the crowd, considering all the distractions that abound to hinder their performance. There's something in this music that pulls you in very slowly. You either become a true believer or opt to see cars crashing or maybe get your chest pounded in by the concussion produced when too many loudspeakers become the obligatory rule for rock music. I'm sitting here on a magnificent summer evening listening to some of the best hillbilly music I can get in these parts. Back behind the performing area I can see a young teeny-bopper by herself. She seems to be walking aimlessly, and she doesn't seem to be attached to any friends, not like any of the other packs of kids I see running around this place. She walks, and then stops, caught between the noise of the car-crashing and the music emanating from The Back Creek Valley Boys. Her head turns toward the rock and roll pavilion and then back toward the string music. Frank Maietta goes wild on a banjo run. Brandon Michael tears it up with his fiddling. I'm watching, This is interesting. The young girl takes two more steps toward the bluegrass and stops. I watch her intently listen until the song ends. When it does, she comes closer to listen to more, and I watch her as she watches. She may have heard this music before, but maybe never really listened to it. She was taking her time to listen to it that evening.

The Back Creek Valley Boys are: Ike Jordan, mandolin - Andrew Jordan, guitar - Frank Maietta, banjo - Brandon Michael, fiddle - Randy Kenney, bass. The band plays a lot in the Martinsburg/panhandle area of West Virginia and will be featured at the "Pickin in the Panhandle" Festival in September. More information available at www.thebackcreekvalleyboys.com