Galax, Virginia

“This is how towns used to be,” says Tommy Barr in his fiddle shop on Main Street in Galax, Va. “You can walk down the street and people speak to you.” Or play for you.

Galax is rich in natural beauty and pioneering history, but you can’t linger long without noticing the mountain music.

“Most of the people who settled these mountains were from Scotland, Ireland … places like that,” says Barr. “The only entertainment they had was music they provided for themselves.”

A lifelong resident, he has fond childhood memories of entire families playing music at someone’s home and neighbors joining in. “It would be like a big jam session,” he remembers. Because one generation taught the next this distinctive style of music played on guitar, fiddle, bass, and banjo, Galax has become known as the World’s Capital of Old-Time Mountain Music.

“There’s a little different flavor in the music,” Barr explains. “If they learn it through books or records or from teachers, it loses part of its heritage. Music doesn’t change much when it comes down through the families.”

Though similar to bluegrass, mountain music features a banjo-strumming technique called clawhammering, rather than the finger-picking style popularized by Earl Scruggs and other bluegrass greats.

“You hold your hand like you were going to hammer a nail,” explains Bobby Patterson, whose Heritage Shop offers an eclectic mix of music recordings, candies, and wedding supplies. “Your first finger hammers on the string and your thumb is hooked to pick it.”

“Old-time uses a more simple three- or four-chord pattern. With bluegrass, they can go any way they want,” he adds. And bluegrass composers often create new works while mountain music players prefer the standards.

A resident for 58 years, Patterson practices every Tuesday night with his band, The Highlanders. “We try to perfect our music skills,” he says of the jam sessions that include songs he learned from his parents.

Although many who play are, according to Patterson, “good enough to be professional musicians like you hear on the Grand Ole Opry,” Galax is home to few full-time performers. Instead, playing music is the preferred pastime of many who work in the area’s furniture and textile industries, or produce local crops of cabbage and Christmas trees.

It’s also a weekly ritual at the Rex Theater, a refurbished hall built in the late ’30s, where Roy Rogers and other celebrities appeared in touring stage shows. Today the Rex is home to Blue Ridge Backroads, one of only three live bluegrass radio shows airing weekly in the nation. From 8-10 p.m. every Friday, the stately 450-seat auditorium is filled with appreciative fans and the sounds of the best bands along the Blue Ridge range. The 100,000-watt signal of WBRF (98.1 FM) spreads the music to loyal listeners throughout the region and into neighboring states.

This Aug. 7-12, the music takes center stage as Galax hosts its annual Old Fiddler’s Convention. Typically drawing up to 40,000 people, the 65-year-old festival is a magnet for 2,000 musicians to show off their talents.

“String band music started here in Carroll-Grayson County,” Patterson says. “The convention is one of the things that keeps it going.”

The Blue Ridge Music Center, a development of the National Park Service, is scheduled to open in 2002. Visitors will be able to explore the history of traditional music, watch as folk instruments are built, and listen to live performances by local musicians—all of which already occurs informally in this town of 7,000.

Although residents move away, “I’ve seen a lot of people who’ve been born and raised here in Galax come back to retire,” Patterson says. “They remember how Grandpa or their dad used to play, and they buy ‘em a banjo or a fiddle because they want to play like their ancestors did.”

“The music continues on today like it was a hundred years ago,” adds Barr, the fiddle maker. “Here in Galax, it’s like a way of life.”

“This is how towns used to be,” says Tommy Barr in his fiddle shop on Main Street in Galax, Va. “You can walk down the street and people speak to you.” Or play for you.

Galax is rich in natural beauty and pioneering history, but you can’t linger long without noticing the mountain music.

“Most of the people who settled these mountains were from Scotland, Ireland … places like that,” says Barr. “The only entertainment they had was music they provided for themselves.”

A lifelong resident, he has fond childhood memories of entire families playing music at someone’s home and neighbors joining in. “It would be like a big jam session,” he remembers. Because one generation taught the next this distinctive style of music played on guitar, fiddle, bass, and banjo, Galax has become known as the World’s Capital of Old-Time Mountain Music.

“There’s a little different flavor in the music,” Barr explains. “If they learn it through books or records or from teachers, it loses part of its heritage. Music doesn’t change much when it comes down through the families.”

Though similar to bluegrass, mountain music features a banjo-strumming technique called clawhammering, rather than the finger-picking style popularized by Earl Scruggs and other bluegrass greats.

“You hold your hand like you were going to hammer a nail,” explains Bobby Patterson, whose Heritage Shop offers an eclectic mix of music recordings, candies, and wedding supplies. “Your first finger hammers on the string and your thumb is hooked to pick it.”

“Old-time uses a more simple three- or four-chord pattern. With bluegrass, they can go any way they want,” he adds. And bluegrass composers often create new works while mountain music players prefer the standards.

A resident for 58 years, Patterson practices every Tuesday night with his band, The Highlanders. “We try to perfect our music skills,” he says of the jam sessions that include songs he learned from his parents.

Although many who play are, according to Patterson, “good enough to be professional musicians like you hear on the Grand Ole Opry,” Galax is home to few full-time performers. Instead, playing music is the preferred pastime of many who work in the area’s furniture and textile industries, or produce local crops of cabbage and Christmas trees.

It’s also a weekly ritual at the Rex Theater, a refurbished hall built in the late ’30s, where Roy Rogers and other celebrities appeared in touring stage shows. Today the Rex is home to Blue Ridge Backroads, one of only three live bluegrass radio shows airing weekly in the nation. From 8-10 p.m. every Friday, the stately 450-seat auditorium is filled with appreciative fans and the sounds of the best bands along the Blue Ridge range. The 100,000-watt signal of WBRF (98.1 FM) spreads the music to loyal listeners throughout the region and into neighboring states.

This Aug. 7-12, the music takes center stage as Galax hosts its annual Old Fiddler’s Convention. Typically drawing up to 40,000 people, the 65-year-old festival is a magnet for 2,000 musicians to show off their talents.

“String band music started here in Carroll-Grayson County,” Patterson says. “The convention is one of the things that keeps it going.”

The Blue Ridge Music Center, a development of the National Park Service, is scheduled to open in 2002. Visitors will be able to explore the history of traditional music, watch as folk instruments are built, and listen to live performances by local musicians—all of which already occurs informally in this town of 7,000.

Although residents move away, “I’ve seen a lot of people who’ve been born and raised here in Galax come back to retire,” Patterson says. “They remember how Grandpa or their dad used to play, and they buy ‘em a banjo or a fiddle because they want to play like their ancestors did.”

“The music continues on today like it was a hundred years ago,” adds Barr, the fiddle maker. “Here in Galax, it’s like a way of life.”

Freelance writer Michael Nolan has spent some fine evenings listening to the musicians who pick together at Hardison’s Grocery in Shackle Island, Tenn.

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