“Ashokan Farewell” is a hello to fiddle playing
Every year for at least the past 15 or so, I have written about the amazing experience of attending the annual Old Fiddlers Convention in Galax, and once again this year, the second week in August did not disappoint. Though the crowds seemed to be a little smaller, probably because the week in the mountains saw a lot of rain, the bands and the bluegrass music were all you could hope for.
Barb and I always try to take along different sets of friends as our guests each year—and you’d be surprised at how few people really get excited about going to hear bluegrass and staying in a four-room cabin on the side of a mountain with no phone (and no cell phone service for miles), no computer hookup and a TV that we immediately unplug upon arrival. But I don’t think we’ve ever taken anybody that didn’t end up enjoying the adventure.
Early in the morning, everybody gathers on the big front porch of this Civil War-era log cabin, to be greeted by a nip in the air (even when it’s 100 degrees back in
Richmond) and a view of the mountains that never fails to leave all gasping. It is truly one of the loveliest spots I have ever seen. The cabin we always rent is on the ridge of a mountain near Grayson National Forest—so isolated this is the place where the state brings bears to drop them off after they’ve wandered too close to cities and civilization. From the cabin, which is built of huge wooden logs with a kind of chinking—crumbing in spots after all these years—that I’m sure could not be found anymore; there is not another house, not a car, not another person visible. And the view goes on for miles.
The owner of the cabin is Ronnie Cooper (the nicest man you’ll ever meet, as my late father-in-law would say), who grew up in the area, speaks with a strong mountain accent, and who lives farther down the road, where he raises Christmas trees for a living and where an emergency phone can be had if you’re desperate. Occasionally on a clear night, you can hear Ronnie’s dog barking, but otherwise all is still.
Quiet is almost palpable when you spend your life in a city. Sometimes it’s so still at the cabin around three o’clock in the morning that if you happen to wake up, it almost hurts your ears. You find yourself straining to hear something, or you scratch the sheet a bit to prove your ears are still working.
Mary, one of our guests this year, is learning to play the fiddle–she bought a new, red one in Galax–and some days we awoke to the sounds of “Ashokan Farewell,” that haunting fiddle tune from Ken Burns’ Civil War mini-series years ago. That beautiful tune brought me out of bed to lay hands on my guitar, and Barb even showed up on the porch with the left-handed mandolin that I gave her years ago and which mostly rests in its case. But this week, this always-special time, even brings out the would-be musician in her, as it does in the rest of us.
When I write about this experience year after year, I’m never sure whether I want to focus on the evenings 30 miles away from the cabin, the trips to Galax to hear the real musicians, the stage performances and jam sessions there—or linger instead on the days at the cabin and the serene moments that await us there. One experience is so personal, and the other so communal—and each is perfect in its way. At the cabin we read; we make music; we pick blackberries for our morning cereal; we talk rather more profoundly, probably, than any time all year; we breathe the freshest air and we sleep the deepest sleep.
But when we go into Galax and down into the basin that is Felts Field, the crowds are thick and loud; the music is hard-driving; the temptations for funnel cake and curly potatoes and fried pies overwhelm, as do the scents of popcorn and sizzling beef and butter—all things no longer part of my diet. The bands are beyond my ken, too: guitar playing that quickly brings you to your feet; mandolins and banjos that get the most passive farmer clapping, harmonizing like you’ve never heard. There are always some Richmond bands in the group, including Paul Muller’s authentic and excellent band, the Farrington Ferrets; and the brilliant young musicians of Special Ed and the Short Bus, a crowd-pleaser year after year.
The people who attend the “convention” cover the gamut—they arrive in bib overalls and designer pants, flip-flops and expensive boots. It is the best people-watcher show I know. Barb and I have certain people that we look for year after year, and the ones we don’t really know we have our own names for, like “Duckman,” who every year walks around with a ceramic duck under his arm. He told us once it helps him meet people, who invariably come up and say, “What’s with the duck?” Then there’s “Raccoon Tail,” who wore one on his head the first year we saw him there. There’s the Easter family, to whom we finally introduced ourselves last year, after sitting a few rows behind them for at least a dozen years, watching their kids grow up.
The familiar faces at Galax become our once-a-year friends. We’d miss them if they didn’t show up, and we think they’d miss us, too. And as for the bluegrass, well, I can’t imagine life without bluegrass, or life without Galax.
For me, this experience is simply the best week of the year.
