/>Mt. Airy fiddlers convention. There’s nothing quite like it. It has just the right proportions, the old southern old-timers, young spirited punks, greasy fair food, the constant hum of the key of A, and good storytelling red necks and dancin’ grannies. Sean and I left New York Thurs morning and drove 9 hours with windshield wipers on high, semi laughing at the fact that we are bout to go for a long weekend of camping in the woods and it was relentlessly dumping rain. We showed up in Mt. Airy and like always I never really know how to get to the festival so we called James Ruchala who now is a proud resident of North Carolina. James just had the unfortunate experience of his brakes going out in his car going out on some mountain pass, everyone’s nightmare but james made it sound like …just one of those things. We met up and made way to his cute little house had a lovely dinner, cooked with nice things from his garden..We optimistically thought the rain would stop while we had dinner but it didn’t so we made our way over to the festival.
We got there in the thick of the rain, didn’t set up the tent just made our way out to see the happening ran into dan from the cankickers and some friendly folks plopped ourselves and played a bunch of tunes tried to avoid the rain that was dripping form the tent and the pools of water all collected in the middle of the meadow. I love playing music with new folks where I have to figure out their groove it’s a fun little puzzle to try to get in sync. Fell asleep that night in james tent both me and sean, it was a sweet little slumber party. Woke up the next morning and found bob Willoughby, he’s my most favorite buddy at fiddler’s conventions I sat with him for basically the rest of that day playing lopey tunes, shootin the shit a lot of the time just having a good hang. He is a great soul.
Made my way down to the field to check out the competition scene. There was a new dance floor this year, solid wood floor for all the flat footers and cloggers. It was a beautiful scene. I went over to get a picture and there was the one old man that stood out. He had a shiny red jacket, brilliant blue eyes and did some crazy moves with his white sneakers was no younger than 70’s. He caught my eye and held out his hand and said ”oh would you dance with me” I really couldn’t say no , though I was wearing big clumsy rubber boots and really have no idea how to flat foot. He was thrilled no matter what my skills where, he said all those old ladies he wears out and they have to sit down, he’s been dancing for the past 8 hours. So sweet.
Made my way to the back of the stage where all the musicians where lined up for the competition. Everyone was practicing up their tune doe the competition, passing a bottle around, standing in a lot of mud, laughing and having a good old time. Half the competition fun is the line you wait in before you play.
The rest of that night was hanging with my next favorite buddy Steve Fagan. His crazy red neck stories always delight me. Like the one about the “English immigrant” who came to the festival one year and played Old Joe Clark for 6 hours straight. Steve got an idea of how to stop this old joe clark playing machine, he decided to torch him with WD40 and a lighter. Apparently the flame length is like 5 feet or something crazy like that. It doesn’t just end there Robbie Roberson felt like the dude that brought the “English immigrant” should be punished as well for bringing such a guy so he shot the 5 foot flame towards the other dude too. Yeah, charming if you heard it coming from their mouth.
The next day was much of the same, steak and egg diner for breakfast, corn dog and French fries for dinner, lots of tune playing and the weather getting warmer and dryer all the time. Saturday was the best day. There was a wedding, a civil war lesson and a renegade square dance. Jamie, John Herman’s son got married. I think it was suppose to just be an engagement party with cocktails and old-time music. But Paul Brown came and said some sweet words of encouragement and the John Herman said “we should just do it now, do you wanna do it NOW?” They giggled, nodded and then the wedding began and at the end they were smootchin and dancin’ in less than 10 minutes. I cried it was sweet.
Later found my self sitting in the forest section of the hill with 3 fiddles and banjo we played fiddle tunes, ballads and then for a moment the mt. airy festival dissolved into the background and we were completely engrossed in a heavy conversation of the civil war, slavery, abolitionist. These guys were civil war re-enactors and historians. I love old-time musicians! Then it was off to the renegade square dance. It was the square dancing I have ever done. The dances were great and both the callers and the musicians rotated so was always fresh.
Then it was getting on 5 am and I headed up the hill to tuck myself in for the last night in Mt. airy. The moon was bright and full and shone over the meadow and fiddles where still going and part of me thought I probably could stay up till the sun came up but I just stood and listened for a while then crawled into my tent and fell asleep and that was Mt. Airy fiddlers convention for me.
