Appalachian String Band Music Festival Bridges Generations

On the first cool Saturday afternoon in quite a while, about two dozen old-time musical groups took the stage to compete in a traditional band contest.

The groups are participating in the Appalachian String Band Music Festival, an annual celebration at Fayette County’s historic Camp Washington-Carver. The camp serves as West Virginia’s mountain cultural arts center and a fitting backdrop for the five-day festival. 

Contest coordinator Bobby Taylor said this gathering began in the early 1980s as a bluegrass event. In 1990, Taylor and others decided this West Virginia mountain top music fest needed to showcase the sounds that originated here.

“West Virginia has a very old tradition of old-time fiddles and banjo players,” Taylor said. “Other little areas of the country have their own spatial little areas too. We all share and learn from each other. And West Virginia being somewhat remote compared to big areas, the music here has been shared from one generation to the next.”

At its heart, old-time is the pre-bluegrass folk music of the Appalachian mountains. The core instruments in an old-time string band are fiddle, banjo and guitar, with mandolin, harmonica, or upright bass joining in. 

This is a homecoming for Louisville fiddle player Jim McGee, who lived in Fayette County in the 1980s and 1990s. McGee remembered the first old-time string music fest, 34 years ago. 

“I remember the first time it was really laid back,” McGee said. “There was a small number of people, maybe 200 or 300 and they had the same stage here. We would go to the Rock Bridge Festival in Lexington, Virginia, and they would say, ‘Boy, we had a great time at Clifftop, and you really ought to think about going next year.’ And everyone started talking about it in other places, you know. And then they came to it.”

Multi-instrumentalist Andy Wolfe from Columbia, South Carolina is among the thousands who come back again and again. Wolfe brings his family – and they do more than just come along for the ride.

“It’s back porch picking, before we had, you know, electronic entertainment of every type, including the radio, people made music. That was what they did in the evenings. So we’re still making music,” Wolfe said. “I taught my kids. My kids would probably teach their kids. I’ve been coming here with my youngest son since he was four years old. He was on stage when he was four years old, and, you know, it was a terrific experience.”

At her third old-time music fest, Richmond, Virginia banjo player Rachel Dunaway said her highlights don’t come on stage, but in the evening jam sessions.

“I really love how social it is,” Dunaway said. “I think it’s just a really solid and tight community. I mean, you can come here and you’ll find people from all different places, and you’re all kind of bonded by that love of music. And you can just sit down and play tunes together, even if you’ve never met before.”

Dunaway and 71-year-old upright bass player Fred Levine are in the Floyd, Virginia-based Jack Wilson Terrier band. Levine said he won the traditional band contest a few times with the Cutting up Gumbys. Their chief competition back then was the Mando Mafia and the Free Will Savages, but in the end, Levine said, it’s about fun and family.

”Old-time music gives me joy,” he said. “It gives me energy. It just feels like it’s happy music. My daughter is a great player. It’s very important to pass this down. And she kind of grew up with this music, and, you know, it became very important to her. I brought her since she was a little kid, and she won some ribbons in Mount Airy when she was, like, 9 or 10 years old. And then I brought her here, and I brought my other kids here. My other kids don’t play old-time, but they still have wonderful memories of being here as kids.”

It seems that every other player here can tell a similar story. Rachel Dunaway said for her, when the week ends, a mix of music emotions can overwhelm.

“The post-festival blues is a real thing,” she said. “It’s like, you’ve got all this dopamine and energy from being around and jamming and staying up all night and playing with everyone, and then you come home and you’re like, ‘Oh man, it’s all over.’ But it’s super fun. It kind of gives you those, like, you get to do things with other people. You don’t necessarily have to talk to other people as much, but you can sit down and play with them.”