Listen: T-Mart Rounders with the Mountain Stage Song of the Week

Percussive dance blends with old-time instruments for a fresh take on traditional music by the trio called T-Mart Rounders, who have our Song of the Week.

Dancer Becky Hill, fiddler/vocalist Jesse Milnes and banjoist Kevin Chesser comprise the T-Mart Rounders, who began playing together in Elkins, W.Va. Their debut album features updated versions of traditional numbers along with a song written by Milnes. Their performance of Milnes’ original “Margaret’s Song” is our Song of the Week.

Milnes said he wrote the song based on a story he was told at a laundromat in Beverly, W.VA.

“I was waiting for my clothes to come out of the dryer, playing fiddle as you do. This woman walked in and looked at me and said, ‘My husband loved that fiddle music.’”

The result is this heartbreaking story-song of love lost to illness, and the sacrifice the husband makes for his true love.

This week’s encore episode was recorded in partnership with the Augusta Heritage Festival on the campus of Davis & Elkins College in Elkins, W.Va. Hear the entire show starting Friday July 24, with performances from past Old Crow Medicine Show member Chance McCoy (below), award winning traditional group the Big Possum String Band, folk-blues guitarist Jody Carroll, and the trio of Cathy Fink, Marcy Marxer and Sam Gleaves.

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Read more about the Augusta Heritage Summer Workshops and their upcoming virtual offerings for this Summer on the Augusta Heritage website.

Credit Brian Blauser/ Mountain Stage

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