People will arrive at this weekend's Fly In Festival by car, bike, boat or airplane.
People will arrive at this weekend’s Fly In Festival by car, bike, boat or airplane.
The event offers music, camping combined with West Virginia culture and history. While you’re at it, you can kayak or take your first skydive.
Fly In Festival promoter and musician Tim Corbett said up to 30 attendees are expected to arrive by plane at the 7th annual event at Cabell County’s Robert Newlon Airpark. He said they will land their planes and begin what they call ‘underwing camping.”
“They’ll have a pop up tent or something in their plane,” Corbett said. “They fly in, park their plane, pitch their tent underneath the wing, hence the term underwing camping.”
Just five miles out of Huntington off Route 2,the airpark is the home to the West Virginia Skydivers Center.
“They’ll give you a little lesson, take you up and do a tandem jump with you,” Corbett said. “If you’re an adrenaline junkie, you can fly.”
The airpark is on the Ohio River. Festival goers can take guided kayak float trips, and some do come in by boat.
“We’ve got a beautiful beach area on the Ohio River,” Corbett said. “You can anchor your boat or beach your boat. And there’s a beautiful set of stairs coming up right into the festival.”
The Fly In Festival offers a weekend of fiddle and flatpick guitar contests in the mornings. In the afternoons and evenings, award winning bluegrass artists like Don Rigsby and the Lonesome River Band join legendary Mountain State roots musicians like mandolin master Johnny Staats and guitar champion Robert Shafer.
“We focus on West Virginia culture, West Virginia history. This is the only grass runway airport in the state,” Corbett said. “We try to keep a good regional base of our West Virginia artists. If you can’t enjoy yourself at the Flt In Festival, then you just can’t enjoy yourself.”
Click here for information on Fly In Festival directions, stage schedules, on-site camping, music contests, skydiving and the Ohio River Paddle Float.
Grammy-winning bluegrass musician J.D. Crowe, whose influential career spanned more than 50 years, has died. He was 84.
His son, David, confirmed the death on Saturday to The Associated Press.
“We just want to thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers during this difficult time. As great of a musician as dad was, he was even better husband, father and friend,” David said in a brief message.
Crowe died Friday of undisclosed causes, the family earlier a nnounced via Facebook.
Born James Dee Crowe in 1937, his career included stints with Jimmy Martin’s Sunny Mountain Boys, Mac Wiseman and his own band, the Kentucky Mountain Boys, which later became the New South.
According to the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and Museum, his path was set in 1949 when, at the age of 12, he heard Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys play at a barn dance in Lexington.
“Crowe was an innovator on the banjo and influenced countless musicians with his technique and style,” read a post on the website of the Owensboro, Kentucky-based hall, where Crowe was inducted in 2003.
Social media tributes poured in from the music world.
“He was an absolute legend,” eclectic bluegrass guitarist Billy Strings wrote on Twitter. “He will be remembered as one of the greatest to ever play bluegrass music. He had tone, taste and TIMING like no other.”
Crowe won a Grammy award in 1983 for best country instrumental performance for his song “Fireball.”
He is survived by his wife, Sheryl; his children, David and Stacey; and a granddaughter, Kylee.
On Sunday January 14 Mountain Stage with Larry Groce, the long running live performance radio program, will kick off its 35th season in Morgantown, WV at the WVU Creative Arts Center. The show will record episode #913 with Tyminski, the latest project from highly regarded bluegrass musician and member of Alison Kraus and Union Station, Dan Tyminski. Tyminski’s new album, “Southern Gothic,” was released in October and is a well-crafted, stylistic departure. As Jewly Hight noted in a recent NPR feature, “[Southern Gothic] orients itself around electro-pop, though it doesn’t stray too far from his bluegrass and Americana roots.”
Of course millions recognize him as the singing voice behind “Man of Constant Sorrow” from the film “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”, and his vocal is the predominant hook in the Avicii song “https://youtu.be/6Cp6mKbRTQY”>Hey Brother.”
Tickets for January 14 are on sale now via Ticketmaster, by phone at 304.293.SHOW and at the CAC and Mountainlair Box Offices in Morgantown. All seats are reserved. Doors open at 6:30pm and the show begins at 7pm. More guests for January 14 will be announced as they are added.
Sunday January 21 the show returns to their home venue at the Culture Center Theater to record episode #914 in Charleston, WV. While both its lead members have appeared on Mountain Stage as members of other groups, beloved bluegrass group and RFD TV show hosts Dailey & Vincent will make their first appearance on Mountain Stage January 21. The band’s latest, “Patriots and Poets,” expands upon their previous releases, offering good hard-driving bluegrass alongside polished acoustic country tracks.
Also joining us January 21 will be guitarist, singer and songwriter Molly Tuttle and her band, who have made big waves in the world of bluegrass. Tuttle was recently names “Guitar Player of the Year” by the International Bluegrass Music Association, the first female to ever take top prize in that category. It doesn’t take long to hear why when listening to her latest EP, “Rise.”
Also joining us on January 21 will be Western Centuries, comprised of Seattle-based country musician Cahalen Morrison, jam band veteran Jim Miller (co-founder of Donna the Buffalo), R&B and bluegrass-by-way-of-punk rock songwriter Ethan Lawton, pedal steel player Rusty Blake, and bassist Dan Lowinger. Their debut album, Weight of the World, was produced by Bill Reynolds (Band of Horses). More guests will be announced soon.
Tickets for January 21 are $30, general admission, and are available now to Mountain Stage Members. Our Mountain Stage Members make a recurring gift to Mountain Stage and receive seven days of exclusive pre-sale access to all Culture Center shows before they go on sale to the public. Tickets will be available online, by phone at 877.987.6487 and at Taylor Books in downtown, Charleston, beginning Friday, November 3 at 10a.m.
West Virginia Public Broadcasting is committed to serving the greatest number of listeners possible, across our state and beyond. With this in mind, we are delighted to announce a few additions to our radio programming line-up effective July 1, 2016:
The BBC World Service will replace the Classical 24 and Jazz After Hours overnight services.
Local Classical Music will increase, with hosts Matt Jackfert and Frank Stowers from noon to 2 p.m. weekdays.
The Takeaway (a mid-day news magazine hosted by John Hockenberry) will air at 2 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Across the Blue Ridge (a regional music program hosted by former NPR reporter, Paul Brown) will air at 9 p.m. Sundays.
In addition to providing the highest quality programming available, these changes will enable us to save money in light of the recent state budget cuts. The result is increased efficiency across our entire agency.
Additionally, we find ourselves relying more and more on listener support, for which we remain ever so grateful. Neither of these is mutually exclusive. In fact, they work in tandem as we seek to be tremendous stewards with what we’ve been entrusted.
So from all of us here, THANK YOU, for the opportunity to serve you to the best of our ability.
Additional questions and answers are posted in our FAQs.
Dobbs hosted his show Music From the Mountains for 25 years on this public radio network.
Born in Mississippi and raised in Louisiana, Dobbs moved to West Virginia in 1967 and was active in the state’s folk music scene for 30 years as a fiddler, recording artist, instructor and lecturer. He traveled the world performing traditional Appalachian folk music. He owned the Fret and Fiddle music store in St. Albans.
An annual summer concert series held in the mountains outside Morgantown has become a favorite destination for musicians and fans alike. The venue’s high elevation often provides a respite from hot and humid weather, making it a fun, family-friendly experience.
Credit Jesse Wright / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
The Hillbilly Gypsies’ Jamie Lyn Buckner (from left) and her husband, Trae, and Dave Asti play during a show at the Mountain Music Concert Series at Chestnut Ridge Park & Campground.
The five-piece band from Fairmont have played their brand of foot-stomping bluegrass at Chestnut Ridge almost every summer since the series began, in 2004. The stage that hosts the series’ bands sits at the bottom of an old sledding hill surrounded by tall trees, giving it the acoustic feeling of an amphitheater.
“Oh, it’s excellent,” Fred Crozier said. He’s the mandolin player with Halftime String Band, a three-piece acoustic group from Morgantown. Crozier said Chestnut Ridge Park is one of his favorite venues.
“The sound is really good because it’s kind of a bowl with the trees here and there’s a flat area down in front for dancing. And you always see children large and small out there dancing during the show, so it’s really fun to play here and watch the crowd.”
Credit Jesse Wright / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Kids play at the top of an old sledding hill above the stage at Chestnut Ridge Park.
5 Degrees Cooler
Chestnut Ridge Park & Campground is off Interstate 68, 10 miles east of Morgantown. The park is nestled up in the mountains between Coopers Rock State Forest and the West Virginia University Research Forest, giving it an advantage over other venues during the summer.
Steve Berry and his wife, Karen, have been coming to shows at Chestnut Ridge for the past five years. They were among the crowd on the slope waiting for Halftime String Band to begin their show.
“It’s always a few degrees cooler than it is down at the bottom of the hill at Cheat. Cheat Lake, it’s always about 5 degrees difference, cooler,” Steve Berry said.
The sledding hill is perched above a playground and pond, where a lifeguard watches over the kids splashing around in the cool water. People often bring coolers and blankets to the show so they can eat dinner while enjoying the music as the sun slowly sets.
Credit Jesse Wright / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
A view of the pond from beside the stage at Chestnut Ridge Park.
Dogs are allowed, as long as they’re on a leash and the hill provides a place where kids can roll around, dance and play.
Family Atmosphere
Crozier said that family-focused atmosphere keeps the bands coming back year after year.
“It’s a great venue for all of the local bands to come and play and there’s been a more diverse lineup of bands over the years,” he said.
The concert series mainly draws on musicians from the Appalachian region who play bluegrass, newgrass and americana — like Romney-based Lonesome Highway.
An early summer storm drenched the campground and forced Lonesome Highway to play their June show indoors this year. But for the crowd, a summer storm doesn’t necessarily mean the show is over.
Credit Jesse Wright / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Lonesome Highway play Saturday, June 20, at the Chestnut Ridge Park dining hall at rain from the remnants of Tropical Storm Bill comes down outside.
Rain or Shine
When the weather is bad enough to keep people indoors, the park has a rain venue — the campground dining hall. The dining hall has an open layout with benches and picnic tables, but there’s plenty of room for dancing, too. The wood floors and paneling seem to lend a richness to the sound that the outdoor space doesn’t.
Banjo player John Arnold is one of Lonesome Highway’s founding members. He said he doesn’t mind playing indoors.
“We’ve been together for 19 years as a band and played music for 30 years, so we’ve found that when rain happens or some event happens that changes what you have to do, it’s sometimes better,” Arnold said. “I love inside like this. It’s a little more intimate and you can kind of get involved with the crowd a little more, so we’re kind of looking forward to, what an awesome place to have it.”
Huddled Around the Stage
The Hillbilly Gypsies’ Trea Buckner said that when they’re outside and a storm hits, sometimes the band will keep playing anyway.
“And you know some of the crowd would leave, but we just turned off the sound system and everybody huddled around the stage and that really made a nice, intimate, fun — you know, the rest of the night was all acoustic — but it sure was fun to have everybody kinda huddled up around the stage.”
Eleven years into the Mountain Music Concert Series, musicians like Buckner say that the friendly vide and family atmosphere, rain or shine, is what keeps it going strong.
Credit Jesse Wright / West Virginia Public Broadcasting
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West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Children dance to a Hillbilly Gypsies tune in front of the stage at Chestnut Ridge Park.
If You Want To Go
Concert series shows are held from 6-8:30 p.m. on most Saturdays through August. Tickets cost $5 person and children under 6 get in free. Each ticket gets entered into a raffle drawing. Hot dogs, hamburgers and the like are available for sale during the shows.
Chestnut Ridge Park is planning a bluegrass festival as the final send-off of the year. Held on Aug. 29, it will feature groups like Halftime String Band, Circa Blue, Logantown, among others.
Music for the audio version of this story is courtesy of the Hillbilly Gypsies, Halftime String Band and Lonesome Highway.
