Day 13: Thursday, October 12 2017.

We’d booked three nights in Roanoke so it felt like we could settle in and take our time. The whole area was so beautiful and with lots of live music around it felt like we had actually arrived somewhere instead of just passing through. First morning and we set off for the Blue Ridge Parkway in search of the Appalachians. Just a few miles outside of Roanoke and the views are stunning. We stopped off at one of the highest points; so peaceful with just the sound of the car engine ticking as it cooled, and the mournful, faraway screech of buzzards. On this misty Virginia morning New York seemed a million miles away.

We stopped off at the Peaks of Otter visitor centre where a ranger was describing the huge influence the humble chestnut tree had on the Appalachian way of life and why it eventually declined

By the time we left the fog had come down so we postponed our trip up to the Peaks of Otter (the luxury of time) and dropped in to the Peaks of Otter lodge for coffee. Very upmarket and certainly out of our food budget range which by now had gone the way of most budgets, ie south. The place felt a bit like some sort of oversized, upmarket masonic lodge with antlers on the walls, old folks reading local papers, stone fireplaces and ticking clocks all creating a sense of exclusivity; if you can’t pay you’d better move on buster. So we did.

We went back to Roanoke for a lower budget lunch, a look round the town and then back to Tinker Creek for a slap-up supper of toast, peanut butter and jam, peaches and wine. Jane crocheted some more and noted in her diary that she was pleased to have finished a spool of blue thread. It’s the little things that are the big things.

Day 14: Friday, October 13th 2017.

The Friday Night Jamboree beckons! We’re in the heart of the Appalachians and I was desperate to find some music. There were a few gigs in town but I’d read about Floyd Country Store and its friday night jamboree where the world and his wife gather every week to play, dance and listen to bluegrass and old-time country music. I thought it might be a bit it too far to go but Dave insisted it wasn’t to be missed so we rejoined the parkway and headed off to Floyd County, stopping off at Maybry Mill on the way. It’s one of the last remaining grist mills and is now a visitor centre where more characters out of central casting display their craftwork. We chatted with the chairmaker and then the blacksmith, who wore blue dungarees and had that rich, chestnut-flavoured voice that smells of woodsmoke and which resonates in the chestbone….

We then make our way to Floyd and join the already large queue waiting outside the store. Chatting with others in the queue we find that the woman standing in front of us is originally from Grimsby, a down at heel, ex-fishing port just 30 minutes from our home. Now, I don’t want to badmouth Grimsby, but I think she made the right decision to move to the Appalachians. ‘Nuff said. Another couple were ‘snowbirds’ – Canadians who fly south for the winter – except in this case they were on a motorcycle and had stopped off en route from Alaska to Florida. And I thought the extra 70 miles to Floyd might be too far?

I’d booked us in to hear the pre-amble to the jamboree, a talk on the history and roots of Appalachian music given before the jamboree proper starts, so we were able to jump the queue and were ushered into the store like royalty, passing the hoi polloi on our way in. Just inside the store there were food stalls, old instruments on show and lots of cds to buy. No alcohol on sale though, the house policy.

At the far end there were chairs laid out in front of the dance floor and, as we’d booked, we were able to take a front seat. Not one of the side ones though, they were reserved for the old-time regulars, sit on them at your peril. The place quickly filled and the semi-circle of seats in front of us was gradually filled by fiddle players, guitarists, banjo players and one elderly lady with an autoharp. They introduced themselves in turn and then gave us a history of the music and how they came to be there.

First up was a 91 year old man with gnarled, swollen fingers who looked like he might have been a farmer back in the day, but that probably went for 90 percent of the men in the crowd. He’d started playing the fiddle with friends in 1935 until they took an enforced break when Uncle Sam said he needed them to fight the war in Europe. They all came back but sadly the others moved out of the area so they never played together again. He told us he then took up the guitar and has been trying to play it ever since.

Nearly a century of work, pain, joy, trauma, happiness, and just ordinary ‘stuff’, all summed up in a couple of minutes for us. The others took their turn and spoke of hard times, the poverty of the old days and the musical thread that runs deep between them and their families. And then the music began…

Unlike the Irish and the Scottish we English have never really had a comfortable relationship with our own, indigenous folk music; the images of Morris dancers, beards and Fair isle jumpers still hang slightly comically in the air in the collective consciousness of ‘non-folkies’. In Spain, Jane and I once sat in the centre of Granada watching people of all ages gather as the sun goes down, to play, gossip, laugh, dance and flirt with one another, all the while casually and unselfconsciously swaying and moving to the sound of ‘pop’ flamenco music belting out from rattling speakers. The subtle twirling of the wrists, hands bent on hips, heels kicking back; all the sensuous moves of their passionate, native music seem woven into their DNA. The teenagers dressed in their teenage uniforms dance easily side by side with toddlers wearing candy-coloured, fluffy dresses while grandmas chatter on the sidelines with half an eye on their knitting, half an eye on their grandchildren. The idea of English teenagers even knowing what a Morris Man was, never mind wearing bells on their ankles, is so far off the cool scale as to be immeasurable. But here in the Appalachians, as in Spain, folk of all ages immerse themselves in the music, respect its heritage and just enjoy the evening. However, there is still a bit of resistance from a group of preppy young college kids who are trying their best to jump around ironically, mocking the music, trying to stay cool. They get a few disapproving frowns from some of the regulars seated around the dance floor but eventually they can’t help but loosen their cool belts and give themselves up to the moment. It’s impossible not to smile all the while in this place whether you’re dancing or just watching.

There are two young children dancing with an older man who absolutely demand our attention. We learn from their mum that they are six year old twins and only started dancing a few months ago. Jane learned from the man they were dancing with that he had retired from business life, moved here, came here every Friday, and how, when he danced, he ‘felt free’. He wasn’t related to the children, they just took to him. The children look like they just stepped out of the pages of a Heidi novel….

Their faces are a picture of concentration and their blond hair bobs and swings as they dance in the flat foot style, hands hanging by their sides, in a style of dance obviously introduced by Scottish and Irish settlers. Our somewhat misty-eyed admiration for them is only slightly tainted when, after one dance ends, they throw themselves to the floor to hoover up the coins traditionally thrown for the children to collect. Tonight they have no competition.

Outside in the street the scene is buzzing too as musicians of all hues gather in the evening light. Old-timers, young women and hipster dudes all sing and play from the same hymn sheet, entertaining themselves and the crowds gathered round them.

One couple, who obviously got married today (I’m guessing not the first time around), smooch and sway on the sidewalk, lost in the romantic, champagne-fuelled haze of the newly wed. Like many scenes we come across on this trip I’m not totally sure this wasn’t staged in our honour by the US tourist board.

The music and dancing continued inside and the whole night was a challenge to the idea of the need for alcohol in fuelling a good time, although I suspect the college kids had some brown paper bags stashed outside.

As the dance crowd swelled and the square dancing began some of the older guys looked very pleased with themselves when the change of partner offered up into their eager arms one of the sassy young college girls. Dream on.

We in Europe certainly ingest a huge amount of American customs, language and habits as if by osmosis, not always to the good. But one export we ‘gave’ to this area – the music – is one of the abiding examples of the need for immigrants to hold on to their roots, to hold on to anchors when seas are rough. The question of Native American music, surely the true ‘folk music’ of North America (if such a thing as true folk music exists), and its place in the culture of the US, is a whole other can of worms too large to open up now but I’m glad that this music at least, corny though it might sometimes appear, continues to hold its head above water, still feels important, still feels constant yet changing, and still has a lot to say if we’re prepared to listen.

As you can probably tell, this was a good night. Count the smiles…