| Music was in the
air at the Charlie Poole Music Festival---little groups
were everywhere, on the porches, under a tent here
or under a tree there, and the air was throbbing with
the notes of fiddle and banjo, guitar and song. Early
in the morning on Saturday, there were lots of kids
roaming the grounds, waiting for their turn to compete.
By Saturday afternoon about 150 names were registered
in the dozen different categories for the adult competition,
and the atmosphere grew even more exciting.
All this followed the Friday evening concert at the Eden Fairgrounds, where an
enthusiastic crowd heard an exhilarating variety of country, bluegrass, old time,
blues, even ragtime played by one group after another. Two of them featured New
York artists, the East River String Band and The Wiyos, the latter especially
well received when they moved down from the stage and played with the audience
close around, as they said they were used to, from having started on the streets
of New York and New Orleans.
The contests came to an electrifying end with the competition for the $500 grand
prize for old time three-finger style banjo playing, and then the awarding of
more than 50 other prizes of cash or rosettes.
The 2009
Charlie Poole Music Festival took place June
12-14 at
the Fairgrounds in
Eden N.C. Performers included Dom Flemmons of
the Carolina
Chocolate Drops, The
Wiyos, Faster Than Walking, The East River String Band,
The New North Carolina Ramblers and Pete Peterson & Kellie
Allen.
Friday evening, our Lifetime Achievement Award was
presented North Carolina banjo and fiddle master
Joe Thompson. Banjo player Bob Carlin
accepted the award on his behalf.
As always, attendees came from all over
the country and the world. Last year, the record for
the furthest distance this time went to a couple from
Melbourne, Australia. Other visitors came from Arizona,
Washington state, Tennessee, New York, Connecticut,
Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and many, many from Virginia
and North Carolina.
“The Charlie Poole Music Festival is one of
the best,” says Wayne Seymour, the genial, unflappable
long-time festival emcee. “ The concerts have
featured world class performers in their field, folks
like Tony Rice and Norman Blake, who can sell out a
three or four-thousand seat auditorium in an hour or
two. We’ve even had some acts that were
not well-known, like the Carolina Chocolate Drops,
but became so later on.”
Wayne is widely known for his own skill at playing
the dulcimer, among other instruments, and has spent
a lifetime as a folk musician. He has been going to
acoustic and traditional music festivals since 1964
and is well qualified to compare them.
He points out that “There’s an historical
aspect that a lot of other festivals don’t have.
The festival is held only a short distance from where
Charlie Poole worked in the mill. Because of this connection,
we’ve had record producers, Grammy nominees
and winners, and other notables in the field
of folk and traditional country music come and
help us, and this has certainly paid off.”
Wayne makes a big point of the great value the
festival offers. “The camping and ticket prices are very
reasonable, especially the camping fees.” He
adds “The prize money for the competition is
much better than that at many festivals around the
country, and the judges are all knowledgeable about
this style of music, not just a bunch of guys from
one of the local civic organizations. It’s
also the only contest in the country for pre-bluegrass
fingerstyle banjo! That contest in itself is
an eye-opener for many folks, who have never
heard this graceful and complicated style of
playing.”
Piedmont Folk Legacies, the parent of the Charlie Poole
Festival, assembled a line-up of lively and exciting
performing groups. The Wiyos,
four talented, hip young guys who performed Friday
evening, bill themselves as “folk, vaudeville,
and Americana,” and
are said to give a truly “electrifying show.” Their
music harkens back to Charlie Poole’s own era
of the 1920’s, for an old-time reminiscent
performance.
Also on the Friday evening playbill was Dom
Flemons,
a live wire from the Carolina Chocolate
Drops,
who were a smash hit year before last at the
Charlie Poole Festival. Dom is an amazing instrumentalist
who can wow audiences with his mastery of the
banjo, guitar, bones, jug, harmonica, and snare
drum, as well as vocals. He has played all over
the US and in England, and now says he thinks
we are “on the cusp of an old-time
music revival in the U.S. Kids are putting down
their electric guitars and picking up banjos
and fiddles.” He
also thinks there is a growing interest among
black people to play string band and blues music.
The East River String Band consists
of folk singer/ ukelele player Eden Brower,
and singer/guitarist John Heneghan who have formed
a duo intent on keeping alive the rural/country/blues
music of the 20’ and 30’s.
Eden starred as little Orphan Annie in an off
Broadway production of the play Annie, and has
been stage struck ever since, while John is an
avid collector of old-time masterpiece recordings
and has tried to recreate that music in their
performances all over the US and Canada. They
were recently favorably reviewed in Rolling Stone.
Another
lively old-time string band who performed was Faster
Than Walking.
The fiddler in this group is Joe Mead of Charlottesville,
Va., who has been a helper and advisor to the festival
for several years.
Kinney Rorrer’s New North Carolina Ramblers will offer
a break from the competitions during Saturday evening (Kinney is Charlie Poole’s great-nephew),
and last year’s winners Pete Peterson & Kellie Allen will
fill another interval. Big cash prizes are offered
for categories including both bluegrass and old-time
style bands, fiddle, banjo, and guitar, plus a Poole
song, a duet, and youth, and the Grand Prize, $500
for old time three finger banjo.
For more information call 336-623-1043. |
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