tentoze
11-19-2008, 06:35 PM
While I was in N. Carolina last week, I had an opportunity to go with my sister and bro-in-law to see some live traditional music on Friday night. The venue was the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC.
It seems this folk school is pretty well regarded for the things it does, and has been doing since the mid-1920's: preserving mountain heritage, traditions, crafts, and skills. They have hundreds of week-end and week-long classes in which they teach things like blacksmithing, wood-turning, weaving, basketry, the making and playing of traditional musical instruments, etc. Cool place, and now that I know about it, I'm going to try to arrange my next trip up there around one of their classes that catches my interest. Thy have a nice website here:
http://www.folkschool.org/index.php
They have free music shows every Friday night. There were two gentlemen there last Friday night- 1 alternated playing a big old Martin guitar and a fiddle, and the other played either banjo or guitar. There were maybe 100 people in attendance. They played for about 1 1/2 hours- old traditional tunes, some bluegrass stuff, Jim & Jesse, etc. Now, I can't say they were the most polished performers I've ever seen, but they were having a great time, and the audience was certainly appreciative, as they should have been. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
If anyone is ever in the Murphy, NC area, check out the Folk School- they do good things there.
It seems this folk school is pretty well regarded for the things it does, and has been doing since the mid-1920's: preserving mountain heritage, traditions, crafts, and skills. They have hundreds of week-end and week-long classes in which they teach things like blacksmithing, wood-turning, weaving, basketry, the making and playing of traditional musical instruments, etc. Cool place, and now that I know about it, I'm going to try to arrange my next trip up there around one of their classes that catches my interest. Thy have a nice website here:
http://www.folkschool.org/index.php
They have free music shows every Friday night. There were two gentlemen there last Friday night- 1 alternated playing a big old Martin guitar and a fiddle, and the other played either banjo or guitar. There were maybe 100 people in attendance. They played for about 1 1/2 hours- old traditional tunes, some bluegrass stuff, Jim & Jesse, etc. Now, I can't say they were the most polished performers I've ever seen, but they were having a great time, and the audience was certainly appreciative, as they should have been. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
If anyone is ever in the Murphy, NC area, check out the Folk School- they do good things there.