An Oasis of Roots Music and Dance in the Blue Ridge Mountains
The Blue Ridge Parkway is one of America’s great tourist attractions. The word ‘attraction’ might not be a proper description, however, as it is simply a beautiful drive on a road built almost a century ago on top of the Blue Ridge Mountains that exposes the beauty of the Appalachian Mountains, considered the second-oldest mountains found on the surface of the Earth.
While the magnificent Rocky Mountains get all of the press at times, and rightly so with their majestic beauty and higher elevations, they are the young bucks of the North American continent. At most, the Rocky Mountains are two to three million years old and reach up to 14,00-plus feet in elevation.
The Appalachian Mountains, however, are 300 to 400 million years old. At one point, the chain featured peaks that towered over 30,000 feet in elevation.
Now, Mt. Mitchell, located along the Blue Ridge Parkway in Western North Carolina, is the highest peak in the Appalachian Mountain range and the highest peak east of the Mississippi River with a height of 6,684 feet. That means that compared to the brash and geographically younger Rocky Mountains, the Appalachian Mountains have weathered nearly half a billion more years of time. And, while some rocky peaks and grassy balds do exist on the chain, the tops of these ancient mountains contain more species of trees, plants and fauna in a two-acre section than exists in all of the western half of the U.S.
The Original Tribes first inhabited those mountains, of course, arriving here to find a continent without humans at least 20,000 years before other parts of the world would ‘discover’ the land in the 1400s. Once other societies focused on the so-called ‘new land,’ which had already supported human life for tens of thousands of years, the landscape changed forever when the oceans were crossed.
Once here, many European immigrants chose to explore and travel to the Appalachian Mountains, and a new culture was soon born. Mountain life is isolating, by definition, and that isolation led to unique music and ways of living. The African musical instrument known as the ‘banjar’ in the 1700s was accepted into the land as the banjo, and the fancy orchestral violin was played in a new way and known as the fiddle.
In more modern times, early country music was discovered in the early 20th century by folks in the big cities, with the genre quickly proving that it could make money in the marketplace. As the Great Migration soon followed, with Appalachian folks moving to the bigger towns to take jobs created by the Industrial Revolution, mountain and country folk brought their music with them.
The country music genre was a force in the musical world by the 1920s. The bluegrass genre, as we know, began in 1945 and spread rapidly, especially in the Appalachian Mountains with innovators like banjo picker Earl Scruggs in Western North Carolina and The Stanley Brothers in Southwest Virginia following Bill Monroe’s lead.
Back in the 1930s, talk of building the Blue Ridge Highway through those same Appalachian Mountains began, with the original plans featuring one third of the scenic mountaintop roadway being built in Virginia, with another third of its existing in Tennessee, and the last third being paved in Western North Carolina. But, politics entered the fray. It turned out that Western North Carolina congressman Robert ‘Farmer Bob” Doughton was on the powerful Ways and Means Committee in congress and President Franklin Roosevelt wanted to pass the Social Security Act at the time. While holding back his support contingent on his own demands, Doughton basically traded his support for Social Security in exchange for North Carolina getting all of the Blue Ridge Parkway that was meant for Tennessee soil, and Roosevelt agreed.
Tennessee was not happy, but they did OK in the long run as the state’s Great Smoky Mountains National Park became the most visited park in all of the U.S.
As for the Blue Ridge Parkway, the 469-mile road begins in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia and travels all of the way to its southern terminus in Western North Carolina, subdivided by milepost markers that mark the trip. At milepost 165, you will find the Floyd Country Store in Floyd, Virginia.
Long an outpost for supplying store goods and a place for old-time music, bluegrass jams and dancing since the early 1900s, the Floyd Country Store was bought by Dylan Locke and Heather Krantz in 2014. Under their leadership, the venue has grown into a working country store that is also a live music venue and social space with scheduled events happening virtually every night and day of the week.
Locke and Krantz also created the adjacent Handmade Music School in 2016, where folks can learn how to play bluegrass, old-time and country music. The duo also bought the legendary County Sales company from Rebel Records founder Dave Freeman and re-opened the County Sales Store in 2019. And, the Floyd Country Store has become a part of the impressive Crooked Road music trail. The venue also produces the Floyd Country Radio Show podcast, and now they have created the new Floyd Country Store TV show.
When you look at the weekly schedule of the Floyd Country Store, found at floydcountrystore.com, you quickly see why the venue is a go-to hub for entertainment and musical instruction for locals and visitors alike.
Sundays at the store feature an old-time music jam from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. followed by a bluegrass jam at 4 p.m. The Tuesday Tunes slot features performances by top local roots music musicians like Jesse Smathers and Sammy Shelor, and sometimes the great Texas country guitar picker Redd Volkeart, who moved into the area a few years ago. All of the above get to perform in a relaxed atmosphere for a suggested donation of only $10.
On most Thursdays, Partner Dance Classes begin at 6 p.m., which is just in time to prepare you for Honky Tonk Thursdays at 7 p.m., where you can use the dance moves that you just learned on the dance floor.
The long-running Friday Night Jamboree takes place from 6:30 to 10 p.m. at the Floyd Country Store and it is a very popular event. The festivities on Saturday begin with the Americana Afternoons program, which is free and is a great way to enjoy a good meal at the venue while listening to live music. That all leads to the Old-Time Dance that happens every Saturday evening at 7 p.m.
The Handmade Music School is a fairly new addition to the Floyd Country Store complex. The facility is “dedicated to teaching old time, bluegrass, and traditional music and dances from Floyd County, Virginia and throughout the Blue Ridge Mountains.” To learn about music lessons, music workshops and learning opportunities for kids, please go to handmademusicschool.com.
The Floyd Country Store is also hosting top-of-the-line concerts by headlining bands during 2023, including shows by Michael Cleveland and Flamekeeper and the Jerry Douglas Band.
For many in the bluegrass world, the return of the store space for the legendary County Sales record and CD shop is welcome news. “I worked with the Floyd Country Store for 13 years and then we took it over in 2014, and we have been settling into that experience ever since,” said Dylan Locke. “My wife also worked for the previous owners, and we were producing some of their events already. I produced various concerts series and festivals in Southwest Virginia during the late 1990s and early 2000s. So, when the earlier owners were ready to sell it, they tapped us on the shoulder and said, ‘We’re getting ready to put it on the market, and we would like for you to consider taking it on.’ We accepted and the rest is history.”
For the new owners of the Floyd Country Store, it was more than simply acquiring a new business to run. The love for Appalachian roots music and dance was at the heart of the move.
“Our goal is to keep the traditions alive and to strengthen the community that we already had around the store,” said Locke. “The store has been a centerpiece of downtown Floyd, and in a way, of the Blue Ridge Plateau area of Southwest Virginia when it comes to traditional music. When we came in, we were very intentional about building upon the traditions, which are still incredibly strong and vibrant in that area. People still pass it down to their children and the kids are involved.”
Now at the helm, Locke and Krantz set about adjusting the venue for the greater good. “What we are doing now, and why some say that a lot more is going on now at the Floyd Country Store, is all about our efforts to make sure that we are giving people a well-rounded and full slate of opportunities to connect to the music and the dance of that region,” said Locke. “That also includes the songwriting and the instrument making in the area. While all of that may be intentionally designed to be ambitious, we try to not overdo it for any particular audience, because old-time audiences are slightly different than bluegrass audiences. That is true of country music audiences as well, which may be different than the folks who are just passing through and just want to eat great food or get some ice cream. So, we are very thoughtful and intentional about the programming, to make sure it is robust yet paced at an appropriate level so that we are not over doing it.”
With the Floyd Country Store being a cultural centerpiece of the mountains, and the Handmade Music School there to help to pass on the local music and dance traditions, the purchase of the beloved County Sales Music company proved to be the third big piece of the overall puzzle.
“After buying County Sales a couple of years ago, we now have that relationship with the musicians as well, as we can now say to our visitors, ‘This is the recording that this artist made and this is who you are seeing onstage, so be sure and buy their record,’” said Locke. “So, we have become this full-service venue that is kind of an eco-system for the health of this music and this industry. We are dedicated to all facets of it, from the performance and the recordings to the education of the music. Last year, we folded County Sales into a non-profit organization. The reason that we did that is because, in this day and age, people don’t buy their music anymore as everyone is now streaming music.”
The cool part of the County Sales story is that the creator and former owner Dave Freeman, of Rebel Records fame and an IBMA Hall of Famer, always kept the company based in Floyd.
“This year, in 2023, County Sales is celebrating 50 years in Floyd, Virginia,” said Locke. “Another reason why we were interested in the non-profit model for County Sales is that there are albums in the collection that are going out of print soon, and they are important recordings. You can’t find them on the internet, and there is even music that Dave Freeman never got around to releasing that we know people will want to hear. By being a non-profit, people can donate to our efforts to preserve the music, and we can apply for grant money to do re-issue projects. For example, first up in our re-issue series will be Kenny Baker’s Country record, which was a 1972 release. It is out of print and not available, but we are soon going to re-issue the album on vinyl. This is coming out in November 2023 with bonus tracks. We also have our eye on other similar albums by people like Clark Kessinger and others.
“Later this summer, County Sales will host its traditional open house on August 4th through the 6th,” continues Locke. “This annual event will include super-duper sales on music albums and more, including live music being played throughout the weekend. The new location for County Sales is right across the street from the Floyd Country Store, where we will also have musical instruments for sale soon along with the recordings.”
Locke is also the President of the Board of the Crooked Road Virginia Music Heritage Trail in Southwest Virginia, which will celebrate its 20th year of highlighting the history and music of the region in 2024. People from around the world come to the area because the Crooked Road organization has identified and helped to create a real and true destination to explore. If you have travelled anywhere in Southwest Virginia in recent years, like many who went to the inaugural Blue Highway Fest bluegrass festival in Big Stone Gap last October, you will find Crooked Road pull offs and signs and venue directions at almost every road exit.
The notoriety of the Crooked Road designation has helped the Floyd Country Store to receive visitors from all around the world. During the pandemic, however, the model that rose to the surface was the Floyd Country Store TV broadcasts, and that is still going strong today as visitors who want to tune in to the music and dance at the venue can do so after they are back home.
“People who watched Floyd Country Store TV from places like Australia, the UK, Japan and California, or just folks who watched from two hours away, they were all telling us, ‘Hey, don’t stop doing this after the pandemic is over, because this is awesome,’” said Locke. “So, last fall, in 2022, we launched Floyd Country Store TV, which is a subscription service available at floydcountrystore.tv. It is beautifully shot, and acclaimed musician, producer and studio engineer Joe “Joe Bass” DeJarnette is doing all of the mixing and audio for it. It is also an app that you can download on your iPhone or Android phone, and you can also find the app on your Roku Box or on Apple TV. In a way, it is like a version of Netflix for bluegrass, old-time and country music.”
Not only does the Crooked Road project and Floyd Country Store TV bring visitors into the venue; the renowned Blue Ridge Parkway does so as well.
“In-season for us is pretty much between the arrival of the warmer weather and December 31,” said Locke. “As soon as it gets warm, we start seeing people come in out of the woodwork. We not only attract tourists, but we also have a good regional pull, including folks wandering in from Roanoke and North Carolina, from about 45 minutes to an hour away. As for the Blue Ridge Parkway, it is just five miles away from the store once you exit at milepost 163. Because of that wonderful roadway, we get people who pull off and stumble into town and ask, ‘What is there to do here?’ Then, folks will say, ‘Oh. It’s Friday. You should stay and see the Jamboree.’ And, the next thing you know, they are still here on Monday as they fall in love with Floyd, and they become life-long friends. This area reminds folks of a simpler lifestyle that some people are longing for, especially considering the over-saturated digital media world that we live in.”
