Blue Highway Fest
Begins in the Heart of Appalachia
Wherever you put your chair at Blue Highway Fest, you can see the mountains surrounding the small town of Big Stone Gap, Virginia, where their first-ever bluegrass festival took place in early October of 2022. The view is not only scenic, it reminds you at all times of the Appalachian Mountains where much of the culture that led to the evolution of bluegrass music originated.
Big Stone Gap is located in the heart of the beautiful Powell River Valley, which is like a smaller version of the Shenandoah Valley, with its distinct mountain ridges and scenery. Blue Highway Fest takes place at the high school football field, located on the banks of the Powell River, and the vibe is quintessential small-town America. The large and impressive stage at Blue Highway Fest also reflects the region. The backdrop behind the bands is a 40-by-40-foot photograph of the Powell River Valley Mountains.
As my weekend at Blue Highway Fest unfolds, it becomes a road trip into the heart of Appalachia. It becomes a real-time journey into the heart of bluegrass, buoyed by a rural host town that is working hard to be successful in these modern times. As the IBMA Hall of Famer Larry Sparks says from the stage at Blue Highway Fest, “I am happy to be here today. This is a beautiful place, and it is at the center of so many things.”
Festival Endings
As I prepare to leave for first Blue Highway Fest news begins to break of multiple and successful bluegrass festivals that are ending their run, marking their 2022 event as the last. The Musicians Against Childhood Cancer festival, HoustonFest in Galax, VA, the Milan Music Festival up in Michigan, and the Festival of the Bluegrass in Lexington, KY, all announced in 2022 that they were shutting it all down.
Darrell and Phyllis Adkins ran the M.A.C.C. festival for many years, creating it to raise money for the St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital after the establishment treated their daughter Mandy. Mandy would lose her battle with cancer at only 20 years of age, yet she loved life and she loved bluegrass music. As with all patients and their families who go to St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital for treatment, Darrell and Phyllis did not have to pay a dime for their daughter’s care or their stay or their travel or food while there.
Darrell and Phyllis Adkins wrote a letter to the bluegrass world when they announced the festival’s closure, thanking everyone for making it possible to raise such a large amount of money for an important cause. In the address to the fans, after thanking the musicians, sponsors, volunteers and fans who have made the festival a success over 23 years, they said, “Like life itself, everything must come to an end. We knew someday this would come, just not this soon. Our hearts break to say the MACC of 2022 will be our last.”
Mark Gaynier of the Milan Music Festival, which Bluegrass Unlimited featured in 2022, said the following about the closure of his event, “With the personal milestone reached (of 25 years of this festival), I’ve given great thought to what’s next for me and the Milan Music Fest. I’m in a new season of life now, and after much deliberation, I’ve decided it is the right time for me to retire as festival producer. This decision has not come easily, but I feel great peace about it.”
The folks at the Galax Volunteer Fire Department were equally sad about ending HoustonFest, which had a good ten-year run honoring the passing of 18-year-old musician Houston Caldwell while raising money for the fire department and helping youth pursue music at a higher education level.
Said Chief Mike Ayers of the Galax Volunteer Fire Department, “Balancing family, work, and volunteer firefighting is simply wearing our personnel out. Therefore, we are stepping back from several projects in an effort to protect our members, strengthen our families, and in turn, strive to remain 100% volunteer. HoustonFest is one project that Galax Fire will no longer produce.”
New Festival Beginnings
Up from those ashes, however, are new festivals that are beginning their journey. The Earl Scruggs Festival in Tryon, North Carolina, successfully completed its first musical celebration in September of 2022, the inaugural CaveFest got off the ground in Pelham, Tennessee, in the fall of the same year, and the first-ever Grits & Grass Music Festival will take place in Pickens, South Carolina in July in 2023. Additionally, the Bluegrass in Heaven Festival will hold its first festival in Silver Bay, New York in 2023.
In the day or so before I begin my trek to the maiden Blue Highway Fest, the news also broke that the great country music legend Loretta Lynn had died. Blue Highway Fest and its home in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, are located off the famed Route 23. I know it well because it is the straightest way from the mountains outside of Boone, North Carolina, where I live, to the western edge of the town of my birth in Huntington, West Virginia.
Where Route 23 crosses the mighty Ohio River from southern Ohio into Kentucky, it is then called the world-famous Country Music Highway. All along the road, and off to the west and the east of this four-lane, many acclaimed country music and bluegrass artists grew up in this region. From Tom T. Hall to Keith Whitley, from Ricky Skaggs to Dwight Yoakam, Larry Cordle and Patty Loveless to The Judds, Chris Stapleton, Tyler Childers and Loretta Lynn—and more—many great musicians learned their craft in those hollers and mountains.
When Route 23 crosses the Virginia border, just 30 miles from Big Stone Gap, it becomes a part of the famed Crooked Road—Virginia’s Heritage Music Trail, with its many music venues and its own list of great native performers and legends from The Stanley Brothers to the Carter Family and many more.
As I arrive at Blue Highway Fest on Thursday afternoon, the leaves on the trees that cover the mountains have started to turn, marking the beginning of fall foliage season. On the first night of the festival, an indoor concert is presented at the Mountain Empire Community College’s Goodloe Center, and it turns out to be an impressive kickoff to this new event.
At the Thursday night gig, the festival’s host band, the multiple IBMA Award-winning group Blue Highway, have split themselves up unto various side acts, opening up the talent pool on this October evening.
Blue Highway consists of Jason Burleson on the banjo, Tim Stafford on guitar and vocals, Wayne Taylor on bass and vocals, Shawn Lane on mandolin, and Gary Hultman on resonator guitar. As the concert starts, Burleson brings out his son Jacob Burleson to kick things off. Both father and son grew up in Avery County, North Carolina, which is known for its music and multiple mountain peaks over 5,000 feet high. Jacob, now in his 20s, performs with the bluegrass band Volume 5. The duo rip into some fine tunes that reflect their long family history of Blue Ridge Mountain musicians.
The Burlesons are then joined by Taylor, Hultman, Hultman’s wife Ashley Nale Hultman and her sister Lindsey Nale. The latter two are members of the Loose Strings Band. The sextet presents some fabulous festival-opening songs to get things under way.
Next up is Blue Highway’s Tim Stafford, who has created a unique trio featuring fellow songwriter Thomm Jutz along with the versatile and impressive cellist Dave Eggar. The three musicians show what is capable with just two guitars, a cello, good singing voices and the all-important original songs that are written at a high level. Jutz is the 2021 IBMA “Songwriter of the Year” award winner and Stafford won the same award in 2014 and 2017.
Then, Blue Highway’s Shawn Lane takes the stage with his two sons Grayson and Garrett and the bluegrass guitar great Richard Bennett. There are times when I am leery of established artists bringing up family members, yet when Lane and sons hit those wonderful high harmonies while singing Michael Martin Murphy’s classic hit “Wildfire,” it gives myself and the audience chills as this great song played with this specific arrangement is one of the highlights of the evening.
As for Richard Bennett, his guitar work and baritone singing voice give way to thoughts that his talent is still under-rated after all of these years. This is evident when Bennett and the Lane boys play several cuts by the late John Hartford and a song by the late Tony Rice. There is something different now about Bennett playing the music of Rice after the latter guitar legend passed away on Christmas Day in 2020. I compare it to when a father leaves a family with children and those kids put undue pressure on their uncle to compensate for their loss. When Bennett’s amazing guitar work combines with his singing voice, which sounds close to the register that Rice sang in, it becomes a stark reminder of the loss of the fallen IBMA Hall of Famer while also being a heartfelt tribute that falls gentle on the ears.
Headlining the Thursday night concert is Tommy Emmanuel, who is simply one of the best guitarists on the planet. With his off-the-hook skills on his acoustic guitar combined with his well-honed showmanship, which comes to life with his own sound man and lighting tech, Emmanuel turns his solo performance into a tour-de-force and multiple standing ovations are given to the native Australian.
As the open-air portion of Blue Highway Fest begins on Friday, the receptive crowd and the musicians both soak up the autumn sunshine and warmth. It is October in the mountains, and the nights are getting very cool in temperature. Yet, that is what the fall season is all about, as in sweaters and coats and blankets and fun. There is plenty of food and beer vendors onsite when the live music starts, and as mentioned earlier; just a quick glance off to the left of the stage brings the Powell River Valley Mountains into view during the daylight hours.
Friday’s line up features the Sam Bush Band, the Travelin’ McCourys, Sierra Hull, the Dan Tyminski Band, Darrell Scott, Scythian, Darin and Brooke Aldridge, Ralph Stanley II and the Clinch Mountain Boys, Beth Snapp and Blue Highway.
Saturday’s bill includes Jerry Douglas and the Earls of Leicester, Larry Sparks and the Lonesome Ramblers, Seldom Scene, Balsam Range, Ed Snodderly, Carson Peters and Iron Mountain, and return appearances by Blue Highway, the Dan Tyminski Band and Ralph Stanley II and the Clinch Mountain Boys.
Jason Burleson is sponsored by the Prucha Banjo Company in the Czech Republic and the company’s owner and luthier Jaroslav Prucha made the journey to Big Stone Gap just to take in the festival. While there, Prucha raffled off a $6,000 banjo that he built especially for the event. All of the proceeds from the 10-dollar raffle tickets went to support the students at both the Mountain Music School at Mountain Empire Community College in Big Stone Gap and the Bluegrass, Old-Time and Roots Music Program at Eastern Tennessee State University in Johnson City, Tennessee.
Appalachian Region Connections
On Saturday morning, as I drive to Big Stone Gap from my hotel room in nearby Wise, Virginia, I notice some piles of coal off of the exit to Norton, Virginia. With thoughts of my coal mining grandfather in mind, I pull onto the offramp and into the parking lot of a local coal company who has “House Coal For Sale—Stoker, Lump, and Nut and Egg.” As I pull in, a man limps over to my vehicle, checking in on what I might need.
I explain to the coal company attendant that my grandfather Ralph Halsey lost his whole left arm in the Otsego Mine near Mullens, West Virginia, in 1951. As we talk, I also tell him that I recently found an old newspaper article from that same time period that featured my grandfather in it. The article shows my grandfather being honored at a local luncheon for being a mine supervisor who oversaw the digging of 1,500,000 tons of coal without a fatality.
Another supervisor at the luncheon had just broken that record, having mined 2, 000,000 tons of coal without a fatality. I point out what the newspaper implies but does not say; that for my grandfather’s tonnage streak to end, it meant he lost one of his men. One of his workers died in the mine on his watch, and to know my grandfather was to know that loss must have broken his heart because he truly cared about people.
The attendant then tells me, “When I worked the mines, I had a 16-ton coal hauler run over my leg. The hospital wanted to take my leg off, but I refused to let them take it. I eventually walked out of there on that leg. It gives me problems now and always will, but it’s still on there. Hey, do you want a piece of bituminous to take with you?” I say yes and thank him as I leave with a reminder of my family’s heritage.
On the road again, and before I return to Blue Highway Fest, I choose to take a detour into Coeburn, Virginia. Coeburn, just 22 miles from Big Stone Gap, is the place where Ralph and Carter Stanley grew up, and where their clawhammer banjo-playing mother taught them how to play music. The small town has many of its old buildings still standing from a century ago, including one on the corner that has a vintage “Bus Stop” sign embedded into its brick façade. When Ralph Stanley went into the military in the 1940s, did he take a bus from that address?
Ties to the Region
As for the geography of Blue Highway Fest’s lineup; the roots of the band Blue Highway are found in western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee and southwestern Virginia. Balsam Range and Darin and Brooke Aldridge all grew up and live in western North Carolina as well.
Jason Carter of the Travelin’ McCourys was raised on Rt. 23 in Greenup, Kentucky, while his band mate Alan Bartram spent part of his youth on the other side of Rt 23 in nearby Huntington, West Virginia. Darrell Scott was born in London, Kentucky, and penned “You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive,” one of the best songs ever written about coal mining.
Ralph Stanley II has lived his whole life within an hour’s drive of Big Stone Gap, and Larry Sparks knows the area well, having joined Ralph Stanley’s band after the death of Carter Stanley in 1966. Jerry Douglas’ parents and grandparents grew up in West Virginia, where they had a small mountainside vein near their farm that produced their house coal. North, south, east and west, Big Stone Gap really is in the middle of all of it.
When it comes to life in Appalachia, young folks tend to graduate from high school or learn a trade and then move away to a big city to find work. Many folks leave Appalachia and pursue their careers elsewhere and then later return, bringing their expertise with them. That is the case with Big Stone Gap’s Town Manager Stephen Lawson. Lawson got emotional while addressing the audience onstage on Saturday night at Blue Highway Fest, thanking everyone locally that worked hard to make this new festival happen.
“Big Stone Gap was my home, and I left in 1987, but I had the chance to come back about six years ago,” said Lawson. “When I came back, I came back with the dream that we could do anything that a big city could do, that we could do anything that we wanted to do. We want to stay just like we are, but we want to have fun like you all have been able to have fun this weekend.”
Uncle Ben
Saturday night’s music ran a little late, which is not unusual for a first-time festival, and the temperature began to drop. When I had sat down earlier in the day, my friends Hope Harvey and Lynne Lear introduced me to “Uncle Ben,” an older gentleman who was sitting close by. He looked dapper, with his wide-brimmed straw hat, long white beard and spectacles. Uncle Ben’s feet kept steady time with every song performed that day and evening, and we considered the notion that his love of the music is what has kept him stout in his later years.
Blue Highway Fest was Uncle Ben’s 14th festival of 2022. As we talked with him, we quickly realized that he had led an interesting life. He grew up in Vermont, lived in New Hampshire for a while, and for the last 40 years he has lived in Nebraska. He also lived in Norfolk, Virginia, when he was in the Navy during the Korean War. As the conversation continues, Uncle Ben tells us that he travels the country in his camper, taking in one bluegrass festival after another. His next stop was a festival in northern Florida.
After the Earls of Leicester finish their excellent headlining set, we are worried that Uncle Ben might not have a shuttle available to get him to his camper this late in the evening. But when I walk over to the festival folks behind the stage, they let me know they are aware of his plight and will take care of him. As Uncle Ben gets up to head their way, the police, firefighters, volunteers and more are waiting for him, treating him with care and respect.
When I tell them that Uncle Ben will turn 91 in ten days, their eyes light up as everyone is amazed and impressed with his journey from Nebraska, and him taking in every note played over the weekend at the festival. They refuse to take Uncle Ben back on an open-air golf cart, and instead bring around one of their personal vehicles to put him in. “We want to make sure you stay nice and warm, sir, so we already have a car waiting for you.”
That kind of hospitality was evident during every minute of Blue Highway Fest, hosted by the town of Big Stone Gap that wants to share their beautiful mountain valley with the rest of the world.
