For the third year, Hardy County is hosting West Virginia’s Branch Mountain Bluegrass Festival. Hosting this fun-filled four day event does not only entertain, but also highlights Mountain State musical traditions that date back over a century. The festival, which starts on Wednesday July 15, will run through that Saturday.
“We hope the rain will hold off till the end of the week,” shared Ward Malcolm, owner of the land hosting the festival. “People will start rolling in in their campers this weekend. They’ll start playing at noon on Wednesday and go on till nine or 10 that night.”
Those arriving Wednesday will get to enjoy “Chicken and Pickin” described as “a fun day of food and music. Thursday starts the slate of scheduled musical acts from nationally-known to locally prominent. Any interested in attending will find location and ticket purchase information at www.westvirginiasbranchmountainbluegrassfestival.com
Bluegrass music was born almost a century ago from a vague and mixed parentage of popular country music, traditional mountain music and ballad styles dating back to Europe, and African influences, especially in use of the banjo as a key instrument. Along with jazz, bluegrass serves as one of the few truly American forms of music.
Dr. Ivan Tribe, until his recent passing, perhaps the foremost expert on West Virginia and Appalachian country and traditional music, mused on how bluegrass separated itself from the other forms early in the radio age. He stated that in the opening decades of the genre, the “fine lines” separating bluegrass from country on the one hand and folk on the other “were practically non existent.”
He also quoted music scholar Alan Lomax as calling bluegrass “folk music on overdrive.” It does not differ much from the other forms in stories told or emotional resonance But, as Tribe quoted another music scholar, Neil Rosenburg, as writing, “its performance requires mastery of virtuoso instrumental techniques . . . often executed in rapid tempos” with “tightly arranged harmonies.”
Tribe also quoted the late bluegrass performer Red Allen as saying the difference lay in “just the way I do it. I just hear a song and, if I like it, it sticks in my mind. I’ll just go home and it will ring in my head and I won’t be able to go to sleep. I just feel that it’s a ‘grass song.”
The flexibility of bluegrass has led to some playful results. Roy Clark, musician and performer on the classic comedy program “Hee-Haw,” from time to time would play the introduction to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony in bluegrass style, usually while engaging in comic banter with a sidekick or host. Comic interludes between songs are also an important part of some bluegrass performer styles. Also, for a quarter-century, the band “Hayseed Dixie” has played hard rock tunes from AC-DC and other surprising sources in a bluegrass style. The act known as “Gangstergrass,” most well known for the theme song of the television program “Justified”, mixes rap and bluegrass styles to tell Appalachian stories.
Most mark the emergence of bluegrass with Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys, who hailed from the great musical Commonwealth of Kentucky in the 1930s, got themselves played on radio stations, and turned out hits for decades. Songs from them reflected strong love and thankfulness for Jesus Christ, but also melancholy themes of those who died too young, of lost loves, of the grind of poverty, and the hard work done in life just to get by.
Bluegrass in Monroe’s hands was honest and stoic, often melancholy, but full of hope for those who hold on to their faith in Jesus Christ despite the hardships of everyday living. Performers sprinkled jokes and playfulness between songs to provide that balance they saw in life between hard times and the joys experienced as well. In “True Life Blues” Monroe concludes with “this story is sad, but it’s a true life.”
Family friendly fun and playfulness will be on the slate of acts for the Branch Mountain Music Festival as well. The hearts behind the establishment of the Festival near Moorefield are those that formed and continue to play in the Keplinger Bluegrass Band.
“The Keplingers have been playing bluegrass music for almost 50 years,” explained Malcolm. The family also operates Mullins 1847, two Fox’s Pizza establishments, and also the restaurant at the Hermitage Inn in Petersburg. Every Thursday night, Mullins 1847 features bluegrass music.
Malcolm explained that as Billy Keplinger, one member of the band, traveled, he noted that the style of festivals he played on the road would work in Hardy County as well. True to the Appalachian and rural roots of the music, the best location was found in a cattle pasture. Malcolm said “we took the cows out, mowed it down, and put up a big circus tent.”
Those who stay the full four days will get to enjoy 23 acts playing from afternoon into the dark of the evening. That said, they also will get to experience something even more wonderful, the music from the mountains of old played in both traditional and modern styles today. All there sharing the love of the music and their experiences with it elsewhere.
And every bit of it in the beautiful mountains of Hardy County, West Virginia.
