Festivals can be found on The Crooked Road

By: Joe Tennis | TriCities.com
Published: June 17, 2010

Going down The Crooked Road: Virginia’s Heritage Music Trail might be most fun this time of year.
All the trees are green. Roses are blooming. And, with the right radio station blasting some bluegrass with the whims of the wind, it might even appear the roadside flowers are dancing.
This is, after all, festival season on The Crooked Road.
This scenic route through Bristol and Abingdon celebrates the great old-time Appalachian music carried over from the Celtic traditions of yesteryear.
Coming up: Galax’s Old Fiddler’s Convention. There, you’ll all kinds of fiddlers on stage. But go ask Joe Wilson, the man who coined the term “Crooked Road.”
Just ask where he might go during that festival, held during the second weekend of August. “Oh, I don’t go anywhere near the stage,” Wilson said, grinning.
Instead, he prefers the informal action of the campgrounds and the side streets.
Some festivals this summer celebrate people, like The Carter Fold’s memorial festival, holding its annual event on Aug. 6-7. This year, Ralph Stanley headlines that show.
“He and his brother, Carter, started out in much the same way the Carter Family did,” said Rita Forrester, the Carter Fold’s director. “They grew up in a poor family in the Appalachian Mountains. For the Stanleys and the Carters to accomplish what they did in the music world is nothing short of phenomenal.”
One strength of The Crooked Road is the route’s diversity. It rolls from a Dairy Queen at Rocky Mount to Breaks Interstate Park. And, in between, there’s nearly 300 miles of farmland, creeks, rivers and rolling terrain.
Another stop: Floyd.
On June 19, that’s the site of the 100th anniversary of the Floyd Country Store, held as part of a town-wide festival.
Music is staged every Friday night at Floyd.
You’ll find Saturday shows every week at the Country Cabin II near Norton.
The original Country Cabin stands near the Josephine community. It was constructed with help of Kate Peters Sturgill, a ballad singer and a wife of a coal miner.
At first, Sturgill created a place here in the 1930s to offer guitar lessons – and a community center. The old cabin was used until World War II. But, until the late 1970s, it would lose its original purpose.
Today, it’s listed on the national register of historic places. And while it’s a beautiful piece of architecture, the music venue celebrated as part of The Crooked Road is actually a building known as the much larger Country Cabin II, where shows are staged.
For Bill Jones, coming here is a family tradition: His father was a longtime supporter of the original Country Cabin. “Our people, our band members – we like what we’re doing,” said Jones, a volunteer at the Country Cabin II. “It’s just a family atmosphere.”
Just like so much of what you’ll find – especially during summer – along The Crooked Road.

Festivals can be found on The Crooked Road

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