From grade school rhythm bands—where all God’s children get a place to shine—to front porch steps with a world stage vibe, to the pinnacle of country cool—an elevated stage atop a farmer’s hay wagon—music of all stripes has long been a mainstay in our mountain environs.
Louise Wood Austin (1909–1993), daughter of Joe and Winkie Belew Wood, grew up just below the summit of the Blue Ridge Mountains near Jarman’s Gap. For several generations prior to the condemnation of mountain homes and lands by the Commonwealth of Virginia in order that the U.S. Dept. of the Interior could establish Shenandoah National Park, her Ballard and Wood ancestors often invited in their mountain community for times of music and dance.
“In one room in the front part of the house,” Austin recalled, “my grandfather had it built especially for square dancing. They used to have a lot of dances in there even after I was a child. Practically everybody stayed ’til daylight. My father played a banjo and called square dance figures. My sister played a mandolin and organ, and my brothers played mandolin and organ. The rest of us—we just danced.”
A focus on the collecting of English folk ballads in the Southern Appalachians took root in the early decades of the 20th century. Among the catalysts of that movement was Cecil Sharp and his assistant Maud Karpeles, who made several collecting trips to America from England during 1915–1918. Over the next two decades, other collectors continued on with Sharp’s and Karpeles’ seminal work, retracing their footsteps into the Blue Ridge foothills. Hundreds of traditional ballads eventually were collected from a great number of singers.
George Foss came down from Washington, D.C., into the northwestern area of Albemarle County in the late 1950s–early ‘60s, searching, initially, for the last of the old ballad singers. As he was welcomed into homes, however, he became equally interested in the stories they shared of their lives. Among his interesting contacts was Mervin Sandridge (1924–1978) of White Hall.
“My mother used to play the banjo, and my daddy, he played the fiddle,” said Mr. Sandridge. “When the telephone first came out, they’d go where somebody had one, and they’d sit down and play their music over the telephone party line, sort of like their own private radio station. There wasn’t a radio, and everybody along the line would pick up and listen.”
As the young village of Crozet prospered as a railroad shipping point, the lively atmosphere attracted new businesses, laborers and entrepreneurs, all encouraged by the town’s growth. Local entertainment opportunities grew, and music events were especially popular. The Lyric Theater featured traveling stage shows. Ballard’s Hall, the second floor of W.S. Ballard’s Store on The Square, hosted many social events.
The Modern Woodmen of America (M.W.A.), a fraternal insurance society, established a lodge in Crozet. Among their involvements with the Crozet community and surrounding region, they established a popular brass band. The Daily Progress reported in June 1920, “The M.W.A. Brass Band and M.W.A. vocal quartette will give a concert on the Crozet High School grounds, where an up-to-date bandstand has been erected, on Wednesday evening at 8 o’clock.”
Crozet Theatre quickly became the go-to place for motion picture entertainment in western Albemarle County after it opened in 1938. Additionally, the theater’s stage hosted numerous live entertainers. Among the popular singers who appeared there were stars from the Grand Ol’ Opry and Richmond’s Old Dominion Barn Dance.
Crozet’s own Billy Vest (1910–1985) took the stage at Crozet Theater a number of times. Billy’s musical career included playing on the road with country music’s first superstar, Jimmie Rodgers, and appearing on the silver screen with cowboy singer Gene Autry. Vest’s recordings were featured by Columbia Records and other labels. He was among the first performers over the airwaves for Charlottesville radio station WCHV. For more than 25 years, he entertained not only his hometown friends, but an unknown number of others across the country through his live radio and stage performances.
The beautiful Blue Ridges of central Virginia have never been in wont of music or song, whether it was the soul-stirring beauty of the late Freetown native Walter Franklin Washington’s baritone/bass rendition of “’Tis The Old Ship of Zion,” or schoolteacher Isabelle Dunn Bing’s Crozet Elementary School 4th graders’ 1962 plastic flute recital, performed live in front of parents and the P.T.A.
Mountain singer Mary Bird Bruce McAllister (1877–1962) lived her latter years with extended family at the base of Cedar Mountain in Albemarle County’s Brown’s Cove. We are privileged to know much about her life and songs due to the untiring efforts of George D. Foss (1932–2002). An excerpt from his obituary states: “George attended Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York; attended and graduated from The Juilliard School of Music in New York City; attended the Mannes School of Music, New York City, and he completed a graduate degree at America University, also in New York City. In 1955, he joined the National Symphony Orchestra, Washington, D.C., as a trumpeter. During his tenure with the National Symphony, he began the first of many field trips into the nearby Blue Ridge region of Virginia collecting the ballads, folk songs, and instrumental pieces of the settlers there…”
George spoke at length during a personal visit with this writer in 2000 about his unique experiences in these Blue Ridge Mountains in the 1950s and ’60s. Previously, for a folk publication, he had written about his visits to the mountains of Virginia, including those with Mary Bird. He penned, “Of Mary Bird McAllister’s one-hundred-and-sixty-some-odd songs remembered, [“Across the Blue Mountain”] must have been her favorite. I cannot remember a visit with song swapping or a recording session that did not include a rendition of this song, or at least her inquiry, ‘Did I sing you the one about ‘One morning in May I heard a married man to a young girl say?’ It was a song that seemed to be always in her mind, and while other songs might fade or become garbled in her memory, ‘Across the Blue Mountain’ was always there strong and clear.”
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