Virginia

On Virginia’s Crooked Road, the Hills Are Alive—With Bluegrass, Old-Time, and Country Jams

Published

6 days ago

July 6, 2026

On Virginia’s Crooked Road, the Hills Are Alive—With Bluegrass, Old-Time, and Country Jams

After, I headed west, retracing my path up Shooting Creek Road in a rush to spend time on the Appalachian Trail, which I’d hiked from Georgia to Maine six years earlier. That you can spend your day in some of the country’s most beautiful landscapes and still make it to a show or jam by nightfall is one of the underrated features of the Crooked Road.

In the town of Marion, the Wayne C. Henderson School of Appalachian Arts, named for the legendary guitar maker who famously built one of Eric Clapton’s guitars, was hosting a Monday-night jam. Born in Grayson County in 1947, Henderson is such an area icon that a painting of him covers one side of the Skyline National Bank in Independence. This old schoolhouse has been turned into a community hub and arts center. In a former first-grade classroom, I found a dozen people seated in a circle, one person at a time selecting the next song that everyone else then played. Dropping his fiddle to his knee, Jim King, the de facto leader, looked my way and nodded, welcoming a stranger with a smile. His wife, Gert, sat to his right, checking the tuning on her banjo. A bassist stood behind her, another fiddler in turn at his side.

On the drive over, I’d been listening to a set of Smithsonian Folkways recordings by Uncle Wade Ward, a banjo and fiddle player from Independence. He’s been dead for half a century, but his mural remains on a wall there. In those sessions from the early ’60s, he talked about a buoyant fiddle number called “Arkansas Traveler,” one of those “wonderful old tunes…about to fade away.” I’d been at the jam an hour, the sinking sun shining through a bottle of Mountain Dew on the windowsill, when someone asked, “How ’bout we try ‘Arkansas Traveler’?” A young guitarist cued the chords on his iPad, and the fiddle began sawing. Sure, it was wobbly and ragged. It had not, however, faded away.

My last day along the Crooked Road was a rainy Tuesday, and I spent it shuttling between museums. I’d driven through Virginia coal country and McClure, the town where pioneering singer Ralph Stanley was born, then raced two hours southeast to Bristol, getting to the Birthplace of Country Music Museum just before it closed. I teared up when I saw the back of Jimmie Rodgers’s guitar, which read simply “THANKS” in enormous gold letters. It was a note of gratitude to an audience he had likely never imagined when he died from tuberculosis in 1933.

There is only a parking lot now at 408 State Street, right where Bristol splits across Tennessee and Virginia. In July 1927, though, it was home to the Taylor-Christian Hat Company, a building big enough for an ad hoc recording studio set up by the Victor Talking Machine Company. For a few days that summer, musicians rolled in from the surrounding countryside to cut their songs. There was the Carter Family, Ernest Stoneman, and Blind Alfred Reed, all pillars of what has since been called the Big Bang of Country Music. It was that moment, a century ago, when these hardscrabble acoustic sounds began their journey to becoming global exports, when the songs that had once seeped out of these hills began to rush out and form the foundation of country music. It was the moment that made this region’s music famous.

Source link

Related Topics:Arts & Culture Featured Music

Click to comment

Virginia

Southwest, Central Virginia Weather | 6 p.m. – July 11, 2026

Published

4 hours ago

July 11, 2026

Press Room

If you need help with the Public File, call (540) 512-1559

At WSLS, we are committed to informing and delighting our audience. In our commitment to covering our communities with innovation and excellence, we incorporate Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies to enhance our news gathering, reporting, and presentation processes. Read our article to see how we are using Artificial Intelligence.

Source link

Virginia

Vice President JD Vance eyes estate in Virginia

Published

15 hours ago

July 11, 2026

Press Room

Vice President JD Vance eyes estate in Virginia

Vice President JD Vance to lease estate in Middleburg

MIDDLEBURG, Va. – Vice President J.D. Vance is eyeing a multimillion-dollar estate in Middleburg, Virginia, to serve as a part-time home for his family, according to a report from the Washington Business Journal.

The second family is leasing two of the four properties at Wolver Hill Farm, a sprawling, nearly 500-acre estate situated about 45 minutes to an hour outside of Washington, D.C.

What we know:

The historic property was acquired five years ago for nearly $9 million by Chuck Kuhn, the owner of J.K. Moving.

According to Michael Neibauer with the Washington Business Journal, there are four homes on the 500-acre property which backs up to the Salamander Middleburg Resort and Spa.

“I wouldn’t be shocked if the Vance family maybe takes advantage of some of those spa facilities that are celebrated out there,” Neibauer added.

Requests for comment regarding the lease agreements were sent to Kuhn’s company, which has not yet responded.

The potential move comes at a busy time for the Vances, as Second Lady Usha Vance is currently expecting the couple’s fourth child.

The news has quickly traveled through the heart of Middleburg, a historic town known for its vibrant strip of mom-and-pop shops and popular resorts along East Washington Street.

What they’re saying:

Business owners along the main thoroughfare were universally aware of their potential new neighbor, though several declined to talk on camera.

The reaction to the Vice President’s potential arrival has been mixed.

“Well, I figure J.D. is going to—the vice president, excuse me— is going to want to play some golf, and I’m a member of Creighton Farms. So, Mr. Vice President, if you’re watching, you’re always welcome on my tee time,” Upperville resident Luke Mahoney said.

When asked if he has concerns about having a potential Secret Service presence in the community, Mahoney said, “No, it can’t be worse than the people that drive 35 miles an hour on Route 50 during commute times. I think they’re very professional; they do a great job. I’m not really that worried about it.”

The Source: This information is from the Washington Business Journal and FOX5 DC reporting.

NewsVirginiaJD Vance

Source link

Virginia

Vance leasing part of multimillion-dollar Virginia farm as an additional residence | CNN Politics

Published

1 day ago

July 10, 2026

Press Room

Vance leasing part of multimillion-dollar Virginia farm as an additional residence | CNN Politics

Vice President JD Vance is leasing part of a sprawling, multimillion-dollar property in rural Virginia to serve as an additional residence for his family, two people familiar with the matter told CNN.

The new rental residence is part of the historic Wolver Hill Farm, which spans nearly 500 acres on the outskirts of Middleburg, Virginia, a wealthy enclave located a little more than an hour drive from Washington, DC.

Wolver Hill Farm is owned by a firm led by Charles Kuhn, the founder of a moving company that has moved several presidents into and out of the White House, including President Donald Trump. The company is also a longtime government contractor.

Kuhn in recent years has become one of the largest landholders in Virginia, as well as a major player in the development of data centers across the state. In one deal last November, Kuhn’s company reportedly sold a nearly 100-acre parcel of land to a data center investor for $615 million.

Vance is renting part of the Middleburg property from Kuhn’s firm primarily for his wife and three kids, in what the people familiar described as an effort to provide them with a greater sense of normalcy away from the scrutiny of Washington. The vice president is expected to stay there on occasion, though he and his family are maintaining their official residence at the Naval Observatory.

In a statement, Vance’s personal attorney, Chris Ashby, said the vice president planned to pay market value for the property.

“The rent will be at fair market value, determined with reference to the rent for comparable properties in the area,” Ashby said.

Kuhn did not respond to a request for comment. The Washington Business Journal first reported that the vice president was leasing part of Kuhn’s Wolver Hill Farm.

Vance is the latest major political figure to establish a retreat near the small but well-heeled town of Middleburg, which has a population under 1,000 residents. Former President John F. Kennedy once owned an estate in the area, while former President Ronald Reagan once rented a home in the area to serve as a base of operations during his 1980 presidential campaign.

Source link