Every camp or weekend banjo workshop has its own
atmosphere, creates its own little community for that span
of time. The Augusta Heritage Workshops in Elkins, WV,
have been going on for so long now, more
than thirty years, that the community carries
over from year to year, picking up right
where it left off. John Rossbach, director of
Bluegrass Week, hired me back to Augusta
this year after an absence of at least seven
years, and as soon as I drove onto the
campus of Davis and Elkins College, it
seemed like I had never left. Sure they had
renovated and built a big new building but
the dorms—no improvements there.
I was a staff musician this year,
which meant I didn’t teach one particular
instrument but circulated among all the
classes to help out whoever needed it. One
morning I dropped in on Janet Beazley and
Chris Stuart’s beginning vocals section
to help demonstrate the different trio
harmony stacks. Three mornings I helped
out Clayton Campbell with his beginning
fiddle group, which was suffering from a
severe case of disparate levels.
In the afternoons I popped into my
mom’s intermediate banjo class to play
some rhythm guitar. It was a last-minute
surprise that my mom got to come to
the camp at all. Charlie Cushman was
scheduled to teach the class but three days
before camp he suffered a mild heart attack
and subsequently had triple-bypass surgery
(which was completely successful and he
is recovering nicely). Fortunately Murphy
(who lives within easy driving distance)
was available and willing to come on short
notice.
My primary responsibility every day
was leading the afternoon slow jam. On the
back porch of beautiful Hallihurst mansion,
beginning and intermediate students
gathered to play through simple two and
three-chord songs at a slow enough
pace that they could practice their chord
changes and lead breaks with no pressure.
I’ve recently hit upon the idea of doing the
jam each day in a different key. The first
day was G, followed by A and C, with D
on the last day. Over the course of the 45-
minute jam students really develop a feel
for playing in each key and capo delays are
eliminated as well.
Singing all the songs in all the keys
is a real challenge for me. G and A are
much too low—so the people in the back
have no chance of hearing me without a
microphone—and D is a little bit high. The
C day is my favorite. Murphy came and
played her fiddle and it was wonderful to
have a strong instrumentalist to carry the
melody. After the Thursday night instructor
concert on which she and I played our twin
banjo arrangement of
Dixie Breakdown I
fielded the inevitable comment, “We didn’t
know you could play fast!”
I’m not much of a late-night person,
but on Wednesday night my mom and I
decided to jam. We headed down to the
front stoop of our dorm, me with my banjo,
Murphy with the guitar, and gathered Laurie
Lewis, Chris Stuart, Janet Beazley, David
McLaughlin, and Ira Gitlin. About three
songs into our session, it started raining.
We stopped in the middle of the song
(
Goin’ Back To Old Virginia, which David
wrote and I was singing with him as a duet)
and moved indoors, where the atmosphere
wasn’t nearly as good and it was stuffy and
hot, but we decided to persevere. For about
three hours we sang trios, quartets and
answered “requests” from the “audience,”
which consisted of Mark Schatz and some
other instructors: cheatin’ song (
Dim Lights,
Thick Smoke, and Loud, Loud Music), train
song (
Wabash Cannonball), better train
song (
Mr. Engineer), pork chop song (
Pig
In A Pen). As the night wore on the overall
performance became less musical and more
thrashy, but it was all in good fun.
Nearly every night of the week there
are dances at the dance pavilion out in the
woods at the back of the campus. Since
Bluegrass Week ran simultaneously with
Swing Week, most of these dances were
swing, but two nights they had contra
dances. Augusta is where I learned to
clog and learned to love contra dancing.
A very specific feeling of excitement and
anticipation comes over me as I’m walking
down to the dance pavilion in the dark
and come upon it all decorated with party
lights and paper lanterns. Monday night the
staff musicians played one long set of oldtime
music and Joyce Rossbach, director
of the Augusta Heritage program, called
the dance. A lot of young people and very
bouncy teenagers provided a lot of energy
but made the actual execution of the dances
a bit challenging.
Friday night’s dance featured one
bluegrass set and two swing sets. The
program read “selected members of the
bluegrass staff will perform,” but what
it really meant was “whoever hasn’t left
yet will be drafted to play.” That included
myself (banjo), John Rossbach (guitar),
Buddy Spicher (fiddle), Sharon Gilchrist
(mandolin), and Mary Burdette (bass).
It was a treat to get to play with Buddy
Spicher, who is one of the top fiddlers in
Nashville. We played for an hour and then
all hung around to listen to the swing music
and even dance a little.
The next day’s end-of-camp sadness
was mitigated by the fact that I was
heading to the old-time music festival at
Clifftop, WV, on Saturday. They had had
rain there all weekend, and consequently
a tractor was on call to pull people out of
the deep mud. But Saturday during the day
was sunny, for the most part, and I drank
in my fill of fiddling and clawhammer
plunking. I also spent a good part of my
camp earnings at the craft booths scoring
a cute dress (with pockets!), a glass flask
painted with a banjo, and a woodcut poster
print of a banjo. I like to throw my support
to independent artisans.
More rain came in during the night and
everyone was relieved to be returning home
to a dry roof. Packing up while you get wet
and all your stuff gets wetter is no fun at
all. But still the odd tune wafted through
the air, a reminder that it wasn’t the end of
our festival community but merely a pause
and reshuffling until the next event, be it
Augusta’s Old-Time Week, or Galax, or IBMA. —Casey Henry
