Get to the Greenbrier, No. 1: Thursday Night at Kate’s Mountain
Your ADTA Execs, and our fabulous Executive Director Peggy Schultz, have been hustling to put together a great meeting at the Greenbrier. Stop what you are doing, take a look at the brochure which you just received and start planning your trip. (More on how easy it is to get to the Greenbrier later).
Following the ADTA tradition of showcasing the locale, seen last with an amazing New Orleans gathering, the Greenbrier Annual Meeting will show you some of the best of the Mountain State. I’ll focus on our Thursday evening event, where we’ll put on our jeans and travel to the top of Kate’s Mountain where we’ll see falconry, dine on barbecue and listen to some really fine bluegrass.
It’s this bluegrass I want to talk about.
Several years ago, Julia and I attended a beautiful wedding on a farm in Trout, West Virginia, where a lone fiddler played Simple Gifts (here) against the backdrop of the mountains of Greenbrier County. At the reception, we clogged until the wee hours to a fantastic bluegrass band. (There may have been a margarita machine casting a strange green glow in the barn, but that story is for another day).
We found those guys, Richard Hefner and the Black Mountain Bluegrass Boys, and quickly learned they are one of the finest bluegrass bands in the region. Richard started the group in 1968 with his brother Bill, and for years they had a weekly radio show. Read about the band in their local paper, The Pocahontas Times, here.
Based in Pocahontas County, West Virginia, the band is known across the region for classic bluegrass with the “high lonesome” sound in the tradition of Ralph Stanley and Bill Monroe. For a taste of the band, view their videos at the Badlands Bluegrass Festival site, here, on YouTube, here, and on Yahoo Music, here If you are like me and want to download some music to get in the mood (I purchased some Rockin’ Dopsey to gear up for the Matt Bailey New Orleans Experience…) you can purchase music from Richard and his band at cdbaby, here. I am also advised by a reliable source that the band may have some special guests….
This will be a fun evening and one of the many reasons you should attend the Greenbrier meeting. More to come…..
Tom & Julia Hurney, 2013 Greenbrier Meeting Hosts
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