We love music. All kinds. It tends to go well with pizza and beer and West Virginia in general.
Yes, we probably even like that kind that you don’t like, just a little.
F-holes: the world's first amplifiers.
So we’re incredibly happy to announce to anyone who doesn’t know that the Annual Appalachian String Band Festival at Camp Washington Carver is coming up. They’re just on the other side of the New River Gorge from us, and we’d like to say with as much enthusiasm as possible that it’s well worth your time to check out.
Why?
It’s the oldest music festival in the country, for starters. That’s saying something.
But the real thing is, it still sounds like it. The String Band Festival, A.K.A Clifftop, isn’t a bluegrass festival; it’s old time music. The style that’s pre-bluegrass. (Just for clarifiacation, we’re not even about to go into a whole old-time Vs. bluegrass thing here).
Almost everyone at the festival is a musician. Imagine that for a sec. Thousands of people, camping out right on the rim of the New River Gorge, playing music. For days. If it sounds like fun to you, you’re right.
The music floats. Through the trees, up and down the hills, in and out of the campground. It’s ethereal. Really. And I’m not even sure what that word means.
Seriously, what could be better than something like this: come on up to the New River National Park, spend the day playing around (white water rafting, rock climbing, mountain biking, hiking, birding, etc.), come into Pies for an icy cold one and a taste of the goods, then drive over to Clifftop and get transported back in time through music.
So, here’s a proposition: Come here. Go to Clifftop. Experience it, because it’s just about as authentic, down home Mountain State as anyone is ever going to get.
P.S. The scene in the campground, which is what the fest is really all about, gets fired up around dusk. It’ll stop around dawn.
