This evening, my cousins Roald and Ellie Kirby invited me over to their 80-year-old farm house in Troutdale, Virginia for a "little music party", as Ellie put it.

Now, Troutdale is about as good a name as you could have for the place where they live, because Fox Creek, a dynamite trout stream, runs pretty much through their front yard. But that's a story for a different blog entry.

The aspect of their home that's relevant here is that it's about five minutes from Virginia Route 58 - the Crooked Road, which is a twisty turny road leading through the birthplace of American country music. But it's more than the birthplace of American country music - it's the cradle of bluegrass/old-time music. That is, it's a form that has its own life and culture, apart from the Nashville product of which it is (for better or worse) the origin.

So they're kinda parked there in a hotbed of music-making.

Anyway, I show up at the house at 5:30, and the cars and trucks are already parked all over the yard, behind the barn, up against the side of the road, etc. Smoke's coming out of the chimney from the woodstove, the sun is setting behind Mt. Rogers and Whitetop Mountain behind me - there's nowhere else in the world I want to be at this moment.

People are standing around talking and the kitchen table and counters are covered with dishes of homemade food. It's a beautiful sight. I first say hi to Roald, Ellie, and their extraordinary daughter, Rosy, who's home from Appalachian State University in Boone, NC for the weekend with a few friends. Then I grab a plate and fill up on homemade lasagna, quiche, sweet potatos, home-baked breads, etc.

Pretty soon as people are finishing off second helpings, I hear a guy say "Let's pick one - I gotta leave early." And there's that beautiful sound of instruments being tuned up and strummed. Sort of the way an opera fanatic must feel when he hears an orchestra tuning up - good things are fixing to happen.

Next thing I know, the den has two banjo players (one of 'em is Roald), two fiddlers (one of 'em is Ellie), two guitars, and a mandolin player. It's amazing how "regional" this music is. That is, in this county, they know tons of tunes that I've never heard of, and I'm around this music a lot. Even the way they refer to a tune is different. They say "Let's play that Leather Britches." Everywhere else in the world, we'd say "Let's play Leather Britches". But in this region, it's "that Leather Britches" or whatever.

Pretty soon the den is rocking with acoustic string music and a couple of leftover grazers in the kitchen are doing a little flatfoot dancing. It's not a push-back-the-furniture full-on dance party, but they're getting into it a bit.

So I think, ah hell, why not, and I go out to the car and get my dobro. Thing is, a dobro isn't really an old-time instrument, and it's not particularly well suited for fiddle tunes, but any port in a storm, and all that.

About 3-4 songs in, I say "Y'all know Hangman's Reel?" [1] Well, they do, and we rock hard on that fiddle tune. My cousin Ellie is the picture of concentration when she plays fiddle - eyes closed, body leaned over, all ear. I would have driven up from Asheville (three hours) just to play Hangman's Reel with these folks.

As we're playing, it strikes me that we're continuing a tradition that dates back hundreds (thousands?) of years. People gather at somebody's house to eat and make music. Back in the 16th century, wealthy families had sets of viols so that family and guests could make music together. I'm sure it was going on for centuries before that.

And in more recent times, the family picking on the porch or in the kitchen is a deeply loved American tradition. The song that pretty much defines bluegrass music, Uncle Pen, is about Bill Monroe's uncle, who was a fiddler.

At one point, a couple of college girls came down from Rosy's room and played guitar on a few tunes with us. They'd never done that, but I have a suspicion that they'll be back for more later. As Jimmy Buffett says, "And maybe one day she'll take a fancy to picking; 'cause when that bug bites you, you live with the sting."

Toward the end of the evening, they called a woman named "Helen" into the room to play a fiddle tune "Helen knows that tune real well," said Ellie. Helen played with an ease and grace that you just don't see very often - this woman is a born fiddle player. Suddenly, I put two and two together.

"Is that Helen White?" I asked the guitar player next to me.

"Sure is - you a fan?"

"Big fan."

Helen White is Wayne Henderson's "lady friend", and Wayne is a regional legend and national treasure. He has played for Queen Elizabeth and at Carnegie Hall and had a book written about him. I'd always wanted to meet Helen and talk to her about a program called "JAM" that she runs.

So I got to meet Helen, and say hi to Wayne, who was sitting in the living room talking (wait for it) guitar making. He was also talking about shotguns and dispatching a grouse with a claw hammer, but (1) this blog has rambled enough already, and (2) I could never ever do justice to the way Wayne describes the grouse/claw-hammer incident.

But I guess the whole point of this ramble was to say how good it felt to just go to a family's house, eat too much, and play music. I felt tied into a tradition that helps define the entire region's culture.

If you ever have the opportunity to attend (or host) such a gathering, do. It's heart-warming and does wonders for the community.

[1] In looking for a version of Hangman's Reel on YouTube, I found a claim that Albert Hash wrote the version that's commonly played in the Blue Ridge Mountains these days. If that's so, then it's even cooler that I requested that tune. Albert Hash was a legendary fiddler from nearby Whitetop Mountain, and taught Ellie Kirby to play fiddle. In fact, he gave her the fiddle that she plays, in exchange for a woodcut that she made of him, playing fiddle.