Flat picks and hot licks are on tap as Virginia sends its best fiddlers and pickers to Brooklyn on September 14 at 7 p.m.
Some of the country’s best musicians and instrument makers live in tiny Virginia towns, and they are making their way up to Brooklyn for a fabulous day of music and education. Featured will be Wayne Henderson, Gerald Anderson, Spencer Strickland, Jimmy Edmonds and No Speed Limit.
Starting at 1 p.m., the musicians will hold four hour-long workshops on instrument making, tales of life in Virginia, flat picking and the music of the Carter family.
At 7 p.m., the music will begin. Wayne Henderson’s top-notch finger-picking is a source of great pleasure and pride to his friends, family, and neighbors in Grayson County, Virginia; his guitar playing has also been enjoyed at Carnegie Hall, in three national tours of “Masters of the Steel-String Guitar”, and in seven nations in Asia. In addition to his reputation as a guitarist, Henderson is a luthier of great renown.
In the heart of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, Jimmy Edmonds hometown of Galax is home to the world’s oldest and largest fiddler’s convention. Every August, music lovers gather to compete, or just sit back and take in some of the best playing to be heard anywhere.
Gerald Anderson and Spencer Strickland are luthiers from The Crooked Road. In addition, they play some amazing music. Wayne Henderson taught Gerald Anderson how to make guitars and other fretted instruments, such as the mandolin. Anderson has built more than 100 mandolins over the past 40 years.
Anderson’s mandolins are modeled after the classic instruments made by Gibson in the 1920s. Today, one of Gerald Anderson’s apprentices is Spencer Strickland. Anderson and Strickland made the hand-crafted mandolins and guitars offered as prizes in The Crooked Road Sweepstakes.
No Speed Limit is a brilliant young bluegrass band from this hazy blue heartland of the sound, and their contribution soars. The band performs originals as well as a few classics, all of which are imbued with a special fire. The band includes Stevie Barr, the son of master fiddle maker and musician Tom Barr, who plays bluegrass banjo with fearless abandon.
Amber Collins is the lead vocalist. Jacob Eller is the foundation of the band’s driving rhythm. The mandolin is handled by Ryan Blevins. Josh Pickett rounds out the band on guitar.
Jalopy is at 315 Columbia Street in Red Hook. For more, call 718-395-3214 or visit www.jalopy.biz. The cover charge is $12.
