Anyone who heard the twang of banjos and sweet fiddle melodies near Thorne’s Himmelman Road on Saturday could easily have imagined themselves in deep Appalachia, sipping on moonshine and listening to the old-time masters jamming late into the night.
The gathering of 50 or so musicians was the first festival of its kind in Ladysmith to celebrate the old-time Appalachian musical style.
The ”old-time” style is a predecessor of country and bluegrass music, and is still popular in certain circles in the Appalachian region of the United States. It is defined by its acoustic mix of instruments, long, repetitive tunes, and relative lack of lyrics.
“If you picture a circle of people [ . . . ] there’s some fiddle players, some banjo players, mandolin, guitar, usually an upright bass. There’s a bit of singing in there, but normally it’s instrumental and the songs are very repetitive, so they’re easy to pick up,” said Ottawa musician Pam Gleeson, who organized this year’s festival.
Gleeson said there is a local group that plays Appalachian old-time in Ottawa and Wakefield, but festivals for the genre are few and far between in Canada. Members often had to travel to various locations in upstate New York, North Carolina and West Virginia to get the festival atmosphere they craved.
“It was just sort of three or four days of jamming nonstop. And these kinds of festivals are so special because it’s all musicians gathering and they just play music with each other the whole time,” Gleeson said.
When Gleeson met the owner of a 20-acre property in Ladysmith through a mutual friend, she thought it would make the perfect location to bring that atmosphere closer to home.
She said the idea was to give local old-time aficionados and “old-time curious” people the chance to jam with other musicians in the genre, adding that with growing interest she felt it was a good time to start organizing a festival.
“It felt like it was the right time for me to just take the reins and kind of try and start this festival here and see whether it caught on and how much interest there was.”
The festival got around 50 participants in its first year, many of whom came from Ottawa but others from Kingston and further afield. Participants were offered a place to camp, a banjo workshop, and an Appalachian old-time introduction for those who were not yet familiar with the style.
On Saturday afternoon a chorus of banjos, fiddles and guitars seamlessly blended together one tune into another, with players often stopping in between tunes to remark at the simple but humorous titles of the tunes – Boil ‘em Cabbage Down, Sal’s Got a Meatskin, Jaybird Died of a Whooping Cough, Big-Footed Man in the Sandy Lot.
Then, musicians took a short break to eat a community chili supper before breaking out the instruments once again for a campfire jam.
Among the musicians was Marcel Gingras, who started taking clawhammer banjo lessons two years ago and decided to come out and see what a real old-time jam festival like this had to offer – even though he’s still learning all the tunes.
“It just popped into my head to learn. It’s so laid back and relaxed, and I got hooked. It isn’t the easiest, but there’s a certain swing and relaxation to it [ . . . ] and the more you play, you get enough of the songs up to speed.”
Gleeson said she would like to see the festival grow and attract more people like Gingras to learn the genre and to get involved in jam sessions like these.
“I’m hoping this festival sort of becomes a bit of an anchor to the community in the area, so that people can come back every year and see friends that they know and they met last year.”
