Blue Ridge Parkway 751935 · 1987 · milepost 304

A site about the 469-mile Blue Ridge Parkway: where the road runs, how it was built, and the rules that keep it looking like this.

All entries

High Ground
The Build
The Rules
Music
Mileposts
Archive

Section 4 / Music

The country it runs through

Ballads, banjos and where the recordings came from.

Five men play zither, two fiddles, guitar and banjo together in a front room

Songs collected in these valleysCollectors working in the southern Appalachians recorded ballad traditions with traceable British and Irish antecedents, and the collections are datable documents.
An instrument with an African lineageThe banjo reached the mountains through African American musicians, and the clawhammer style played here is part of that transmission.
A venue built into the roadThe Blue Ridge Music Center sits on the Parkway near milepost 213 and exists to keep the regional music audible on the road itself.
Why the recordings matterField recordings fixed performances that were otherwise unwritten, which is why specific singers and specific dates can be cited at all.

In this section

A four-piece string band performs on an outdoor stage with banjos, cello and fiddle — An instrument with an African lineage

Crowd sits in lawn chairs facing an outdoor stage at the Blue Ridge Music Center — A venue built into the road

A vintage reel-to-reel tape recorder with dual VU meters and multi-playback control panel — Why the recordings matter

A site about the 469-mile Blue Ridge Parkway: where the road runs, how it was built, and the rules that keep it looking like this.

1935 · 1987 · milepost 304

High Ground The Build The Rules Music Mileposts Archive About Contact