The Crooked Road’s Mountains of Music Homecoming, running throughout the week, spotlights the music, environment and culture of Southwest Virginia…. including some venues that do that work all the time.
Lays Hardware was an important part of downtown Coeburn for a long time, as Charlie McConnell will tell you.
"The Lays Hardware had been a commercial center for the town. It was almost like a small Wal-Mart. We bought televisions and cook stoves and refrigerators and when I was a little boy I bought BBs for my BB gun and inner tubes for my bicycle. "
The owner died. His children lived off from Coeburn and didn’t have any interest in running the store. It sat vacant for years. There was talk of tearing it down.
"They wanted to put a parking lot here. We said, there was no business. We don’t need parking lots. :04
Thornton: So the folks in Coeburn decided to turn the hardware store into a center for the arts. They refurbished the place and started having art classes and job training. Every Friday, there’s a dance featuring a local band. Every Thursday, there’s a jam session with local musicians. Whenever the doors are open, there’s a crowd."
We have visitors here from all over the world. A couple just came in from Colorado. They are what we call doing the Crooked Road. :09
The couple was Joe and Jill Ozacki. They live outside of Denver and they worked a visit to the Crooked Road into a trip out east to visit Joe’s old army buddy. They got into bluegrass years ago when Joe had to drive home in Washington, D.C., traffic. Listening to the bluegrass station calmed him down, he said, and helped him avoid road rage. Now he’s driving on much smaller, less traveled roads.
"We’re here for Thursday, Friday, Saturday night. We’re staying in Norton tonight, going to Coeburn for the Lays Hardware. Tomorrow night, we’re staying in Galax to see, I guess it’s the Rex Theater. Third night, we’re staying in Abingdon. We’ll be going to Floyd and the Blue Ridge Center and also going to the show at the Carter Family Fold."
Not everyone at Lay’s Hardware traveled so far. Billy Baker grew up in Pound and went off to fiddle with Bill Monroe and Del McCoury, among other bluegrass stars. Now he’s back in the mountains.
"Billy Baker is from Norton, which is ten miles from here. He is, the bluegrass circle, very, very well known and played with all the great stars at the Grand Ole Opry. And he still plays. He is still fabulous. "
Baker has noticed more people are interested in bluegrass. He has a theory about why that’s so.
"Every so often here at the Lays Hardware, they have several of them on tour. They come on a tour bus and they bring them by. And up at the Carter Fold,they bring buses loads up there. The last time I played up there, they had a busload from New York, a bunch of college kids, and they could really dance.
I think that most people are starting to catch on to the bluegrass. Back years ago, it was real hard music for them to understand. And people are, I think, more educated. "
For more information about the Mountains of Music Festival click here.
