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Carol Phillips plays the autoharp and sings leads on many of the songs on Thursday mornings at the Locust Grove Variety Store.
Jimmie Delozier of Bowling Green takes the lead on fiddle and keeps the beat by stomping on the floor of the Locust Grove Variety Store.
Musicians fill the Locust Grove Variety Store every Thursday morning to play classic bluegrass, gospel and Appalachian tunes.
Thurston "Pops" Robbins, 88, picks his banjo before the music formally gets under way at one recent breakfast jam session. |
He need only turn out to the Locust Grove Variety Store on Thursday mornings.
"Coming here is like rediscovering my youth," he said.
It’s just after 9 a.m., and a smattering of amateur and big-name musicians are filing in to the small country shop.
Someone’s picking a banjo, no particular tune, in one corner, while another guy unpacks his acoustic guitar.
That’s GI-tar, by the way.
It’s a familiar setting for Young. In the early ’60s, he went with his dad, Ward, to Dodds Store off State Route 218 in White Oak.
The dads and granddads played checkers, sat around a potbelly stove and picked guitars and banjos. They solved the world’s problems and then filled the country store with bluegrass and gospel.
As more people moved to Stafford in the ’80s, Young moved out. He sought a quiet community like the one he remembered as a little boy.
He found it in Locust Grove, a rural Orange County community just outside the congestion of cars, strip centers and new rooftops that fill the nearby Fredericksburg area.
The Locust Grove Variety Store plays host to a much larger show the first Friday of the month, when families fill the listening room out back.
But the Thursday-morning affairs are far more intimate and, as one musician described them, more "real."
With soda-stocked refrigerators as their backdrop, musicians check any ego they might have at the door.
They sit on folding chairs—or stand, if they arrive too late—and take turns choosing songs their parents and grandparents played for them years ago.
Most of the banter between tunes is spent nudging reluctant pickers to play a favorite classic.
The musicians come from Locust Grove and Lake Wilderness, from Bowling Green and King George, from Madison and Spotsylvania.
Many are retired; others patch roofs, baby sit and landscape houses to fund their musical passions.
With spouses, senior citizens and—quite frequently—town officials looking on, the picking starts just after 9. But musicians come and go as their work and life schedules allow.
Many take breaks to fill up on eggs, bacon and coffee—all fixed just a few feet away.
The playing wraps up around noon.
Turnout ranges from 10 to an overflow group of 25 or more. Last week, about 15 musicians came out to play banjo, guitar, fiddle, stand-up bass and even eating utensils.
"I’m known for my spoons," explained Danny "Spoon Man Dan" Williby. A few minutes later, he proved why, bouncing spoons off his knee, elbow and fingers to provide percussion for the bluegrass.
Some of the musicians have been playing only a few years; others are nationally known award-winners who prefer private jam sessions to organized festivals.
"A lot of people like to be on stage. I’d much rather play in a back room and jam," said guitarist Charles Brown.
Brown recently had heart surgery, but was back at the variety store a week later for the Thursday-morning jam.
"You can be yourself. There ain’t no big I’s and little U’s. Everybody gets their chance, and that’s how it should be."
Carol Phillips’ granddaddy played fiddle. Her grandmother played the banjo.
They performed for family, friends and, on occasion, even on the side of the road if they felt the urge.
In their tradition, Phillips now plays the autoharp and sings lead on many of the bluegrass, gospel and Appalachian classics every Thursday morning.
She prefers songs by the Carter family.
"We’re just trying to keep the old style and old flavor of things going," said Phillips, who lives in Spotsylvania.
She and Pete Crisp, the Orange resident who founded the Thursday sessions, also play music in 15 to 20 nursing homes a month.
Crisp, 66, has been playing guitar since he was 7 years old. He got the idea for the Thursday-morning jam after sitting with Thurston "Pops" Robbins, 88.
Pops is the father of Shelva Stidham, who co-owns the shop with her husband, Wendell.
About 18 months ago, Pops was picking on a banjo and Crisp asked Wendell Stidham about a starting a regular gathering of players in the shop.
"He said, ‘Anytime you want to play music in here, just get your group together and bring em on in here,’ " Crisp said. "And we’ve been doing it ever since.”
The artists credit the Stidhams not only with giving them a venue, but also with giving back to the community. Proceeds from the monthly Friday night shows, for instance, go to charities that help children in need.
"We were just in this for the fun of it," Shelva Stidham said. "We're here 16 hours a day, and it kind of breaks the monotony.”
At 35, acoustic guitarist Margaret Best is the apparent baby of the group.
"It's sort of like a family that I've become part of," said Best, who lives in the Rochelle part of Madison County.
She plays with a bluegrass band, Wishful Thinking, but says the variety store offers her something more.
"I call this, like, the real deal," she said. "Everybody here has something unique to offer. Many learned as kids from kinfolk."
As for Young, who remembers country-store jam sessions in Stafford, he plays only occasionally on Thursday mornings.
But he always turns out to watch.
"It's almost like being reborn back to my childhood. They sing the same songs. I have thoughts of my dad sitting there and I can see the old potbelly stove."
With banjos tuning in the background and breakfast cooking off to the side, he said, "This is American history as it's fading away."
