20 years on Virginia's Crooked Road, plus a contra dance

 In a rare blogging crossover, it seemed appropriate to write in my other blog today about the Cardinal News article tracing the history of The Crooked Road, Virginia's Heritage Music Trail, and put a link to that "Other Journalism" blog here. That item turned into a personal collection of links and memories about Virginia newspaper websites, the Internet Archive, and a sneaky self-serving plug for a performance by "Bring the Feet," at the November 9 Floyd Contra Dance. 

In its opening photo, look for my mandolin waiting on my chair, at the right. I'm in the background, wearing a tan "Dittyville" cap and holding a cup of coffee, talking to Bring the Feet's hammered dulcimer and keyboard virtuoso, Randy Marchany, in a plaid shirt, bottle of orange soda in hand. 

We met at either that same Floyd Country Store jam or maybe its warm-weather counterpart, the Blacksburg Market Square Oldtime Jam, where I recognized him a dozen years ago from his previous band, "No Strings Attached."

More recently, when a Floyd fiddler was putting together a band for the (post-Covid) revived Floyd dance, she asked if I knew anything about New England contra dance music. I admitted to 30 years of dancing and a few occasions of sitting-in with legendary caller Ralph Sweet in Connecticut. More importantly, I tipped her off to Randy's "No Strings" past, and he mentioned that No Strings' bass player was also available. So a band was born... for at least one dance a year. (Actually, this is our fourth for  2024!)  

I just realized that the other blog post, while mentioning that Cardinal News reporter Ralph Berrier Jr. is an old-time and bluegrass fiddler, failed to mention his band, The Java Brothers, or his book about the bluegrass music careers of his grandfather and great-uncle, "If Trouble Don't Kill Me." Here's a YouTube copy of a Java Brothers concert ...