It’s a yearly tradition for us, going back to our first full summer her in 2006: the Bluff Mountain Festival in Hot Springs, North Carolina. A few hundred people get together to listen to old-time music, bluegrass, and a bit of country (not the same types of music at all: the latter two are derivatives of old-time music) under the shade of oaks and magnolias.
There are ballad singers who are keeping alive music that has roots in the original settlers’ English, Welsh, and Scottish culture.
There are bluegrass bands with well over a century of playing experience among the members.
What I’ve always loved about Bluff is the combination of old and young: the sense of continuity and community is encouraging in these extremely divided times.
That sense of ageless community is nowhere more apparent than the clogging floor set up in front of the stage. In years past, there were two groups that clogged: the Green Grass Cloggers (who celebrated their 40th anniversary this year) and the younger crew, the Cold Mountain Cloggers.
This year, the members of the Cold Mountain troupe were unable to perform as a group, spread about the area at various other events, but when the Green Grass Cloggers were finishing up, they invited the dancers present to come out and join them, making for an interesting combination of Western and tie-dyed shirts.
Yet the Green Grass Cloggers only danced periodically. The majority of the time, audience members took to the plywood dance floor.
Watching the men and women in their sixties and seventies come up to relive their youth made me realize how deep the music runs in mountain culture of old. Everyone learns a bit of clogging; everyone learns to play (or play at) some kind of instrument; everyone sings along with the majority of the performers.
At the other end of the spectrum are the children from the audience who see the dancing, hear the itching rhythm of the instruments, and want to move. They get on the floor and jump, shake, twirl, hop, run, skip, tumble, and anything else that comes to mind.
“That’s some mighty fine dancin’ goin’ on down there,” a performer might encourage.
Mighty fine indeed.