SO when we last left you, dear readers, the Sixth Floor Trio was frantically preparing for the filming of our pilot episode of “Music of the People”, a travel show focusing on a certain area’s musical culture. Episode 1 – Bluegrass in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Not knowing the local music scene that well (and having little luck with some of the remote cold calls we tried in the preceding month), once we were on location we decided to visit our friend Kenny at his day job at the Linville post office for some advice. We had met Kenny a few years back when he ran sound for one of our gigs, but he also plays bass and know all the musicians in town.
Kenny was more than helpful – He found and set us up to collaborate with a great local band. It consisted of fiddler Alan Johnson, banjoist (banjoer?) Jason Burleson, Merlefest champion guitarist Steve Lewis and Josh Scott on bass. Man those guys could play! During the interview section they expressed sentiments very similar to our own ideas about music from different traditions being part of the same tonal language (In Josh’ words: It’s just all good music that grooves together), and for fun we even jammed out together on old-time fiddle tune Angeline the Baker.
To round out the episode we interviewed Mark Freed, a professor with the Center for Appalacian Studies just down the road at ASU in Boone, NC. All our videography was done by a very talented film student there named Jessie Whitman. Unfortunately we were so busy with the filming that day that we don’t have any photos for you. but we promise to have a trailer up for you very soon.
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