March 5, 2009 Issue
Teaching the Old to the Young
Mountain Music Jam Club Re-emerges at Watauga High
Guitarist Deborah Jean Sheets joins beginning fiddle player Alex Jolly, 15, and novice banjo player D.J. Greene, 16, for a round of old-time music at the weekly meeting of the WHS Mountain Music Jam Club. Photo by Anna Oakes
“Well, what do you want to play today?” asked Deborah Jean Sheets, faculty advisor to the Mountain Music Jam Club, at a club meeting last Thursday, February 26. At first, the two students who came to the meeting—Alex Jolly, 15, and D.J. Greene, 16—shrugged their shoulders, but after just a little bit more prodding by Sheets, they tossed out a few tunes that they wanted to run through.
Sheets, a technology education teacher at Watauga High School, first started the Mountain Music Jam Club several years ago, but the club stopped meeting during a period in which students expressed little interest in the group. But thanks to the Watauga Arts Council’s Junior Appalachian Musicians (JAM) program, local young people are once again showing interest in old-time instruments and music, Sheets said. As a result, Sheets decided to resurrect the Mountain Music Jam Club this semester.
The club meets every Thursday, immediately after school, for about an hour or hour and a half. Three students regularly attend the meetings—or jam sessions—along with another WHS teacher, Larry Beasley.
Jolly recently joined the JAM program, and she is learning to play the fiddle. Greene also receives instruction through the Watauga Arts Council and is learning to play the banjo. Greene placed second in the novice banjo category at the recent ASU Old-Time Fiddlers’ Convention.
Sheets is an established name in the local old-time music scene. She and her husband, Randy, have performed original and borrowed tunes at such venues as the Ola Belle Reed Festival in Lansing, Appalachian Mountain Musicfest, the Wayne Henderson Music Festival, the National Folk Festival in Richmond, Va., and at The Kennedy Center and the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
Sheets joined Jolly and Greene on guitar, and as they worked through the songs, she offered various bits of advice. As to being nervous when performing in front of others, “it’s all in your head,” she noted. She told them to make a list of every song that they know so they can remember them when playing with others. “Sometimes you’re in a group and your mind goes blank,” she said.
For more information about the Mountain Music Jam Club, contact Sheets at 828-264-2407.
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