SEPTEMBER 24, 2009 ISSUE
Mountain Home Music Presents Three Concerts in October
The Sheets Family Band, Puddingstone and The Snider Family Band
This fall in the High Country, there’s more to savor than the colorful leaves, steamed corn and apple cider. There’s also Mountain Home Music.
For the past 15 years, Mountain Home Music has provided the High County will a special autumn treat of banjos and fiddles, harps and dulcimers, and ballads and old hymns. This tradition will continue on successive Saturdays in October at the Blowing Rock School Auditorium.
The Sheets Family and Dulcimer Delight will open the fall series on Saturday, October 3. The Sheets Family will carry listeners back to the era when family harmony singing was popular and when groups like the Carter Family and Carter and Ralph Stanley filled the airwaves.
In addition to previous appearances on Mountain Home Music, The Sheets Family has represented our region at the National Folklife Festival, The Smithsonian Institute and at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Randy and Deborah Jean Sheets, Kelly Snider and Charlie Hart are the Sheets Family Band.
The mountain dulcimer has long been heard in the surrounding valleys and hills. Of German origin, this sweet sounding instrument took root in the western side of Watauga County before the American Revolution. The group Dulcimer Delight, also on the menu for October 3, will reach out of the musical past and into the present.
Celtic and classical music will be served on Saturday, October 10. The band Puddingstone has brought its beautiful music to the Mountain Home Music stage for 14 years. Celtic, Renaissance and contemporary classical is the band’s musical forte. Their music is expressed through harp, hammer dulcimer, penny whistle, flute, violin, classical guitar, bodhran and piano.
Bluegrass music in the mountains reaches back to the late 1930s. Fiddler Jim Shumate from Wilkes County was a member of the first bluegrass band ever, Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys, who first appeared on the Grand Old Opry in October 1939. Of course, bluegrass music thrives in these mountains as successive generations continue to express this original form of American music.
Two groups, and two generations, will continue this pilgrimage on Saturday, October 17. They are the Darin and Brooke Aldridge Band and the Snyder Family.In 2009, Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine said that Darin and Brooke Aldridge had, “set a new standard of excellence in bluegrass gospel.”
Youngsters Samantha and Zeb Snyder and their parents Laine and Bud are The Snyder Family Band. At the age of 9, young Samantha Snyder won the “Fiddler of the Festival Award” at the renowned Union Grove Fiddle Festival.
All three concerts, October 3, 10, and 17, will be beneath the sugar maples at the Blowing Rock School Auditorium on Sunset Drive in downtown Blowing Rock. Starting time is 8:00 p.m. During intermission at all concerts, Mountain Home Music serves free apple cider and cookies.
Tickets are $12.50 in advance and $15 at the door. Tickets for college and high school students are $10at the door only. Tickets can be purchased at Mast General Stores, Rydell Music Center, Pandora’s Mailbox in Blowing Rock and Fred’s Mercantile on Beech Mountain. Tickets can also be purchased online by clicking to www.mountainhomemusic.com.
The purpose of Mountain Home Music is to honor the music and musicians of the Appalachian region. It is affiliated with the Blue Ridge Music Trails, a project of the North Carolina Arts Council. For more information, click to www.mountainhomemusic.com or call 828-964-3392.
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