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Features

Mountain South Musicians

Music flows like water here in the mountains. Rocking lyrics and the lilt of the fiddle, the bass and the banjo seem a natural extension of the sweeping vistas and the quirky hollows. Some of the musicians here, like the incomparable Oak Ridge, Tenn.-born Edgar Meyer, are easy to claim as favored natives. Others, like D.C.-born Jimmy Thackery, we embrace more by enthusiastic long-term association. Many of them, like Doc Watson and Rhonda Vincent, are already renowned—but then we feel it’s equally important to address the legends-in-the-making, like brightly rising Jag Star and Devon Allman.

Whatever the venue—an intimate listening room or open-air festival stage—these musicians stand apart for their intense skill and energy. We now cast our feature spotlight on them as part of the outstanding musical patchwork quilt our region enjoys, and invite you to catch up with them whenever and wherever the opportunity arises.

April Taylor
A radio contest changed her course. For, although contemporary country singer and Bristol, Tenn., native April Taylor keenly felt a sense of musical tradition—one of her great grandfathers actually wrote music with the legendary Carter family—she contented herself with sharing her talents only with her church and family.
That is, until a radio contest caught her attention several years ago. Out of thousands of entrants, Taylor placed among three finalists; after a final showdown performance, she emerged as the winner.
“That’s when it hit me. I left that night with something in my heart going, ‘I need to be doing this forever,’ ” Taylor says.

Jag Star
With a punchy, radio-friendly power-pop style and a bounty of media exposure, Jag Star is a band that’s poised to go far. Actually, they have gone far—as far away as Afghanistan and Pakistan to perform for American troops. Although shows in their home state of Tennessee, at venues such as the World Grotto in Knoxville, are a “blast,” lead singer and songwriter Sarah Lewis explains that some of their favorite shows and most receptive audiences have been abroad.
“The soldiers were so wonderful to play for, and the energy was through the roof. We are very supportive of them, and now they are of us, too!” she says.

Rhonda Vincent
For bluegrass vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Rhonda Vincent, it’s been a continual process of discovery and development during her four-decade-long professional music career. She began at the age of five playing the drums with her family’s band, the Sally Mountain Show, and took up the mandolin and fiddle while still of grade school age.  Today, lovingly called “Mandolin Mama” by fans, Vincent has the chops to execute breathtaking, blistering fast runs on the mandolin. She has earned wide critical acclaim and was named “Female Vocalist of the Year” for an extraordinary seven years in a row, starting in 2000, by the International Bluegrass Music Association.

Cory Branan
It’s hard to pin down a fellow like Cory Branan.  The often-heard comparisons to artists such as Ryan Adams and Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes don’t exactly hit the mark. Impressively, Rolling Stone magazine and The Late Show with David Letterman have featured Branan, yet in conversation he comes across as being modest, down-to-earth, pensive and even self-deprecating at times.
Literally pinning down Branan is also difficult, as he’s a habitually touring musician who grew up in Mississippi, made his mark on the music scene in Memphis, Tenn., currently resides in Fayetteville, Ark., and plans on moving to Austin, Texas this summer. Branan appreciates his “green country” stops in the Mountain South, a welcome change from the “barrenness” of Midwest highways, and mentions Asheville and Barley’s Taproom in Knoxville among his favored destinations.

Devon Allman
While it’s never been easier to grab a sliver of instant fame—there are entertainers today who strive to make it the hard, old-fashioned way, working toward fame that’s lasting. Take, for example, Devon Allman, the front man of the four-piece St. Louis-based group Honeytribe. Recently performing at Mountain South venues in Asheville, N.C., Maryville and Johnson City, Tenn., Allman has been touring constantly for nearly two years.
Devon’s last name should rightfully ring a bell—his father is Gregg Allman, the legendary co-founder of the Allman Brothers Band and an inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995.

Jimmy Thackery
A member of The Nighthawks until 1987 and captain of his own power trio The Drifters since the early ’90s, Jimmy Thackery knows a thing or two about life on the road. He’s been rocking fans with his driving guitar licks almost every day of the year for decades.
Thackery got his first guitar in ’66. His inspiration? “Hormones.” Originally from Washington, D.C., some of his D.C. guitar heroes (in the original sense of the term) include Roy Buchanan, Danny Gat, Tom Principato, Bill Kirchen and many others. Thackery also has strong ties to the Mountain South from years of performing here. Back when the live music scene was more vibrant than it is currently, he could always count on the Mountain South’s love of music to sustain the band.

Edgar Meyer
Some musicians have a meek, almost browbeaten aura to them—you can practically smell the hours of coerced practice time spent in a little room while the other kids ran wild.
Then there’s master double bassist, multi-instrumentalist and composer Edgar Meyer. A few minutes with him and you can easily envision a young Meyer picking up an instrument like another child might approach a new toy. He seems to have no tethers to genre, style or stereotype, no preconceived limitations of what the bass, or any instrument, can do. “I think that sometimes people who play a certain instrument may want to have certain definitions of it, but [growing up] I was excited about music in general … ” says Meyer, a native of Oak Ridge, Tenn.

Doc Watson
It’s hard to find someone who hasn’t heard of Arthel “Doc” Watson and harder still to find a serious musician who hasn’t been influenced, or at least greatly impressed, by his music. Doc is, after all, a pioneer who helped change the acoustic guitar’s role in traditional music from a supportive rhythm instrument to shining lead.
You’d never know it from talking to Doc, though. Despite all his accomplishments, his decades of success, what is most striking about this charismatic octogenarian—besides his precise musicianship, peerless voice, quick wit and disarming stage presence, of course—is his humility.

For the complete story, please read the Spring 2008 issue of Marquee Mountain South.

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Digging for Delicacies: Tenn. & N.C. Truffles

In the green rolling hills of East Tennessee and the piedmont of North Carolina, where tobacco barns and run-down house trailers are the most common denominators on the horizon, gold-diggers sharpen up their pick-axes to scratch in the dry red clay soil. The dogs that stick to their sides are not coon dogs or even hound dogs, but the wooly coated Lagotto Romagnolo, a dog of particularly keen olfactory senses bred near Ravenna, Italy. The gold in question will not find its way into any bank vault, but will be sliced thin and served as a garnish in the nation’s top restaurants.

 

We’re speaking of the Périgord Truffle, Tuber melanosporum, that mysterious fungal beast also known under the name of Black Gold, Black Diamond, Black Princess, French Black Winter Truffle, Truffe du Périgord. Fruity, musky, floral, earthy (but a few of the terms used to describe the personality of individual specimens), this fungus is actually a sack of spores which attains maturity under the earth, attached by an almost invisible mycelium to the roots of certain host trees, notably oak and hazelnut.

For the complete story, please read the Spring 2008 issue of Marquee Mountain South.

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Off the Beaten Path: Weaverville, N.C.

It’s easy to like a place where even the parking lot is charming and comfortable.
Towering dutifully between the two entrances of the small downtown parking lot, an ornate, old-fashioned black iron clock greets visitors to Weaverville, N.C. A couple of pleasant walking trails meander off the shady back part of the lot, truly inviting even if you have to be somewhere at a particular time. The charm is relaxing, the complete opposite of “urban bustle”—it’s the kind of kicking-back you can do when literally everything you could need is within sight.

Only those who come here expecting a “tiny Asheville” will be disappointed for, although Weaverville lies a mere 10 miles north of Asheville’s epicenter, it has an entirely different, eminently refreshing hometown flavor. The two share kindred appreciations for the arts and for history, but Weaverville’s approach remains smaller-scale, more communal.

For the complete story, please read the Spring 2008 issue of Marquee Mountain South.

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BLUE RIDGE ROLLERGIRLS: Asheville’s Derby Divas

Off the track, they’re known by the somewhat unremarkable names given to them as sweet baby girls. Little did their parents realize, naively fretting over every childhood bruise and scrape, that their darling daughters would grow up to adopt new identities as rough-and-tumble rollergirls—Caslamity Jane, Pulp Friction, Terrordactyl, Agent MauldHer, and other amusing-yet-fear-inducing names too numerous to mention. Like superheroes, these ladies don different personas when they lace up their speed skates and hit the derby track.

They are the Blue Ridge Rollergirls, the one and only flat-track roller derby league in Asheville, N.C. If you didn’t catch a “bout” (the term for a derby game) in 2007—their first competitive season, which they emerged from undefeated—you don’t want to miss what they have in store for 2008. But just to warn you, derby is addictive for skaters and spectators alike

For the complete story, please read the Spring 2008 issue of Marquee Mountain South.

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Counting Blinks in the Smokies

On the Wings of “The Firefly Lady”
Biologist and Naturalist Lynn Faust

Summer evenings for many children in the Mountain South have long included
the gleeful activity of catching lightning bugs and putting them in a jar
with holes poked in the top. Knoxville native Lynn Faust would put her jar
on her bedside table and watch the tiny lanterns glow. Disappointed to find
her bugs dead by morning, Faust, a born nature-lover, learned from an early
age to let the bugs go.
Faust’s curiosity and appreciation for lightning bugs has not waned. She has
spent more than a few summer evenings crouched in the dark, observing the
insects in their own habitat. The wondrous creatures that faithfully herald
the barbeque season in the Appalachian region are called fireflies north of
the Mason-Dixon Line. That’s also the name that researchers use, according
to Faust, a biologist and naturalist who has been involved in firefly
research for 15 years. The flash of “cold” light (emitted by a chemical
reaction rather than heat) from the luminescent beetles has held the
interest of scientists for centuries.
Research on a particular species of firefly, the Photinus carolinus, takes
place in Great Smoky Mountain National Park as a result of Faust’s
initiative. This species of synchronous fireflies characteristically blink
in unison, presenting a simultaneous display of light that is part of a
mating ritual.
“They blink in six-flash patterns with six seconds of dark in between the
intervals,” says Faust.
Synchronous fireflies were previously thought to exist only in Asia, until
Faust brought the Tennessee species to the attention of specialists in
neurobiology. The scientists later identified the synchronous fireflies at
Elkmont in the Smokies-and believed the insects’ presence to be a unique
phenomenon in America. Faust says another species of synchronous firefly has
since been identified in Tennessee and South Carolina.

All Blinks Are Not Equal
Synchronous fireflies have also been spotted in other parts of the Smokies
and the Southern Appalachians, usually in deep-forested, high-elevation
areas within the sound of water. Together the bugs can look like a Christmas
tree with lights blinking on and off. Recently, people have claimed
sightings at lower altitudes, including along the South Fork of the Holston
River in Kingsport.

“The Mountain South region is one of the richest in the world for dozens of
species of fireflies,” says Faust. “The most common species, the kind you
might catch in your lawn, is the Photinus pyralis, which rises from the
ground and dips its body as it flashes. It is also known by the common name
‘The Big Dipper’ because of its J-stroke flashes that look like a dipper in
the air.”

Faust says the various species differ in habitat, seasons of life and
flashing patterns. “Glow frequency varies, and color of light can range from
bluish-green to yellow or white, depending on the species. The fireflies you
see in May or June are different species from those you may see in August,”
she explains. “There are others in this area that live only along the river
banks or high in trees. There are even some that come out during the
day-there are at least 125 species of fireflies in the U.S.

“People can observe patterns of the fireflies and note different species if
they pay close attention and count the number of seconds between blinks.
Weather, moisture and environmental conditions greatly affect the timing and
their seasons of life.”

What’s All the Blink About?
Synchronous fireflies have about a three-week lifespan. Usually around
mid-June the synchronous firefly ritual occurs, where the males blink to
attract a mate. “In the air or in bushes, trees or along hillsides, the
males simultaneously blink several times and then pause, waiting for a
female on the ground to aim her lantern at the one she calls,” says Faust.
“They start a dialog answering in flashes. The laser lightshow changes;
there are waves of flashing and short bursts, and then it goes dark for a
period. The males gather in nodes-called chaos blinking-vying for their
mate.”

And What Kind of Perfume Do You Wear?
Unfortunately for the males, it’s not as simple as being summoned by a
beacon light. The bugs use pheromones (love perfume) to identify their own
species and avoid being clobbered by a femme fatale, a different species
that mimics the synchronous fireflies’ blink to lure its prey. Once called
down, the males land near the female, check her pheromone and her blink, and
if all matches up, mating begins. The female lays eggs in the ground, where
the larvae take one to two years to develop into adult fireflies.

 
Nature Enthusiasts at Elkmont, Then and Now
Every June for more than 40 years, Faust has walked up the Little River
Trailhead in Elkmont, Tenn., and witnessed the phenomenon of synchronous
fireflies. Her family had a summer cabin in the now-defunct logging village
of Elkmont. “For many years during the time when Elkmont was a vibrant
village, summer residents saw the lightshow every night over a two- to
three-week period and watched in awe,” says Faust. “But we didn’t realize
the uniqueness of the situation here.”
After reading about the species of synchronous fireflies in Asia, Faust
contacted Jonathon Copeland, a renowned researcher from Georgia Southern
University. He and colleague Andrew Moiseff from the University of
Connecticut began studying the Elkmont fireflies in 1992. It took three
years to verify the species, and since then, these scientists along with
Faust and a handful of field researchers have returned every June to
continue research and fuel their firefly passion.
As word spread about this natural spectacle, more and more enthusiasts and
curiosity-seekers began coming to Elkmont to watch the display. “Over 30,000
people showed up over a 10-day period, so three years ago the Park
implemented a system to accommodate the crowds,” says Faust. During peak
time in June, no parking is allowed at Little River Trailhead, and Elkmont
is accessible only by shuttle service, leaving from Sugarlands Visitor
Center in Gatlinburg.
Faust has a few pointers for those considering going: “Spectators should be
comfortable negotiating in the dark; flashlights are allowed only if covered
with red or blue colored cellophane (cling wrap) so as not to disturb the
firefly signaling, and to protect night vision. Don’t use a light if
possible; take a chair, stay on roads, avoid potholes in the trail and try
to avoid stepping near blinking females on the ground.”
Trekking along in the dark to see the firefly display calls for being in
shape and also an attitude of appreciation, almost reverence, for the
wonders of nature. “It’s not for everyone,” Faust says. “But the Park’s
guidelines have helped the crowds become more manageable, and hopefully the
impact to the environment is less damaging.”

Purpose and Passion
The recent Elkmont studies have centered on the fireflies’ eye structure and
mating habits. Researchers are also working to try to understand glow
patterns, which could provide a link to network theory, tying together
aspects of physics, chemistry and biology. Faust has worked with Steven
Strogatz, Cornell professor and author of the book Sync: The Emerging
Science of Spontaneous Order, which Faust says is a fascinating lay person’s
read about synchrony in relation to physics.

Other firefly research has included scientific applications to defense,
medicine and genetics. Specific studies have been done on cold light and
naval submarine radar evasion, as well as medical research on cloning and
splicing phosphorescent genes onto cancer or tuberculosis cells.

Why the research at Elkmont? “It’s for the advancement of science,” says
Faust, “but a large part is the curiosity factor. People are fascinated
with fireflies; they’re all around. It’s magical to watch, and it’s
eye-opening to the joy of nature.”

Ann Yungmeyer is a freelance writer who lives in Kingsport.

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