• Features
• Table of Contents
• NETTA Features
• Marquee Blog
• Writers
• Photographers
• Past Issue Features
• Back Issues
•  

Features

g’Earls just wanna have fun!

The members of Uncle Earl are seated in a dimly lit Chinese restaurant. Suddenly a gang of cloggers, led by a vicious Gwen Stefani look-alike in blonde ponytails, charge through the doors and challenge a table of rival cloggers. Uncle Earl, sensing the imminent battle, put down their chopsticks and pick up their instruments to provide the rousing music necessary for a proper kung fu clog-off.

No, this isn’t a dream. It isn’t a Riverdance interpretation of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, although that’s pretty close. It’s Uncle Earl’s hilarious music video for their rendition of the old-time tune “Streak O’ Lean, Streak O’ Fat” (which includes some Chinese lyrics courtesy of bandmate Abigail Washburn). The band is telling me about it at Bristol’s 2007 Rhythm & Roots Reunion just before the video comes out, and when I finally see it on YouTube some time later, the video is a perfect reminder of the quirky humor and stellar musicianship I encountered with this self-proclaimed “all g’Earl” string band. Gorgeous and geeky, the ladies of Uncle Earl are irresistible on stage and off. 

After meeting each other at various festivals over the years, the current lineup solidified in 2003, consisting of KC Groves (mandolin, guitar, vocals), Abigail Washburn (banjo, vocals), Kristin Andreassen (guitar, fiddle, clogging, vocals) and Rayna Gellert (fiddle, vocals). But with each member coming from very different musical backgrounds, no one knew precisely what direction the band would take.

“Musically, I was sort of like, ‘Well, we’ll just see what happens,’ ” says Gellert, a longtime resident of Asheville, N.C., and the daughter of musician Sam Gellert. “But the thing that, to me, was driving this group of people staying together—and making the effort to stay together—was just that we wanted to hang out together.”

Ah, so Uncle Earl is really just an excuse to meet up with the g’Earls, have some fun and make some great music in the process. That explains their commitment despite having successful solo careers, living in different parts of the country (Massachusetts, North Carolina, Tennessee and Colorado) and participating in numerous other musical projects (Washburn, for example, is also a member of The Sparrow Quartet with Béla Fleck, Ben Sollee and Casey Driessen). But the musical byproduct of Uncle Earl’s camaraderie is getting a lot of attention, including their 2007 nomination for New and Emerging Artist by the Americana Music Association.   For the complete story, please read the Holiday 2008 issue of Marquee Mountain South.

Post a Comment »

Back to Top

---

Blackberry Farm: A Smokies Shangri-la

The sweeping valley view is hypnotic. It beckons the soul to go soaring, releasing the cords of worries and cares that have tied it down too long.

Here, you can get lost just sitting on the veranda.

Despite its unpresumptuous name, Blackberry Farm is a close-to-home Shangri-la. Guests at this pristine wilderness resort, tucked high in the Smoky Mountains, come here to escape the frenzy of Western civilization, unplug from the world and take in the pleasures of life at nature’s pace.

“There is a gentleness about hospitality in this part of the world, in the spirit of the people here,” says Brian Lee, Blackberry Farm’s director of guest relations for the past 13 years. “They so genuinely care about our guests, offering a level of comfort that you can’t get just anywhere.”

Personal attention is a hallmark of the pastoral estate: the award-winning resort has more than 300 employees catering to a maximum capacity of 126 guests. But more than just pampering is involved. Blackberry Farm serves up nature’s splendor both in outdoor revelry and through its internationally recognized gourmet cuisine.

“This piece of land has had so much amazing history,” Lee says. “It has brought so many people together.” The property, in West Miller’s Cove near Walland, Tenn., has been significant since the earliest days of our country’s history. Running through the property is the “Hawkins Line,” part of the Holston Treaty negotiated by President George Washington and the Cherokee Indians. That line is now part of the present-day Great Smoky Mountains National Park border adjacent to Blackberry Farm.

Settled since the late 1800s, the property was purchased in 1976 as a private residence by Kreis and Sandy Beall from Knoxville, Tenn. They opened up a six-room country inn with the vision of making it a corporate gathering place as well as a venue for entertaining family and friends.

Their dream has slowly expanded into a multi-faceted estate with more than 60 rooms, cottages, a retreat center, a gourmet “barn” dining facility and other farm amenities. Today, son Sam Beall ably manages the resort as proprietor, continuing the family tradition of Southern hospitality by hosting cooking schools, wine tastings and other elaborate epicurean events. For the complete story, please read the Holiday 2008 issue of Marquee Mountain South.

Post a Comment »

Back to Top

---

Barbara Kingsolver Gets Back to Basics

Lush, green hillsides and drizzling rain in the Mountain South might get taken for granted by some people. Not so for the gardeners among us, including best-selling author Barbara Kingsolver. The bountiful land in Southern Appalachia is one compelling reason that Kingsolver was “called home” to Southwestern Virginia a few years ago. 

Kingsolver grew up an Appalachian girl in Eastern Kentucky, explored Europe in her ’20s and later settled in Tucson, Ariz., where she lived for 25 years. In 2004 she and her family moved to a flourishing farm in Southwest Virginia, a move that was also the theme of her latest book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. “We wanted to live in a place that could feed us,” she says. “Where rain falls, crops grow and drinking water bubbles right up out of the ground.”   

Kingsolver and husband Steven Hopp, along with daughters Camille and Lily, embraced rural life and their Virginia community. They shared garden produce, advice on growing crops and recipes with neighbors; and they deliberately ate only locally produced foods.  Animal, Vegetable, Miracle—Kingsolver’s first nonfiction narrative—is the story of the family’s “locavore” experience throughout each season of a year. Part memoir and part journalistic investigation, the book enlightens readers about the food chain and explores the repercussions of industrial food production.  For the complete story, please read the Holiday 2008 issue of Marquee Mountain South.

Post a Comment »

Back to Top

---

Cumberland Gap: Off the Beaten Path

Overlook this tiny town—then wind down the mountain for a visit. With its wealth of history and community hospitality, Cumberland Gap is ideal for a truly tucked-away retreat. A rather nondescript exit ducks off US-25E just before the impressive maw of a tunnel plunges under the Tennessee-Kentucky border. Off the exit, a few turns take you closer to the base of towering Cumberland Mountain. It’s only when you reach the wooden covered bridge arching over the country road that you know you’re almost there. The brick-and-history hamlet of Cumberland Gap, Tenn., peeks beyond and warmly welcomes.            A truly tiny town (population: 202), Cumberland Gap somewhat defies logic. Sure, the Gap has historically held major significance. From the buffalo and the Native Americans’ longtime use of the North-South break in the ridges…to Daniel Boone’s Wilderness Road leading settlers into Kaintuck wilderness…to Civil War skirmishes fighting for the thoroughfare, Cumberland Gap has seen its fair share of activity and admiration.             But the illogical nature of the town stems more from the Gap’s original transient purpose—as a passageway, a mountain hallway if you will, used by people always on their way elsewhere. Then there’s the issue of very limited land available. The Cumberland Mountain looms nearly vertically over the town—embracing, yes, but effectively limiting physical growth. Also, historically, there have been major setbacks to settlement here: the strategic nature of the Gap caused incredible violence during the Civil War (witnessed handily in a trailside crater from a Civil-War-era munitions detonation), and later the massive ironworks operation, running from 1820 to 1880, more or less deforested and smoke-blackened the little valley niche.            

Yet, with checkered past firmly in hand, here is Cumberland Gap today—as sprightly and charming a little town as anyone could want. With the briefest of brick downtowns, an easily walked in-town neighborhood of Victorian turrets and wrap-porches, a babbling creek and a gateway into incredibly scenic Cumberland Gap National Historic Park, the town has made a career in “quaint.”            

For a traveler today seeking peace and easy refuge, this is it. Two large brick buildings at the entrance of town hint at the only large-scale tourist trade: the Cumberland Gap Convention Center and the Cumberland Inn. Boasting 31 rooms, the Inn offers clean, comfortable motel accommodations and amenities. For those wanting a bit more personalized service, though, the historic Olde Mill Bed and Breakfast promises that and more.  For the complete story, please read the Holiday 2008 issue of Marquee Mountain South.

Post a Comment

Back to Top

---

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.

Post a Comment »

Back to Top

---