Old Fort Mountain Music

Flying solo this time, I left town again last night and headed for Old Fort, North Carolina. Old Fort is about a 45 minute drive northeast of Hendersonville. I chose to stick with the Interstates this time rather than taking the winding roads of the previous evening. Even on the Interstates, though, I still had some really nice scenery; distant mountain ranges with the sun setting behind them. My destination was Old Fort Mountain Music.

Old Fort Mountain Music is a weekly event that takes place every Friday from 7pm until 10 or 11pm. It's been going on since 1986, and they claim to have never missed a night, even during the great blizzard when they came in to open the doors, even though no one could even get on the roads. If you're interested in the city of Old Fort check out www.oldfort.org. For more info on Old Fort Mountain Music go to www.oldfort.org/music.

When I arrived outside the venue I recognized one of the old men from the Bluegrass Music Jam practice room. I approached him and struck up conversation. He said he would have said something sooner the other night about the main concert being next door, but he assumed Systemic and I were musicians and that we knew what we were doing. He said a lot of times musicians will just pop in unannounced. I chatted with him a bit more then entered a small foyer of the building where a group was practicing.

Several older people sat around the edges of the limited space listening, so I squeezed into the only remaining space in a corner and listened some myself. It was an all male group ranging from a young fiddle player with a long ponytail to several gentlemen with white hair. Some of their other instrumentation included banjo, guitar, bass, mandolin and I can't quite remember what else. They sounded really good and they were fun to watch. After several minutes I excused myself between one of their sets and entered the main building.

It was a larger room than the Bluegrass Music Jam, and it was pretty full. The majority of the crowd was once again elderly, but there were more children, high-schoolers, and middle-agers than the night before. It was overall a good mix of all ages. Once again it was a BYOC (bring your own clogs) affair. The dance floor stayed lively with that clog-hybrid style that I've come to find as unique to these settings. I was tempted to ask a cute girl in attendance to teach me how to do it, but I'm terrible with age, and I wasn't sure where she fell in the 16-26 range. The last thing I wanted was to be pegged as the out of town predator within this tight-knit group. Not tonight Chris Hansen.

Early in the evening I bought a good-sized piece of fresh cake from the concession stand for just 50 cents. It was pound cake with a pineapple/coconut icing. I realize now that I should have gone back up and gotten a slice of coconut pie, but I got so into the music and the atmosphere that I forgot all about it. I sat next to an 80 year old man named Luther who was there with two of his siblings. Luther is the oldest of 12 kids. He said he's been attending the event for awhile. He knew and had played with several of the people who were framed in pictures on the wall. Throughout the night, previous musicians and patrons would come and speak to him and clearly had an affection for him. Luther use to pluck guitar, but due to a bad hand he now plays keyboard. He also owns a 1915 fiddle that's 5 years shy of being 100 years old. Luther and I treated each other to 25 cent coffees and exchanged comments about the bands throughout the evening.

Old Fort Mountain Music is a lot of fun for free. If you do get hungry or thirsty, fresh cake and pie is just 50 cents and soda and coffee are only 25 cents. You get to hear multiple bands ranging from the very novice to the very advanced. You can spend the entire evening comfortably sitting in a chair watching or dancing away on a dance floor in the corner that's always full. (Clogs not required.) Best of all, you can meet some really neat people, like Luther, and make some new friends in the process.