A Musical Road Trip

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If it's Friday night, the action is at the Floyd Country Store (296 S. Locust St., Floyd; 540-745-4563; http://www.floydcountrystore.com/ ), a near-century-old general store that's open only six hours a week. Except for T-shirts, CDs and snacks, the stuff on the shelves is mostly leftover stock-as-props. The middle of the store is occupied by folding chairs and looks like a town meeting or a humble church service is about to be held. In fact, by 6, folks have started filling those seats for the gospel hour that begins at 6:30, kicking off the Friday Night Jamboree . An hour later, the place is packed, as is the oak dance floor a nanosecond into music played by the first of several old-time or bluegrass bands. One of the regulars is Ralph Haden and Barbershop Grass, though Haden might be thinking about a new band name. Over the Labor Day weekend, he retired from the adjacent Floyd Barber Shop, which has been around for 65 years, half of them with Haden taking a little bit off every top.

The Floyd Country Store doesn't hold a huge number of people -- 100 or so, though 300 may pass through during the evening; folks are always spilling into the Country Store or spilling out. (A larger stage taking shape behind a back wall will improve capacity.) Some never make it off the bench out front, even as Locust Street swarms with folks heading to nearby restaurants-with-music such as Oddfellas Cantina or Cafe Del Sol. Amazing that a town with a population of fewer than 500 has an active Music Row!

In the Floyd Country Store, the dance floor isn't much bigger than a sheet of postage stamps. Whether old-time or bluegrass, the music is accompanied by the percussive clacking of metal taps on the shoes of ardent flat-footers. Flat-footing is associated with traditional string band music; distinct from its uptight cousin, clogging, it better serves free-spirited flat-footers, whose heels and toes thump with dizzying speed.

All this started about 20 years ago when the store's then-owners needed a place for their band to practice on Friday nights. Curious passersby begat crowds that went from small to packed, and an institution began. According to Woody Crenshaw, who owns a lighting manufacturing business in Floyd and bought the Floyd Country Store 18 months ago, the Friday night crowd is about one-third local people from Floyd, a third semi- or irregulars and a third newbies, some from distant lands. (They always get introduced to great applause.) There's food on-site, but there's no alcohol, smoking or cussing allowed, the so-called Granny Rules that apply at pretty much every traditional music venue and festival.

Pickers also jam informally on the bench out front or in nearby alleys, driveways and parking lots, weather permitting. When it doesn't, they gravitate to the store's upstairs rooms. The evening's last band is often ad hoc, made up of whoever's handy and ready to keep the jam in jamboree. Admission is only $3 (younger than 16 free), and that also gets you a raffle ticket for a ham.

Also worth checking out: County Records/County Sales (117A W. Main St.; 540-745-2001; http://www.countysales.com/ ), the world's best-stocked traditional-music store, with a huge international mail-order and online business, and Scott Perry's the Pickin' Porch (133 Willis Ave., behind the post office; 540-745-8863; http://www.thepickinporch.com/ ), which offers locally made and vintage acoustic instruments, such as beautifully detailed fiddles by 82-year-old Arthur Conner of Copper Hill, Va.; mandolins by Stanley Lorton of Willis, Va.; ("Arthur calls him 'old man,' " Perry chuckles); and dulcimers by Charles Spangler and W.K. Webster.

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Galax is legendary as the home of the annual Old Fiddler's Convention (276-236-8541; http://www.oldfiddlersconvention.com/ ), which every August swells the town's population for a week from 7,000 to as many as 50,000. The convention has been held at Felts Park since 1936, making it the biggest and oldest mountain music festival around and allowing Galax to call itself "The World Capital of Old-Time Mountain Music." About a third of the attendees are musicians: Many participate in the multiple competitions (despite the festival name, categories include dobro, dulcimer, banjo, fiddle and even clogging), and thousands join informal and seemingly round-the-clock campground and parking lot jam sessions. It's mad fun and astoundingly cheap -- $30 for the whole week.

There are only three live bluegrass/country radio shows in the country (including the "Grand Ole Opry"), and one of them comes out of Galax: "Blue Ridge Backroads," which since 1999 has been broadcast Friday nights from 8 to 10 on WBRF (98.1 FM). The shows originate from the historic Rex Theater (113 E. Grayson St.), a renovated 475-seat movie theater with a neon-light marquee, wood floors and comfy seats. Most of the shows are free, though not all are broadcast. WBRF's 100,000 watts reach deep into Virginia and neighboring states. For more information and schedules, call 276-238-8130 or visit http://www.rextheatergalax.com/ .

Just around the corner is Barr's Fiddle Shop (105 S. Main St.; 276-236-2411), a music shop where master luthier Tom Barr crafts fine fiddles as well as banjos and dulcimers.

About nine miles outside Galax, the Blue Ridge Music Center and Museum sits at Milepost 213 on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Situated in a gorgeous rustic location overlooking Round Peak, the center was established by Congress in 1985 to commemorate and showcase traditional music and culture. (It's jointly operated by the National Park Service and the National Council for the Traditional Arts.) But it took 17 years to create the 3,000-capacity outdoor amphitheater and two more years to build the impressive visitor center, with its 100-seat auditorium, exhibit space and classrooms, and a luthier shop where Saturday visitors can watch stringed instruments being made.