MOUNTAIN MUSIC

The Town of Independence, located in the center of Grayson County, was created in 1850 when the need arose for a more centrally located county seat. For more than 200 years music has been a part of life and living for the people who reside in our mountainous region. Our unique style of music know as ‘Old Time’ or as referred to by local folks as ‘Mountain Music’, grew from several different cultural styles as settlers migrated from other parts of the world to this area and ‘sank roots’ in the 18th and 19th Centuries. The 20th Century result is ‘Old Time’ and ‘Blue Grass’ as we know it today.

Independence and the surrounding area were home to several pioneers of ‘Old Time’. The most recognized and recorded is Uncle Wade Ward (1892-1971) who lived on Peachbottom Creek and operated a small farm. In the Smithsonian archives ‘A Memorial to Uncle Wade Ward, Old Time Virginia Banjo Picker’ by Eric Davidson and Jane Rigg states Uncle Wade ‘became famous as perhaps the greatest living exponent of the old time clawhammer banjo style. By the end of his life, his music had been distributed by major record companies, and interested people had come from all over the United States and England to see and hear him play. In 1937 Wade had been recorded with the Bogtrotters Band for the Library of Congress. Three decades after that, now known to all who valued and loved the string music, Wade was still going strong, and appeared in Washington DC for the Smithsonian Festival held that summer’. Uncle Wade played music for Joe Parson’s Auction Company and various local events. Some who played and recorded with Wade were; Crockett, Fields, Dean and Worth Ward, Granny Porter, Katy Hill, Glen Smith, Roscoe Holcomb, Kilby Snow, the Bog Trotters (The Wards, Eck Dunford and Doc Davis), Charlie Higgins, Dale Poe, Bobby Carpenter, Ellis Lundy and others just to name a few.

Wade and most of the above regularly played at Jessie’s Barber Shop. Jessie’s was a favorite gathering place for many local musicians. They would go for haircuts or just to play, Jessie always had instruments and played with who ever wanted to strike up a tune. Other musicians of the community; Vester & Jerry Jones, Stewart Carico, Frank Plumber, Johnny Miller, Raymond Jones, Gene Hall, Jerry Corel, Eugene & Ellis Lundy, Bruce Mastin, Kyle Cole, Reed Robinson, Ellis and Blanch Nichols, John, Arnold & Buck Perry, Ted & Richard Lundy, Enoch & Curtis Rutherford and others.

There were several bands in the area, probably the most famous being the ‘New River Ramblers’ who played at the White House.

Many of these ‘Old Time’ musicians are recorded and listed in the Smithsonian. The Historic 1908 Courthouse in Independence has some memorabilia as well.