--- Bill Hartley <hartley@...> wrote:

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 2, 2006

Contact: Bill Hartley, BCMA
(276) 645-0111
hartley@...

Birthplace of Country Music Alliance to host two book signings of the
new A Guide to the Crooked Road

Bristol, VA-TN (June 2, 2006) The Birthplace of Country Music
Alliance will host two book signings of the new A Guide to the
Crooked Road: Virginia's Heritage Music Trail on Wednesday, June 14,
2006. Author Joe Wilson will be on hand to sign copies and discuss
the book at 2:00 PM at the Birthplace of Country Music Alliance
Museum and Gift Shop located on the lower level of the Bristol Mall,
Exit 1, Interstate 81. Later that afternoon, Wilson will also be at
the new Bristol Public Library located on Goode Street for a book
signing at 5:30 PM. Both events are free to the public.

"We are very excited to have Joe Wilson here in Bristol to sign
copies of his new book," commented Bill Hartley, Executive Director
of the Birthplace of Country Music Alliance. Hartley added that
having the signings at two locations and times should enable more
individuals to come out to the event. "While the book is aimed at
visitors from outside the region, many of the residents of our area
will enjoy it and find it useful." Hartley noted that the guide
features over100 black-and-white photographs, 2 CDs featuring
examples of the Appalachian music style.

The "Crooked Road" is a highway, 253 miles long, connecting the
Virginia Piedmont with the Cumberland Mountains in the state's
southwestern corner. It is Virginia's Heritage Music Trail, an
officially designated driving route that leads visitors to some of
the best traditional mountain music to be found anywhere. "We are
very happy to help promote this guidebook, the region's musical
venues, and the Crooked Road music trail," noted Hartley.

The Crooked Road runs through "one of the places where America
invented its music," writes Joe Wilson, author of the new book A
Guide to the Crooked Road: Virginia's Heritage Music Trail. "Mainly
this book is about the friendly people who have chosen to make this
place their home for generations and keep a historic strand of
American music with a fierce devotion that is most unusual," Wilson
writes. "They keep it with weekly jam sessions in places that are
open to all, in festivals that are both community-based and historic,
and in small museums and performance venues scattered along the
road."

Some of those sites are fairly well-known tourist attractions. The
Blue Ridge Music Center Museum is on the Blue Ridge Parkway outside
Galax, where the Hill Billies, the first commercially successful
group in what would be called country music, was formed in a
barbershop.

Further west, the Crooked Road comes to the Birthplace of Country
Music Museum in Bristol, where the "big bang of country music" took
place at the Victor recording sessions in 1927. Country Music
Hall-of-Famers Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family were discovered
at these sessions. The Carter Family was from the coalfields near
Hiltons, where the Carter Family Fold still hosts traditional
musicians, including descendents of the original Carter Family band.
Johnny Cash played his last performance here.

Other stops along the Crooked Road would be hard to find for the
initiated or those without the new guide: the Thursday morning jam
sessions at the Dairy Queen in Rocky Mount, or the Friday night jams
at the Cana Rescue Squad. Restaurants, accommodations, and other
attractions are also listed.

"I suppose some who love the ancient music of Virginia will wonder if
we may ruin it by making it more accessible to visitors," Wilson
writes. "The first song catchers . . . generations ago assumed this
tough old music was on its last legs. But they have been gone for a
while and . . . it is not in a weakened state."

Joe Wilson is a music historian, folklorist, and chairman of the
National Council for the Traditional Arts. Raised in the Blue Ridge
Mountains, he learned ballads from his mother, guitar from his uncle,
and "Jack" tales from a neighbor. He also heard his great-aunt, known
to early radio audiences as "Carolina Sally," play banjo on his back
porch. He has produced 41 large-scale music festivals in 11 states,
and was one of the driving forces behind the creation of the Crooked
Road. In 2001 he was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship by the
National Endowment for the Arts.

A Guide to the Crooked Road, Virginia's Heritage Music Trail is
publishing by John F. Blair publishers. The book was funded in part
from a grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission. Copies are
available for purchase locally at the Birthplace of Country Music
Alliance Museum Gift Shop, lower level of the Bristol Mall, Exit 1,
Interstate 81. For more information about the Crooked Road:
Virginia's Heritage Music Trail, visit their website at
www.thecrookedroad.org

The Birthplace of Country Music Alliance is a non-profit organization
dedicated to telling the story of the living musical heritage of the
Appalachian mountains and the cultural traditions that sustain it.
The BCMA is funded in part by grants from the Virginia Commission for
the Arts and the Tennessee Arts Commission. For more information,
call (276) 645-0111 or visit online at
www.birthplaceofcountrymusic.org

# # #

Bill Hartley
Executive Director

Birthplace of Country Music Alliance
PO Box 216
Bristol, TN 37621

office: 276.645.0111
fax: 276.645.0036
e-mail: hartley@...

website: http://www.birthplaceofcountrymusic.org


Jim Hady
East Tennessee

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