Weekend Ramblings
The CFO and I went to the Wayne Henderson Music Festival at Grayson Highlands State Park on Saturday. The weather was ideal, the park beautiful and the music sublime.
The headliner was George Hamilton IV, a Winston-Salem native, who was there with his family, including George Hamilton V and George Hamilton VI. This Grand Ole Opry performer (most famous for the song "Abilene") is not one of my favorites but he performed a wonderful rendition of "Life Is Like a Mountain Railroad", one of my most favorite spirituals.
The pleasant surprise of the day was the Harris Brothers from down in Lenoir. They perform Americana music, mostly blues. Go to
http://www.myspace.com/theharrisbrothers
for a sample of their stuff and listen to the third video down (Undefined Mojo). (Unfortunately, video compression at places like MySpace always adversely affects the image and the sound.)
The Kruger Brothers, from Switzerland by way of North Wilkesboro, also performed. Every time I hear them, I like and appreciate them more. They are the only performers of traditional music (including bluegrass) I know that have written a complete score for a symphony orchestra! The banjo brother, Jens, I think is more talented than Bela Fleck and the guitar brother, Uwe, is as smooth as butter.
Anyhow, we stayed until the end to hear Wayne Henderson and his friends pick and grin a little.
A late departure meant getting back into Sparta about 8:30 without dinner. So, we decided to give the Bella Notté Italian Restaurant a try. If I may sum up this dining experience in one word it would be A-W-F-U-L. Bad food, bad service and bad wine, all coming together at the same place at the same time. No, it was not exactly a Beautiful Night at Bella Notté.
On a more pleasant note, the Henderson Festival is always the third Saturday in June and it was exactly 52 Saturdays ago that we found Murphy at the Alleghany County Animal Shelter on the way to the festival. So, it is that we celebrate Murphy's birthday on the third Saturday in June. We took Murph and Sam to the concert and Murph, as usual, was the center of attention where ever he went. The CFO gave him a stuffed toy duck for his birthday and he takes it everywhere.
The CFO and I played golf on Sunday and, sure enough, the hazardous weather horn went off on the 14th hole. We called it a day rather than wait out the approaching storm.
A second storm passed later in the day, giving us 0.15 inches of rainfall, barely enough to settle the dust. It is dry, dry, dry on the mountain, folks.
The headliner was George Hamilton IV, a Winston-Salem native, who was there with his family, including George Hamilton V and George Hamilton VI. This Grand Ole Opry performer (most famous for the song "Abilene") is not one of my favorites but he performed a wonderful rendition of "Life Is Like a Mountain Railroad", one of my most favorite spirituals.
The pleasant surprise of the day was the Harris Brothers from down in Lenoir. They perform Americana music, mostly blues. Go to
http://www.myspace.com/theharrisbrothers
for a sample of their stuff and listen to the third video down (Undefined Mojo). (Unfortunately, video compression at places like MySpace always adversely affects the image and the sound.)
The Kruger Brothers, from Switzerland by way of North Wilkesboro, also performed. Every time I hear them, I like and appreciate them more. They are the only performers of traditional music (including bluegrass) I know that have written a complete score for a symphony orchestra! The banjo brother, Jens, I think is more talented than Bela Fleck and the guitar brother, Uwe, is as smooth as butter.
Anyhow, we stayed until the end to hear Wayne Henderson and his friends pick and grin a little.
A late departure meant getting back into Sparta about 8:30 without dinner. So, we decided to give the Bella Notté Italian Restaurant a try. If I may sum up this dining experience in one word it would be A-W-F-U-L. Bad food, bad service and bad wine, all coming together at the same place at the same time. No, it was not exactly a Beautiful Night at Bella Notté.
On a more pleasant note, the Henderson Festival is always the third Saturday in June and it was exactly 52 Saturdays ago that we found Murphy at the Alleghany County Animal Shelter on the way to the festival. So, it is that we celebrate Murphy's birthday on the third Saturday in June. We took Murph and Sam to the concert and Murph, as usual, was the center of attention where ever he went. The CFO gave him a stuffed toy duck for his birthday and he takes it everywhere.
The CFO and I played golf on Sunday and, sure enough, the hazardous weather horn went off on the 14th hole. We called it a day rather than wait out the approaching storm.
A second storm passed later in the day, giving us 0.15 inches of rainfall, barely enough to settle the dust. It is dry, dry, dry on the mountain, folks.
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