Clay County TN is the least most populated county in Tennessee. By coincidence, this is where The Brimstock Bluegrass Festival is held. We drove up there (it is on TN’s northern border with Kentucky) on progressively smaller roads. The countryside is more rolling hills than mountains, mostly limestone/shale/sandstone layers, badly distorted by continental drift. The instructions said to follow the road, until it became a gravel path, then you are there. True to the directions, we followed a winding road through a lovely valley and when the road gave out, there was the farmstead that is Brimstock. It is the most beautiful place; narrow winding, steep sided valley, flat meadow bottom land, river running through it. We pitched by the river in the shade of some trees (still not fully out, as we are still chasing the spring north). As the weekend progressed, the banks of the stream turned multicoloured as the wild flowers bloomed. Very, very pretty.
We had a great weekend as the weather was amazing and there were some good acts, a mix of local and national bands. Most impressive was Johnny Butten, who is actually English, but an excellent musician. He has moved to Minnesota and is making it as a bluegrass musician. There was also some brilliant clawhammer banjo playing from Phillip Steinmetz and His Sunny Tennesseans, nephew of ‘Old Grandpa Jones’ a famous Old Time Music player (who, for those of our readers in Florida, will be appearing at Palatka next year).
We really enjoyed meeting with some local lads and did some jamming over the weekend. The festival hosts, Garry and Dianne, were absolutely brilliant as they bent over backwards to make sure that we were OK and they worked hard to put on a great bluegrass weekend.
As we left on the Sunday, we were invited to stop off at the house to watch the Humming Birds. This was fascinating, it is the first time we had seen them.
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