Hello everyone,

Just a quick post to say how much I enjoyed spending a few days at the Appalachian String Band Festival at Clifftop, WV where my family and I attended the pre-event camping and jam sessions. I spent the bulk of my time with Carole Anne Rose and Curly Miller of the Old 78s. I did some of the best playing I've ever done hanging out with them as we covered a good range of tunes including Temptation Rag, Smiler Rag, St. Louis Tickle, Whistling Rufus, A Footlight Favourite, Eli Green's Cakewalk, Smoky Mokes and others. We also met up with another Classic Banjo veteran Bill Talley who had a lot of great perspective on this music. I wish we could have stayed for the entire festival because we would have probably entered into the contest. Perhaps next year.

We were able to attract a wide variety of people around our campsite throughout our time together as we were sitting there with our music stands, playing repertoire, and having a grand time. If you ever have the chance to play along with Carole Anne and Curly, I highly recommend it as they bring an infectious charisma to their interpretation of the music.

On a related note, I also met progressive bluegrass banjoist Roger Sprung who recorded his own interpretation of tunes like Whistling Rufus and Smoky Mokes back in the 1960s for Folkways. I spent a couple hours with Sprung and his group playing a good range of tunes including Rufus and Mokes.

Overall, attending Clifftop this year confirmed for me that I need to really start getting out of the house a lot more because some great opportunities for collaboration and outreach are truly waiting in the wings.

Here's to hoping for a more musical year!
Greg

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Awesome, Greg. I missed Carole and Curly @ Breaking Up Winter back in Feb...simply because I didn't know they were there.

Glad you had a good time...and glad y'all got to put this stuff out there in front of folks. We need this kind of exposure badly.

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