2011's theme: Contest Traditions
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Produced by the Virginia Folklife Program at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.
VIRGINIA CONTEST TRADITONS
Contests span broad reaches of Virginia’s traditional art forms, and, in fact, it is these contests themselves that keep many traditions strong and vibrant, re-energizing old masters, and encouraging new generations. On any given weekend in Virginia, one might find a fiddle contest in Roanoke, a race down a drag strip in Bristol, an oyster shucking contest in Urbanna, a step dance contest on the campus of Virginia State University, a Caribbean Costume contest in Hampton Roads, or a quilt judging in the Shenandoah Valley. These contests serve not only to distinguish the finest practitioners of traditional arts within a particular community, but to bring together these communities themselves.
This year’s Virginia Folklife Area, curated by the Virginia Folklife Program at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, showcases and highlights many of the diverse contest traditions across the Commonwealth. Richmond Folk Festival audiences will witness actual contests, with some of the finest musicians, shuckers, dancers, and crafts people competing for such coveted prizes as a Wayne Henderson Guitar, or the prized status of “Viewers’ Choice.” Like the larger contests that these programs will represent, the competitions will be both keen and dazzling. We suggest you come early to get a ringside seat.
Vist Virginia Folklife Program and the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities to find out more about Virginia folklife programs.
Photos from the Virginia Folklife Area
Winners of contests held during Richmond Folk Festival
Mandolin Contest:
1. Chase Johner, Marion
2. Aaron Williams, Blacksburg
3. Ryan Blevins, Chilhowie
Guitar Contest:
1. Eric Hardin, Jefferson, N.C.
2. Brandon Davis, Independence
3. Aaron Williams, Blacksburg
Step Contest:
1. Delta Sigma Theta, Virginia State University
2. Sigma Gamma Rho, James Madison University
3. Alpha Phi Alpha, Virginia Union University
Fiddle Contest:
1. Nate Leath, Natural Bridge
2. Erika Godfrey, Mt. Airy, N.C.
3. Erynn Marshall, Galax
Viewer's Choice: Quilt Show
Shelia Harlin, Quilt # 3, Hospitality Quilters
Hot dog Eating Contest:
Bobby Stultz, Mechanicsville – 11 hot dogs
Oyster Shucking Contest:
Deborah Pratt defeated Clementine Macon
Traditional Music Competitions and Contests Harold Mitchell Speedy Tolliver Wayne Henderson Guitar Contest Jimmy Stelling Flatfooting Workshop and Contest
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Caribbean Carnival Costume Contest Oyster Shucking Contest Joey’s Hot Dogs Stew Wars Quilt Contest: Viewer’s Choice |
Traditional Music Competitions and Contests
Guitar, Fiddle, and Banjo
Festivals and competitions have long been a part of local traditional music. Hanover County, Virginia, held the first documented fiddle contest in colonial America. The Virginia Gazette reported that "any number of country fiddlers gathered to play for the top prize: a fine Cremona fiddle," at a Saint Andrews Day celebration on November 30, 1736. Large, regional contests became popular in the early twentieth-century South, with major competitions taking place in Atlanta, Georgia, Johnson City, Tennessee, and at the White Top Music Festival in Southwest Virginia. Industrialist Henry Ford even sponsored a national fiddle competition. Communities across Virginia hosted fiddle contests, quartet competitions, gospel sings, and other musical events. Virginia continues to host important national gatherings, including the Galax Old Fiddler's Convention. The rise of Bluegrass music reinvigorated existing festivals and spawned new ones. Virginia hosted one of the first multi-day Bluegrass festivals in Fincastle in 1965. Typically awards are given in a variety of instruments competitions—fiddle, banjo, guitar, and mandolin—and in both the old-time and bluegrass styles.
Harold Mitchell
Emcee: Mandolin, Guitar, and Fiddle contests
If you’ve attended the Galax Fiddler’s Convention in the last 40 years, you will recognize the voice of Galax native Harold Mitchell, who has served as the instrument contest emcee since 1972. He was a regular deejay at WHHV radio in neighboring Hillsville, spinning the records of Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, and other founding fathers of bluegrass. Mitchell has emceed countless musical performances in an around Galax ever since he introduced his first artist, the great Charlie Monroe, some 50 years ago. To this day, Mitchell remains the gold standard by which all others emcees will be judged.
Speedy Tolliver
Arlington, Virginia
Born in 1918, Odell “Speedy” Tolliver is a native of Green Cove, Virginia. He began playing as a child by picking out tunes on a family member’s banjo. Speedy played by ear, listening to and absorbing what he heard on the radio and on recordings. As a teenager, he was winning prizes at local competitions. In 1939 he migrated to the Washington, D.C. area, where he mastered the violin and other instruments as a member of various “hillbilly” bands. Now in his nineties, Speedy still competes and plays several times a week in jam sessions or as a member of various bands.
Video:
Speedy Tolliver & New Old-Time String Band - fiddle tune
Wayne Henderson Guitar ContestThere are few instruments more coveted than a Wayne Henderson Guitar, and young hot shots Travis Starkey, Aaron Williams, Thomas C. Coleman, Seth Taylor, Brandon Davis, and Eric Hardin will compete for one in this contest. Wayne built his first guitar using wood from the bottom of a dresser drawer, and has since built more than 400, becoming one of the most extraordinary instrument makers in the world. In 1995 he received the NEA’s National Heritage Fellowship, the nation’s highest honor in the traditional arts. As a master guitarist, Wayne has won first place 13 times at the Galax Fiddler’s Convention guitar competition.
Video:
Wayne Henderson accompanies Doc Watson
Mandolin Contest
Gerald Anderson began making mandolins more than 30 years ago and has since crafted more than 100 instruments. Anderson spent time at Wayne Henderson’s Rugby, Virginia, shop and developed an interest in reproducing the sounds of the classic Gibson-Loar mandolins of the 1920s. Gerald is also quite a player himself—he has made more than 25 recordings and has won more than 200 ribbons from musical competitions, including the guitar title at the 2003 Galax Fiddler’s Convention. Some of Virginia’s finest young mandolin players, including Chase Johner, Ryan Blevins, Aaron Williams, and Andy Thacker, will square off for a Gerald Anderson F-model mandolin.
Read more about Gerald Anderson
Old-time Fiddle Contest
Old-time fiddle competitions have taken place throughout Southwest Virginia for more than a century, and the winner of this contest will receive a fiddle built by local maker Don Leister. Don builds violins and violas following the patterns and concepts of the masters from Cremona, Italy, the birthplace of the violin. He carefully selects each block of wood that goes into the making of an instrument and prefers traditional aged European tonewoods; he also makes his own oil varnishes, stains, and sealers. Contestants include such fine fiddlers as Scott Freeman, Jason Phillips, Erika Godfrey, Danny Knicely, Erynn Marshall, and 93-year-old Speedy Tolliver.
Flatfooting Workshop and Contest
Featuring Brenda Joyce and Brett Martin
Flatfooting, an old-time dance style closely associated with traditional string band music, is quite distinct from its closest cousin, clogging, in that the dancer’s feet barely leave the floor. Brenda Joyce grew up in the heart of Patrick County, the daughter of flatfoot legend Hoy Hayden, who won countless blue ribbons at flatfoot competitions. Never interested in competing, Joyce won the competition at the 2003 Galax Fiddler’s Convention, which she entered when her father was too ill to compete. Hayden’s buoyant steps live on through Brenda, as well as in many younger dancers, such as Elk Creek native Brett Martin.
Step Competition
Stepping is a form of percussive dance and song that developed and grew in popularity among sororities and fraternities at historically black colleges beginning in the 1940s. Step groups originally performed routines around campus that lauded their fraternity or sorority and dismissed their competition as part of the Greek initiation process. The various sororities and fraternities also developed distinctive “trade steps,” such as Alpha Kappa Alpha’s “It’s a Serious Matter,” and Alpha Phi Alpha’s “Grand-daddy Step.” The Folklife Area’s much anticipated contest includes chapters from of Alpha Phi Alpha, Omega Psi Phi, Phi Beta Sigma, Delta Sigma Theta, and Zeta Phi Beta from Virginia-based universities.
Caribbean Carnival Costume Contest
In Trinidad, “playing mas,” the liberating celebration of Carnival, is a national obsession, with participants spending the better part of the year preparing for the multi-day celebration. The Latin roots of the word carnival mean “farewell to meat,” since Carnival falls on the day before the beginning of the Lenten season. One of the fiercely competitive elements of Carnival in Trinidad is the making of elaborate, sculptural costumes, with costume makers trying to outperform one another to gain the status of top costume. Earl Blake emigrated to the U.S. from Trinidad and carries on the costume construction tradition at Carnival celebrations across the country.
Oyster Shucking Contest
Deborah Pratt & Clementine Macon
For communities on Virginia’s Northern Neck, the oyster fishery was perhaps the largest and most influential industry from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s. Shucking, in particular, provided many employment opportunities for African Americans throughout the Chesapeake region. Sisters Deborah Pratt and Clementine Macon, whose parents met while working in an oyster house, are two of the top shuckers in the world, capable of taking down two dozen oysters in less than three minutes. The sisters face off in an oyster-shucking rematch: Clementine defeated Deborah at last year’s Richmond Folk Festival. Who will win in 2011?
Video: World Champion Oyster Shuckers
Turkey Call Contest and Workshop
Long before European settlers arrived in the Americas, Native Americans enjoyed abundant populations of wild turkeys and hunted the birds for food. At least 4,000 years ago, they created calls from turkey wing bones, which closely mimic the sounds of turkeys. By the early 1900s, most of North America’s wild turkey population had been wiped out. Thanks to the work of conservation agencies, hunters, and wildlife agencies, the wild turkey population has rebounded, and more than 7 million wild turkeys now roam North America. Accompanying turkey hunting is a rich tradition of turkey call making, including box calls, friction calls, push-pull calls, and wing bone calls. Turkey call makers Olin Bare, Pat Harrison, and Tony Boyd will square off on the Virginia Folklife Stage.
Photo by Larry Morgan
Hot Dog Eating Contest
Joey's Hot Dogs
For many, this West End eatery is the pinnacle of one of America’s iconic foods. Joey Mirabile’s father, Tony, began serving hot dogs in Norfolk in 1939. His mother Geri worked at a nearby soda fountain. Tony and Geri married in 1950 and in 1962 Geri opened Tony’s Hot Dogs in Norfolk. Initially, she also served hamburgers and root beer floats, but when Tony took over running the business he scaled back to just hot dogs served “all the way,” with mustard, onions and chili—no ketchup or chips allowed. Today, son Joey carries on the tradition using the same chili recipe his dad served back in the 1930s. Local residents will square off in the Virginia Folklife Area to see how many dogs they can eat— “all the way,” of course.
Brunswick Stew Makers
A Staple of Community Gatherings
Brunswick County, Virginia
What began, according to area legend, as a communal meal prepared for a hunting expedition on the banks of the Nottoway River in 1828, the cooking of Brunswick Stew has evolved into a time-honored tradition—a staple at community gatherings, a source of regional pride, the focus of spirited competition, and a true Virginia culinary art. In Brunswick County, the eight hour process of cooking a hundred or so gallons of stew is performed in fire houses and other community gathering places by groups of men, or “Crews.” Each crew is led by a “Stewmaster,” a title that takes years to attain. John D. Clary first helped cook Brunswick stew under the watchful eye of Stewmaster McGuire Thomas when he joined the Lawrenceville Volunteer Fire Deptartment in the fall of 1973, eventually ascending to the level of Stewmaster in 1988. John has been an avid participant in the “Stew Wars” with Brunswick, Georgia, which also asserts a claim to the stew’s origin. John joined with fellow Stewmasters Lonnie Moore and the late Phil Batchelor to closely tutor many apprentices, including Chiles Cridlin, Tim Bendall, Rodney Elmore, and P. L. Baisey, who are now proud members of Clary’s Proclamation Stew Crew. They will cook any size stew, anywhere, for anyone, as long as it doesn’t interfere with a Virginia Tech football game.
Quilt Contest: Viewer’s Choice
Richmond Quilters’ Guild
Quilting is a sewing method whereby two or more layers of material are sewn together to make a thicker material. Piece-work block quilts became prevalent in the mid-nineteenth century, and today are the most familiar form. Nowadays judged competitions bring women together, and reflect the quilt’s more recent elevation in status to a craft and art object. A key element of these quilt competitions is when members of the public vote for their favorite quilt in a contest called Viewer’s Choice. We invite you to place your ballot for your favorite quilt in a show presented by the Richmond Quilters’ Guild.
The Galax Old Fiddlers' Convention
Of the hundreds of old-time fiddlers conventions that have flourished in the southern Appalachian region, one has emerged as the most revered and influential of them all— Galax Old Fiddlers’ Convention. The area around Galax has long been a fertile region for rural traditional music. Musicians from the area were among the first to commercially record old-time music in the 1920s, including Henry Whitter, Ernest V. Stoneman, Emmett Lundy, and Wade Ward. In January 1925 the Galax Volunteer Fire Department sponsored the first local fiddle contest, offering a total of $41.50 in prize money, and drawing several dozen contestants. Ten years later in April 1935 the Loyal Order of the Moose held a fiddle contest as a fundraiser. A two-night convention in late October of the same year was wildly successful, attracting almost 150 contestants and an audience of more than 1,000. Except for the war years of 1943 and 1944, the Galax Old Fiddlers’ Convention has been held every year since 1935. By the 1970s the convention had become an icon to lovers of bluegrass and old-time music, drawing crowds in excess of 30,000 and bands from as far away as Sweden and Japan. The festival has now become a week-long event in August, drawing hundreds of bands and tens of thousands of spectators for what has become a family reunion of traditional and bluegrass music lovers.
Jimmy Stelling is quickly emerging as one of the top bluegrass banjo makers in the country. Stelling Banjo, founded by Jimmy’s father Geoff Stelling in 1974, is a long-time favorite of many top banjoists, including Ralph Stanley, Eddie Adcock, Sonny Osborn, and 2011 Richmond Folk Festival performer Tony Ellis. Jimmy practically grew up in his father’s shop, and now has a hand in every completely hand-made banjo that leaves the shop. Jimmy is also an accomplished bluegrass banjoist himself, having first appeared with the legendary JD Crowe at age 7, and most recently with the Charlottesville band the Hackensaw Boys. While Jimmy has been making his own banjos for the past ten years, he still chooses to play with the Stelling Staghorn that his father made for him when he was eight years old. Jimmy is a strong advocate for hand crafted banjos, representing Stelling Banjo at festivals across the country: “I want to educate people on the finer points of the instrument, what handcrafting really means in a world of machines and mass production.”
Video of Jimmy Stelling on the Stelling Banjo
The Jam
The Jam is common to many forms of music: blues, rock, jazz, Irish, bluegrass, and old time and plays a vital role in the life of a music community as both social event and a place where the music is carried on. The form and purpose of the jam varies greatly with each style of music. In jazz and rock a jam is commonly experienced as an improvisational session, with varying levels of rules and conventions. In more traditional forms such as Old Time, musicians agree on a specific tune often in the style of a particular musician as a way to carry on the tradition. In an Old Time jam it is not uncommon to keep a single tune going for ten or fifteen minutes, with the fiddles carrying a tune, a solid rhythm section of guitar or bass, and a banjo trading off as both melody and rhythm section. As the banjo is tuned to a particular key, the fiddler will continue to choose tunes in that key, until it is agreed to change keys and for the banjo player to change tuning. In a bluegrass jam, it is common for the musicians to trade “breaks,” playing an improvisational solo on a tune. In an Irish “session,” a tune might be played just a few times through before moving on to another tune, sometimes in a different key. Whether it’s called a session or a jam, with improvisation or from a shared repertoire, the gathering of musicians is much like a conversation with similar rules that might apply to any intimate gathering of friends.
About the Virginia Folklife Program
Since its inception in 1988, the Virginia Folklife Program has worked to document, present and support the state’s living folkways. The Folklife Program awards apprenticeships to master artists of traditional folkways and produces educational materials and programs for the public, including festival presentations, workshops, music and video recordings, performances, lectures and exhibitions. The program conducts fieldwork throughout the Commonwealth, capturing the stories of everyday people living extraordinary lives and documenting many ways of life that are unique to the region. The Virginia Folklife Program is a public program of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, which encourages discovery and connection through the humanities by supporting and producing programs for a wide public audience.