Author Archives: Josephine

“Affordable Florida” in the Toronto Star

This past fall we were jonesing for a camping/RV fix – we are really missing our Class B Leisure Travel van! We travelled to the Florida Gulf Coast, rented a 25-ft Class C from Cruise America and got a taste of camping in a larger unit. The 25-ft was the smallest size in their rental fleet.

A few things we noticed:

We love the RV experience, but we are definitely Class B people. Easier to park, drive, etc. We liked having the extra work surfaces for writing, etc in the larger unit. But overall, still Class B at heart!
The beaches and camping along the Florida Gulf Coast are great. We especially loved Koreshan State Historic Site just outside Fort Myers. An “Old Florida style” camping experience is the best way to describe it.
The Canadian loonie may be dropping but the gas prices in the U.S. are as well. On the drive down we paid as little as $1.73 USD/gallon. In Florida the prices were generally just under the $2 mark. RVing is an economical way to stay – we cooked our own meals, napped during the day and enjoyed the wonderful state parks.
Florida still has lots of natural space to explore. We really enjoyed the cypress virgin forest at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary (about 45 minutes from Fort Myers and worth every mile).

After we returned, we published the following piece in the Toronto Star travel section:

How to have an affordable trip to the Florida Gulf Coast | Toronto Star

You can find the direct link here: http://www.thestar.com/life/travel/2016/01/15/how-to-have-an-affordable-trip-to-the-florida-gulf-coast.html

On the search for a new(er) Class B!

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Lots has happened over the past few months.

This past summer, we decided to put our 1996 Leisure Travel van up for sale, thinking it might take us several months to find a buyer. Twelve hours later we had two solid offers, the van was in for the Ontario safety check and within another day or two it was out the door – leaving a gaping (lonely) space in our driveway. We still talk about missing it, every single day.

We have been diligently hunting for a replacement Class B camper – something newer with lower mileage. Of course, finding the right one in our budget has been the sticking point!

We hope to be back on the road sometime this year – travelling to music and food destinations and writing about them here.

In the meantime, if you hear of one for sale . . . let us know!

Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race

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The hoopla is over for 2015. The final team has crossed the finish line. Tons of dog food were consumed and the calories torched (one estimate is that the average sled dog burns 6,000-12,000 calories per day). The tents that sheltered teams of handlers and support crews have been dismantled and packed away. The thought of camping in minus 30C weather is something not for the faint of heart.

Being an observer at the 2015 Yukon Quest – the toughest sled dog race in the world – was an awe-inspiring event. The 1,600 km (1,000 mi) route connecting Whitehorse in Canada’s Yukon to Fairbanks, Alaska, traces the historic wintertime land route followed more than a century ago by prospectors and mail carriers. The race was named the Yukon Quest, to commemorate the “highway of the north” – the Yukon River – the traditional route to the gold fields of the Klondike. Anyone looking for a 20-minute schooling in the fascinating history of the Klondike Gold Rush will find it in the mesmerizing National Film Board film, City of Gold, narrated by Dawson City native, the late Pierre Berton.

The Yukon Quest sled dog race is one of those iconic celebrations of the north. Sled dogs provided a rock-steady, reliable form of transportation and this race celebrates that legacy. The people of the Yukon and Alaska know winter; but more importantly they know how to embrace winter. They bundle up with layers and get outside – dogsledding, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing and snowmobiling. Joining in is the only way to go.

I found myself in the Yukon in February. At first it seemed like an insane idea but in short time I was drawn into the Yukoners’ joyful embrace of the long, chilly season. And following the Yukon Quest was a large part of the fun. It’s a must-do for anyone who wants a true Canadian winter experience.

Looking for a primer to the Yukon Quest race? Look no further:

The Yukon Quest has been run every February since 1984 and attracts teams from around the world.
The race takes about 9-12 days to complete, depending on weather, trail conditions and team speed.
Few sports call upon such a challenging requirement of endurance and isolation.
The mushers must successfully complete qualifying races within the previous 42 months to enter the Yukon Quest.
The race route runs between Whitehorse and Fairbanks, with the race direction alternating from one year to the next. In 2016, the race will begin in Fairbanks and end in Whitehorse.
The teams leave the starting chute at two-minute staggered starts. At the start line, those puppies are chomping at the bit to get running!
Dawson City, YK is the halfway point and teams must take a mandatory 24-hour break. The dogs eat and sleep. The mushers eat and sleep.
The teams begin with 14 dogs. If a dog is withdrawn from the team there are no substitutions allowed. It is rare for a full 14-dog team to complete the entire race.
The dogs are monitored at checkpoints by a team of veterinarians who come from around the world to be a part of the race.
Every musher I saw was first and foremost attentive to the safety and health of his/her team. The connection between musher and dogs is endearing.
There are many opportunities to watch the action: at the starting gates, along the route on frozen lakes, at checkpoints and in Dawson City at the mandatory layover.
Unplanned circumstances can play havoc with the race. In 2015 it was a slew of misadventures from jumble ice on the frozen river to a female dog going into heat during the course of the race. The mushers are experts at problem solving on the fly.

There are also many outfitters who provide novice mushers (that would be visitors like you and me) with their own sled dog experience. I mushed with Sky High Wilderness Ranch and it was a great experience. A complete list can be found at Travel Yukon.

Canadians travelling to the U.S.?

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It’s snowy here and we’re spending our time sitting by the fire, looking at photos from the last three RV trips and dreaming of the next one. Still working out the details on that one and will share them once we know more.

In the meantime, the CBC website and airwaves have been buzzing with stories about change coming to the travel regulations between Canada and the United States. It’s something every snowbird should know when pulling out the calendar to plan an extended trip south as it may have an impact on income taxes and provincial health coverage.

Now, back to that nice, warm fire!

Bristol, Virginia presents: The Birthplace of Country Music Museum

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The final stretch. We’ve finished up our fall road trip by being totally immersed in American roots music. The last leg of our six-week journey took us to Bristol, Virginia – the “birthplace of country music” and home to the brand new, Smithsonian affiliate, Birthplace of Country Music Museum. It’s a main stop on Virginia’s musical journey along The Crooked Road, a heritage music trail into the southwest part of the state.

In this part of the U.S., they like to joke that “country music was conceived in Galax, born in Bristol . . . and went to Nashville to die.”

In the early 20^th century Bristol – a city that straddles the Tennessee/Virginia state line – was one of dozens of little cities connected to larger metropolitan areas by rail and telegraph lines. Surrounded by dozens of smaller communities and settlements in this part of the Appalachians, these mountains were home to thousands of dirt-poor sharecroppers, labourers and small merchants and their families whose lives revolved around churchgoing and childrearing.

In 1927 music producer Ralph Peer from New York’s Victor Talking Machine Company brought recording equipment to Bristol on the urging of Earnest “Pop” Stoneman who claimed that the hills around Bristol were literally alive with music. Using street posters, word of mouth and newspaper ads, Peer and Stoneman managed to attract dozens of hill people to Bristol where Peer recorded his archive of Americana. The resulting 1927 Bristol Sessions have entered the history books as the “Big Bang of Country Music”: the moment when technology, talent, luck and circumstance captured what would become the quintessentially American blend of gospel, folk and country music.

The museum, which opened in August 2014, is a magnificent monument to The Bristol Sessions and the times from which they emerged. We began with the short, high quality film that set the context of the sessions, introduce the key personalities and explain their motives and methods. A second film – aimed at the music geeks – explains the finger-picking styles captured in these seminal recordings. A third film traces the intertwining of The Bristol Sessions and the music that was rooted in the church. The final movie theatre experience looks at the enduring influence on contemporary country music, with concert footage splashed onto enormous, surround screens. We got a fill of Willie, Rita, Faith and a host of others.

The whole museum experience is immersive. You can’t walk these beautiful floors or enjoy this artfully curated exhibition without picking up a sense of the impact of these recordings on the world of music in following years.

A separate, special collection goes deep into the history and family connections of The Carter Family – Maybelle, A.P. and Sara – whose subsequent careers, together and separately, with children and spouses, elevated the Carters to the status of the “first family of country music.”

Give yourself several hours and read everything. It’s a world-class museum that manages to mix state-of-the-art displays with a down home feel. We loved every minute of our visit – and it was a fitting way to end our music-infused fall road trip.

Thanks Bristol! We’ll be back again.

Virginia’s Crooked Road: The Carter Family Fold

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From North Carolina we crossed into Virginia – we wanted to finish up the last part of The Crooked Road Music Trail. We’d travelled a large part of the Crooked Rod last fall but we wanted to add two stops: the Crater Family Fold and the newly-opened Birthplace of Country Music Museum. The Crooked Road is a fantastic heritage music trail that winds through southwest Virginia. It was one of our favourite experiences on our fall 2013 travels through the roots of American music.

So, off we went to Bristol, Virginia. A winding mountain road 45 minutes north of the city took us to The Carter Family Fold in Hiltons, VA; the wellspring, as it were, from which this first family’s music flowed. It was here that A.P. Carter collected songs and ran a dry goods store – now a small museum of the family itself – and where we visited the Carter Family Memorial Museum Center, a thoroughly modern 800-seat performance auditorium cut into the side of a hill which has hosted country music troubadours since opening in 1976.

The music of the Carter Family was “like water rippling in a sweet, clear spring off Clinch Mountain,” enthused Johnny Cash who married Maybelle Carter’s daughter June and performed for the last time on this stage in July 2003.

The Carter Family burst onto the national scene through a famous 1927 recording session called The Bristol Sessions (“The Big Bang of country music”). They were the first time the music of the mountains had been recorded for popular distribution. Through a combination of luck and good marketing, the Carter Family parlayed those Bristol recordings into a radio empire that nearly covered the continental United States from Mexico. “It was said that you could pick up the Carter Family on the barbed wire and straight-razor in this part of the country,” explained Dr. Joe Smiddy who plays guitar and banjo when not serving on the Carter Family Foundation.

So, on a Saturday night the cars and pickups stream into Hiltons, park in a nearby field, and visitors pack the seats at the Carter Family Fold. Every Saturday night without fail. It’s old-time music and bluegrass only on this stage, played on the authentic instruments – fiddle, guitars, mandolins, banjo and bass – and flatfooting on the hardwood down front. Kids, parents and grandparents share the dance floor. Everyone in this area seems to play something. Music – and the community experience of song and dance – is deeply integrated into the lives of these mountain people.

“It’s therapeutic,” Smiddy said, “this is physical therapy, it’s immunity, it’s a sense of joy. You can dance, you can sing along, you can learn some new songs. It’s real – and a whole lot of people come here to find what’s real.”

Before the dancing starts the master of ceremonies welcomes the crowd and does a short inventory of visitors, encouraging them to call out their home states and countries. For some, it’s a pilgrimage to the source of the music that has moved them all their lives.

“The thing about this music,” Smiddy mused, “is that you can play it well into your later years.” Long after the appeal of rock ’n’ roll has worn off, this music can still draw an audience. The walls of the auditorium are papered with pictures and framed posters of the Carter Family and their numerous musical descendants, related and unrelated. There are people in this audience, Smiddy told us, that have been coming every Saturday night for 35 years.

In this part of the country, the Carter Family looms large. And with good reason.

Asheville: Loophole of the Bible Belt

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Oh, could most tourist destinations learn a thing or two from Asheville, North Carolina. This mid-size city in the Appalachian Mountains has lots going for it, not the least of which is the stunning scenery. On the urban end, the city’s energized and funky downtown core offers up a nice mix of used bookstores, speciality shops and independently-owned bars and restaurants. And most of it is dog friendly too. Rigby was welcomed into one store after another – especially the Three Dog Bakery where the sign on the door informed customers, Owners on Leash Welcome.

The locals like to joke about liberal-leaning Asheville being “the loophole in the Bible Belt.” There’s lots to see and do, including music, although we focused our time in the city on food, walking, soaking in the architecture and enjoying the work of local artisans. Our highlights? Read on . . .

Art Deco: Downtown is a mix of beautifully restored heritage buildings – with the nation’s largest collection of Art Deco architecture outside of Miami.

Southern eats: Even the funky-style eateries support the culture and heritage of the Southern mountains. We ate a great meal at Early Girl Eatery with its all-day breakfast and Southern standards on the menu (biscuits and gravy, fried green tomatoes, shrimp and grits and a North Carolina specialty, grilled pimento cheese sandwich).

Asheville Bee Charmer: Think all things bee-related and you get the idea. The new Bee Charmer has two locations, one in the heart of town and the other in the up-and-coming arts district of West Asheville. Owner Jillian Kelly is 100 per cent committed to connecting with ethical beekeepers around the world. The shop’s warmly- glowinghoney tasting bar is a blast and a way to try before you buy while learning a little about the intricacies of bees and honey production. If it’s about bees, Jillian knows it all.

Battery Park Book Exchange & Champagne Bar: We love most bookstores but we really, really loved Battery Park on Page Avenue (right in the centre of town). A visit is like slipping into a good friend’s sumptuously-decorated living room – couches and chairs, artwork on the walls, thick Persian rugs, table lamps – with the addition of thousands of (mainly) used books filling rows and rows of tall shelves. Music softly plays in the background (“we’re a conversational bar”) and well-behaved dogs are welcome. Owner Thomas Wright quips that he is “selling buggy whips” but we were instantly hooked. Oh yeah, there’s a well-appointed bar that serves champagne and wine. So comfortable, it was hard to leave.

Song of the Wood: A short drive outside Asheville is the stunning home and workshop of hammered dulcimer maker, Jerry Read Smith. Jerry is a skilled artisan and gracious host who loves to talk music, craft and woodworking to anyone with an appreciation for fine workmanship. He showed us his latest commission – number 950 in a long career than spans three decades. “Every single aspect of it makes a difference. A mahogany bridge will be different than a rosewood bridge,” he says. “The more you play it, the better it stays in tune.” For those who don’t have a clue what a hammered dulcimer is, take a look and listen at his excellent website (tip: it’s a percussion string instrument with about 100 strings in five octaves). He describes the unique sound best when he says: “Every note rings as long as it wants to. I think of it as music set free.”

Biltmore Estate: This magnificent piece of architecture – at 250 rooms it is America’s largest house – is a peek into how the .001 per cent live. The estate built by George Vanderbilt in 1895 stretches across 8,000 acres, getting in and out involves parking and shuttle rides and once you are in the estate home you will be agog at the antiques, furnishings, architecture and lifestyle. It’s an Asheville must-see.

Music jams along North Carolina’s Bluegrass Trails

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The Carolina foothills have long been a centre of musical innovation and cross-cultural fusion. In this area of gently rolling hills, music and dance hold a place in the traditions of the community.

Enter the community jam. We were fortunate enough to visit several – and there are literally dozens of regular musical get-togethers. We’ve written about the excellent Earl Scruggs Center in Shelby, NC – if you are ever in the area it is worth a detour and several hours of your time. We gained a whole new appreciation for banjos and bluegrass and were eager to seek out spots we could hear more local players. We were not disappointed.

Fletcher
Because we really needed to see how the magic of bluegrass rolls out, we stopped in the town of Fletcher where, on a Monday night, we caught the open jam at the Feed & Seed: “A Family Friendly Live Music Venue that doubles as a church.” And it works.

This barely renovated, century-old feed and seed warehouse is now a non-denominational storefront church lovingly overseen by Pastor Phillip Trees. On Friday and Saturday nights bluegrass bands take to the stage (there’s a waiting list) and dancers practice their traditional Appalachian clogging (aka: flatfooting). Monday nights the church provides a home for the open community jam.

What we found was an evening of people immersed in the music of their lives and sharing their love of playing with anyone who walks through the door. This all-ages, all-faiths, event brings out the best in everyone.

We counted no fewer than 10 banjos, at least as many guitars, a doghouse (bass) and a sprinkling of violins (“fiddles,” y’all), resonator guitars and mandolins. There was even – cue the hairy eyeball – an electric bass on the bandstand. The average age was – oh, 65-70 – and there must have been 25-30 jammers all awaiting their turn and at least as many in the audience, cracking up, singing along and generally soaking up the vibe.

Pastor Trees has bands for his weekend shows lined up to play on his excellently appointed stage and sound system (two 20^th-century Altec Lansing Voice of the Theatre speakers). The sound is terrific: warm and surrounding but not loud. Can’t make it to the Feed & Seed for a Monday night jam? You can stream the evening on your home computer. The cameras get turned on, the musicians fire the link to their Facebook friends and within a minute people are tuning in from all over the world.

As Pastor Trees says: “We’re free-giving back to the community.”

Drexel
In the Drexel Barber Shop, we crowded around a cluster of older men cradling a banjo, a mandolin, a resonator guitar, a guitar and a bass. Carroll Anthony’s dad – who carried his guitar into war with General Patton’s 3^rd army – started this jam in 1964 and some combination of players and singers has been gathering here weekly since.

“He started strumming his guitar between haircuts,” Anthony explained. “Well, the chief of police played a mandolin. He started coming in and he’d pick a little bit. He’d get a call and have to take off. So he finally started leaving his mandolin at the shop. Joe came in and started playing banjo with them and it progressed from there. Today there are 30-40-50 people every Saturday morning.”

“These guys just love it. I couldn’t pay ’em to come here,” he explained. “They just love doing it.”

The sign in the barbershop says Pickin’ & Trimmin’ and that’s exactly what happens. Herbert Lambert – an 87-year old Second World War veteran – sat hunched over his mandolin.

“You’ll think he’s asleep, tobacco juice be drippin’ out of his mouth,” someone whispered, “but he’ll play here all day and go somewhere else to play all night.” Lambert plays circles around men 30 years younger. The back room is decked out with bluegrass memorabilia, posters of Bill Monroe, tributes to musicians who have visited, retired instruments adorn the walls and a circle of chairs for audience members close to the wood stove. It’s not fancy. It’s authentic.

There is no routine, no order of songs: one person starts up a melody and everyone else jumps in, takes their turn soloing, and comps along to the end. Visitors are welcome to sit in, youngsters are encouraged, singers are appreciated. Any skill level is welcome, as are players of any age. Most people play two or three instruments – some very well – and the whole spirit is about having fun and sharing the experience of making music.

Brevard
We loved the small town of Brevard (and not just because the incredibly efficient, family-owned – 100 years and counting – Eldridge Motors repair shop replaced our failed alternator with almost no notice). The new town library is great (it’s where we get lots of work done), there’s a world-class music school in town (the Brevard Music Center) and the downtown is neat and tidy with lots of interesting shops, including O.P. Taylor’s toy shop with one of the largest Lego inventories ever. The forests and waterfalls around Brevard have been used for movie shoots, including the first instalment of The Hunger Games.

We headed for the Silvermont bluegrass jam, started 32 years ago by local Harley Raines, sitting on his front porch. Things have grown and on Thursday nights the musicians and audience members crowd into a side room at the Silvermont, a heritage home that is now a community centre for seniors.

They jam here for the same reasons as everywhere else: for the pure enjoyment of playing and to keep the mountain music traditions alive. It’s mainly bluegrass and old-time, gospel mixed with a little bit of country.

Marion
The regular Friday night jam in the small village of Marion is named after a longtime local musician: Woody’s Original Mountain Music. Doors open at 6 pm and the music starts an hour later. Admission is free. Bands sign to be in the lineup and the list is posted up front. No one ever knows how many bands will show.

People were as interested in who we were and where we were from as we were about their fierce protection of traditional Appalachian mountain music.

The jam opens with a short prayer, led by Pastor Collins. Before and after, his wife mans the dessert table – thick calorie-laden slices of pie and cake fly off the shelf at 50 cents apiece. The goal is to keep the whole evening affordable.

The town is small but this event draws a regular crowd. Seats were quickly filled and new chairs are hustled to the sides. All were accommodated. The music and good vibes flow freely.

More info: Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina

Banjo + Shelby = Earl Scruggs

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The banjo warrants a lot more respect than it generally gets. The place to learn this – if you doubt us – is the Earl Scruggs Center in Shelby, North Carolina. The instrument came to America in the holds of slave ships: like many other imports, it was taken up and embraced by the Irish/Scots settlers and remade into a distinctly American phenomenon. And of the many who have picked out a song there is no one with the stature of homeboy Earl Scruggs (1924-2012). This hardscrabble son of a sharecropper did for the banjo what Jimi Hendrix did for the electric guitar: he showed everyone what was possible.

Shelby is at the hub of the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina, which wind through the foothills of the state. This region produced more than its share of country, bluegrass, old-time and gospel music – and the fusing of these styles gave rise to a uniquely American sound and sensibility. Performed at the level of execution that Scruggs and someone like comedian Steve Martin achieve, it is nothing short of breathtaking to listen to. If your first impression of Earl Scruggs calls to mind the theme music of the Beverly Hillbillies, well, okay. Flatt and Scruggs have impressed themselves into popular music and culture forever.

But the three-finger rolling style that Scruggs innovated — “ten notes per second with a melody in the middle of it” — transformed that instrument and launched, with Bill Monroe, a style that finds a massive worldwide audience and paved the way for next generation innovators like Béla Fleck, the jazz banjo virtuoso.

The Earl Scruggs Center does justice to his music and history. Centred in downtown Shelby, it is a state of the art exhibition – complete with a banjo petting zoo – that brings you into Scruggs’ life, his art and his politics.

Your first encounter is with the instruments of his childhood, behind glass, where you see his fathers’ guitar and violin. Music, you discern, was their only form of entertainment growing up in the hill country around Shelby.

The Center tells this story in multiple interactive ways. You can strum an electronic banjo or guitar at a large interactive digital video table where you can also isolate individual tracks to hear them out of context from the music. You can review the history of early bluegrass – from the union of Bill Monroe and Earl Scruggs – and then trace the history of Earl through his opposition to the Vietnam War and his fusion of his cherished bluegrass with the rock music of his sons, in the Earl Scruggs Review, in the early 1970s. It’s fascinating and sobering and you come away with a whole new respect for the man and the music.

The coolest thing about Scruggs was that he carried the music he loved all his life into every change that came through his life – “chasing the light,” as he described it, never letting his fingers rest until he picked his last roll.

ALSO IN THE AREA:

The Don Gibson Theater is an intimate (400 seats), soft-seat concert and film venue. Don Gibson is best known for his country hit, I Can’t Stop Loving You, which has been recorded by more than 700 artists.
The local Alston Bridges BBQ serves pulled pork with a vinegar-based sauce (true North Carolina style), hushpuppies and their signature red slaw (ketchup is the secret addition).

Georgia’s rich music history: Athens and Augusta

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Cool things come out of university towns. The critical mass of students questing for identity and meaning, the energy of artists looking to push their own – and your – boundaries, the enabling atmosphere of a major learning institution in an era of political and cultural ferment – this combination is likely to give rise to innovations some of which will proceed to transform far beyond the municipal boundaries of their city of origin. So it is with Athens, site of the University of Georgia at Athens (UGA) and home to at least two (so far) institutions of the 20^th century’s music scene: The B-52s and R.E.M.

Athens seems like a cool place to live. It’s certainly a cool place to visit. The city seems to grow out of the university grounds – which are lovely, spacious and extravagant. It’s a big city on a human scale. Lots of funky coffee shops, restaurants and bistros, bars featuring live music, a couple of cool bookstores, comic stores and used vinyl and CD outlets (including the famous WUXTRY – Georgia’s oldest independently-owned record store – where the members of R.E.M. would congregate). These co-exist on pleasantly shaded streets with upper-end shoe, clothing and sunglasses shops making for a pleasant walking experience. We did a tour with Paul Butchart, a local historian who gives Walking Music Tours of Athens’ rich musical history. Like everywhere else, live music venues opened and closed and relocated and went under at a furious pace – but out of this at least two major institutions attained escape velocity and transformed a corner of popular music.

I did make a point, some years ago, of doing some serious listening to Michael Stipe, et al., – who emerged from various university courses at UGA to form R.E.M. These guys produced album after album of intelligent rock music. From their punk roots playing the dives and student bars in Athens, they grabbed a significant share of critical and popular appeal and rode it to its natural conclusion. When the band realized they had attained all there was to attain in pop stardom, they wound it up. What they left behind is a catalogue of excellent, insightful, danceable and thoughtful rock and roll music. Whatever the various members do next, they can be proud of R.E.M.’s legacy of music and politics.

Augusta became the home of The Godfather of Soul, Mr. James Brown. Here’s a guy with a legacy to astound. Is there another figure from the 20^th century who lived long enough to put his stamp on so many different styles of music? His legacy touches rock, blues, R&B, rap, hip-hop and, of course, soul.

Not bad for a former shoeshine boy from the streets of Augusta. His life size statue stands on the centre of the boulevard on downtown Broad Street.

Of course James Brown – they call him “Mr. Brown” in Augusta – showed promise very early. From there it was just a matter of turning talent into opportunity, but if Brown had anything other than talent it was vision: a crystalline conviction of what his sound and stage deportment was all about.

You can divine some of this at the Augusta Museum of History where they have curated a James Brown exhibit that takes you from his early youth to the final performance of his unnaturally long career. A few tidbits:

95% of his stage suits and costumes were handmade.
He often played 300 shows a year.
He was the originator of “starting on the one.”
He was a self-taught musician with a love for gospel music.
He had perfect pitch.
He was a highly religious man.
He had a full hair salon in his home.
The dance moves he created circa 1968 were later copied by Michael Jackson and Justin Timberlake.

There’s lots more to see in Augusta too. This was – before the Civil War – a prosperous economic crossroads through which cotton and various other commodities passed en route to the ports of Savannah and Charleston. In the course of its economic development, wealthy families injected their fortunes into some pretty impressive – even by today’s standards – real estate and architecture. Well worth seeing. As is the lovely Riverwalk that features a perfect little amphitheatre looking over the river.

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EATING & SLEEPING IN ATHENS: We stopped for lunch on the dog-friendly patio at Big City Bread Cafe for a delicious Turkey Burger with a side order of Bleu Cheese Fries (yes, house cut fries topped with blue cheese and served with garlic aioli and scallions).

We bypassed the campgrounds and stayed overnight at the dog-friendly, LEED Gold Certified Hotel Indigo, a short walk to the downtown Athens area. The service was great and the beds even better!

LOCAL LEGENDS FROM AUGUSTA:

Ty Cobb retired in Augusta
Bobby James brought Masters level golf to Augusta
James Brown, Oliver Hardy, Butterfly McQueen, Laurence Fishburne and Brenda Lee are all from Augusta.

WATCH THE THEATRE: The film Get On Up (2014) is about the life of Mr. James Brown.

TravelsWithRigby.com

RV TRAVEL, PET TRAVEL, FOOD & MUSIC DESTINATIONS

Author Archives: Josephine

“Affordable Florida” in the Toronto Star

On the search for a new(er) Class B!

Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race

Canadians travelling to the U.S.?

Bristol, Virginia presents: The Birthplace of Country Music Museum

Virginia’s Crooked Road: The Carter Family Fold

Asheville: Loophole of the Bible Belt

Music jams along North Carolina’s Bluegrass Trails

Banjo + Shelby = Earl Scruggs

Georgia’s rich music history: Athens and Augusta