NextThreeDays: Event Display

Moonshine Music & Stories
Venue: Floyd Country Store, Floyd
Directions: Google Map Link
Date: Saturday, March 31, 2012
Time: 7:00 - 10:00 PM
Event Types: Music, Speaking Engagements
Cost: $8.00
Description:
Join us for an evening of Moonshine Music and Stories by the New North Carolina Ramblers and Charles Thompson.

Tickets go on sale on March 1st.

The New North Carolina Ramblers performs old-time string band music in the tradition of such legendary artists as Charlie Poole, The Carter Family, and The Floyd County Ramblers. The band features Kirk Sutphin on fiddle and banjo, Jeremy Stephens on fiddle and guitar, Darren Moore on guitar and autoharp, and Kinney Rorrer on banjo. They are inspired by the rural traditional recording artists and the back porch musicians who have entertained throughout the Piedmont and Blue Ridge Mountains for generations. The band has performed at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, MerleFest, the National Folk Festival, The Ferrum Folklife Festival, the Wayne Henderson Festival, and the Barter Theatre. Kirk Sutphin has participated in the National Banjo Tour with Ralph Stanley.

"Spirits of Just Men: Mountaineers, Liquor Bosses, and Lawmen in the Moonshine Capital of the World" (2011) tells the story of moonshine in 1930s America, as seen through the remarkable location of Franklin County, Virginia, a place that many still refer to as the “moonshine capital of the world.” Charles D. Thompson, Jr. chronicles the Great Moonshine Conspiracy Trial of 1935, which made national news and exposed the far-reaching and pervasive tendrils of Appalachia’s local moonshine economy.

Thompson, whose ancestors were involved in the area’s moonshine trade and trial as well as local law enforcement, uses the event as a stepping-off point to explore Blue Ridge Mountain culture, economy, and political engagement in the 1930s. Drawing from extensive oral histories and local archival material, he illustrates how the moonshine trade was a rational and savvy choice for struggling farmers and community members during the Great Depression.

Charles Thompson, director of the undergraduate program at CDS, holds the faculty position of Lecturer in the Department of Cultural Anthropology at Duke, and is an adjunct professor in the Department of Religion. He holds a Ph.D. in religion and culture from UNC-Chapel Hill, with concentrations in cultural studies and Latin American studies.

His particular interests in documentary work include oral history, ethnography, filmmaking, and community activism. A former farmer, he remains immersed in agricultural issues and works on issues affecting laborers within our food system. He has written about farmworkers, and he is an advisory board member of Student Action with Farmworkers. Thompson is also the producer/director of three documentary films, including his latest Brother Towns/Pueblos Hermanos, as well as The Guestworker and We Shall Not Be Moved.

For more information. visit: http://www.floydcountrystore.com/events-on-stage/moonshine-music-stories or call: 540-745-4563.