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It was a five years ago when Mel Jones and Joe Robinson first played together.
It was at the Forsyth County Library in downtown Winston-Salem, for a presentation by Carolina Music Ways Heritage Resource Group, a non-profit that helps support the musical traditions of the western Piedmont Triad.
Both Mel and Joe serve on the Carolina Music Ways’ board. And both believe in the non-profit’s mission. But that night, on a small stage at the library, they found out something else.
They dug playing together.
And now, five years later, they will. They call their 90-minute program a musical journey through time.
They will showcase the region’s early rural music styles – acoustic country blues, gospel and even old-time string-band music – and show how these styles led to the creation of straight-ahead urban jazz.
They’ll go from the field hollers of 19th century North Carolina and how that led musicians to the tobacco houses in downtown Winston-Salem. Then, they’ll talk about the front porches, the back porches, the drink houses and the rural roads in between that have made North Carolina steeped in musical tradition.
And oh, it’ll be a musical history lesson that’ll make you move. No wonder Joe and Mel call their program “Piedmont Strut.’’
But it’s also a musical history lesson many North Carolinians don’t understand, let alone remember. So, Mel and Joe want to be your teacher.
Through their “Piedmont Strut.’’
“Joe and myself have known each other for a long time, and we’re so damn different,’’ Mel says. “We’ve never been able to work together, and we thought this would be a good opportunity, and in doing so, we can show the things that make us different and also make us the same.
“And the best way to do that is take people back in time a little bit and show an audience where the path goes,’’ Mel says.
“It’s very difficult standing today in the modern musical world and really relate how the music was formed and how it was exchanged, and the different forms it took,’’ Mel says. “Everyone is so used to instantaneous everything, but we need to realize it was an evolution.
And we’re going to explore that. We’ll go on a little bit of a journey.’’ |
