PImagine the birthplace of country music and your mind might naturally fall to Nashville, where neon-lit honky-tonks hum from noon to night. But travel a few hundred miles further east, into the lush foothills of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, and you’ll be introduced to a much older origin story—one that has slowly shaped America’s soundtrack.
I’m here to explore Crooked Road, a 330-mile heritage music trail that winds through the misty contours of the Appalachian Mountains in southwest Virginia. This sprawling expanse of Americana connects a network of small rural towns through ten main music hubs and more than 60 affiliated venues, celebrating everything from front-porch jam sessions to folk bootleg dances, all set to a soundtrack of bluegrass and oldies. Think of the Coen Brothers’ Wealth Score where are you brotherand you are in the right key.
I’ve even brought my banjo along for the ride, an instrument that’s been left in a dusty corner for the most part since I picked it up a decade ago. If there’s one place that can breathe life back into its strings, it’s the musical highway, I think, that went down in Roanoke.
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Let’s start with the driving, because Crooked Road lives up to its name. A few hours later, I began to lean into the hairpin turns, which wind through a landscape so lush and lyrical that it’s no wonder the trail regularly ranks among America’s most scenic. Red-bell barns and rolling green hills line the road as I make my way to my first stop: Floyd, a free-spirited hippie town of just 449 people.
“If you drive past a traffic light, you’ve already missed it,” a local with a scraggly beard that twirls his chest warned me. As I walk further, I find the quaint main street lined with pottery studios, artisan coffee shops, and shops filled with farm-fresh produce.
At the heart of this small but mighty community is the Floyd Country Store, a former grocery store that dates back to 1910. Once almost lost to time, it was revived in 2014 by Dylan Locke and his wife Heather, and has since attracted famous actors such as Gillian Welch to its haunting stage.
Inside, the air is thick with the aroma of slow-baked apple pie, and gingham drapes drape the tables that line the well-worn wooden dance floor. Over a hearty bowl of stew and a slice of homemade cornbread, Dylan explains how Floyd, a former industrial town, found a new rhythm through music-based tourism.
“This kind of music resonates globally,” he says. “Because it comes from everywhere and feels familiar to a lot of people.” Scottish and Irish immigrants brought the fiddle, English ballads persisted, and the banjo traces its roots back to West Africa, carried by enslaved people. “People have been playing this music in these hills for hundreds of years,” Dylan continues. “In this region of Appalachia, the traditions continued for much longer, in part because people didn’t move around as much because the railroad never reached these mountains.
Nowadays, there is rarely a quiet moment in this nostalgic place. Weekly songwriting circles, the long-running Friday Night Jamboree—a local tradition since the early eighties—and Floyd’s monthly radio show keep things alive. There’s even a School of Handicraft Music set up to preserve Appalachian music and dance traditions.
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I opt for a one-on-one banjo lesson with master Jared Boyd, who manages to sort out my wrong toenail technique in just 30 minutes. On a roll, I join teenage dancer Ipi Hello for a flat-foot session, a slow, rhythmic folk dance with echoes of traditional Irish dance, but louder. The night ends with me two-stepping to the lively tunes of the house’s old band, and sharing it with a group of well-heeled residents.
The next morning, I continue along the crooked road to the Blue Ridge Music Center, a scenic amphitheater and museum near the Galaxy. Like many venues along the route, it comes alive in the warmer months when the outdoor stage hosts a full schedule of bluegrass, classic country and roots acts.
Against a backdrop of lush mountain slopes, I met local musician Willard Gayhart. He plays a few guitar tunes before reflecting on the region’s musical heritage. You know, not much has changed, and that’s the beauty of this music The change is the quality of the musicians. The younger generation is now learning music and studying these old songs at university level.
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To play music, I go to Bristol, a city on the Virginia-Tennessee state line widely recognized as the birthplace of commercial country music. It was here in the summer of 1927 that a series of recording sessions recorded the sounds that defined a genre. The Bristol Sessions introduced the world to the Carter Family and Jimmie Rogers, a moment historians now refer to as country music’s “Big Bang.”
These days, Bristol still wears its heritage with pride. At the birthplace of the Country Music Museum, stylish, interactive exhibits trace a journey from humble front porches to early recording booths. But the real soul of the city lives in the music itself. I join the museum’s weekly jam session, where I try to keep up with the school-aged players, tearing through songs with amazing movement and precision.
Even lunch here has a story. At the retro burger bar nearby, which was apparently the site of Hank Williams’ last meal before his death, I put down a beef burger named in his honor, one of several tributes on the menu to country music’s forefathers.
I can’t leave town without visiting the Carter Family Fold, a Saturday night fixture for over 50 years. The woodshed dance floor, built in memory of AP, Sarah, and Mabel Carter, continues to draw crowds from far and wide. AP’s granddaughter, Rita Forster, greets me at the door. As the band warms up on stage, he sways gently in his seat and contemplates the hall’s steady pull. “The thing about this place is that it takes you back to the old days, when people just played in their houses,” he smiles. “It’s real mountain music, and people around here like to dance to it.”
A little later, a crisp-shirted college professor takes the stage, banjo in hand, and enters a toe-tapping number. Downstairs, dancers of all stripes mingle. Farm workers, tourists, toddlers, and nimble-footed grandmothers clatter their clogs in time to the beat. It’s a happy mix of generations and backgrounds all shared in one moment.
Gatherings like this are not new along Virginia’s Crooked Road. They are woven into the fabric of everyday life. And at a time when society often feels escapist, it’s heartening to find a place where people still dance with strangers and listen, phones off and music playing.
how to do it
Crooked Road is served by Roanoke-Blacksburg Regional Airport to the east and Tri-Cities Airport in Bristol, Virginia. American Airlines, Delta, United and British Airways fly there with one change. Alternatively, fly direct to Nashville from the UK and drive 265 miles to Bristol.
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