3/25: Beans and Banjos Farewell

I can’t remember when we started, but I remember how we started. Dr. Smith — Bob Smith — had been reminding the Shawsville Ruritans about the square dances they used to have back when the Ruritans had club house over in Alleghany. A lot of folks said that was nice, but no one seemed as interested as Dr. Smith was in resurrecting the dances. So we just did it. I got together a band and Dr. Smith got some cloggers and a caller to come in and show people how dancing was supposed to be done.

We had a house band and we talked author Tom Angleberger into learning to call square dances. We rolled along like that for a while with beans and cornbread and dancing and all, but people seemed to be a little shy about dancing, so Beans and Banjos became more about listening to music than dancing to it.

We got some good music, too. Some of it didn’t include banjos, but a lot of it did. We had bluegrass and blues and old time and ragtime and country and gospel and a singer-song writer or two. We had award-winning bands, local bands, bands that had toured Europe, bands that had played national radio shows, bands and players that won awards for their music and taught at the kind of music camps people wait a whole year to spend a week at. We had a couple of events connected to some Crooked Road events and people packed the Meadowbrook Community Center for those. We had way more than 100 people show up more than once.

But nothing lasts forever, not even Beans and Banjos. Last time out, I counted about 20 people. By my reckoning, all but three of them were directly connected to the LINC Letter or one of the bands. Interest, it seems has dwindled. March’s Beans and Banjos will be the last. Instead of having a couple of bands like we usually do, I’m inviting everyone who’s ever played or sung at Beans and Banjos to come out and jam. Certainly not all of them will make it, but some of us will. We’ll try to play Beans and Banjos out in style.

If you’ve ever played, come on out. If you’ve every danced to a tune, come on out. If you’ve ever nodded along or patted your foot or come for beans and cornbread and then headed home, come on out.

Beans and Banjos has been going for at least 14 years. (The earliest webpages promoting it go back that far, but we had a few dances before we had a webpage.) It won’t be going on any longer.

I want to thank, everyone who’s ever been any part of Beans and Banjos — the folks who brought the food, collected money at the door set up chairs and tables, packed things away at the end of the night and especially all the musicians who donated their time, their talent and their work to make the thing work for so long.

–Tim Thornton

Come on out and be part of the last one. It’ll be Saturday, March 25 at the Meadowbrook Community Center. The food and music start at 6 p.m.