Posted by wilford on Tuesday, June 7, 2011
PICKING IN NEWPORT
Mary and I met quite a few wonderful people at Strings and Things music store in Newport where we were invited to pick and sing with a group of musicians on Saturday afternoon. The business is owned and operated by Mr. and Mrs. Tony and Mary Ann Olivent and is located at 739 Cosby Hwy. Tony plays banjo and his wife plays bass. They’re wonderful to visit with. Mary and I stocked up on bumper-stickers, picks and other little musical things while there. They have a wide assortment of guitars, stand-up basses and mandolins, too. Various local artists come in and teach different instrument lessons to customers.
Tony has a circle of chairs all set up ready for any impromptu picking session that may materialize right in front of the picture window of his shop. The first picker I met was a really nice fellow named Jim “Old Leather Hat” Stockton and his dog “Buddy”. A short while later, Charley Dunn, a 79 year-old super picker guitar player showed up followed by Jimmy Gilliam, another fine guitar picker. Later, Larry Hartsell, banjoist, Greg King, guitarist and Dan Proffitt, guitarist and instrument builder came in and picked away for several hours with the rest of us. Dan played one of his own hand-built guitars and it just has such a quality of sound to it, I was blown away…..talk about deep, rich, clear tone!
A little before 5:00 p.m. we headed out of Newport to attend another jam session in Rheatown that started at 6:30. I’m told that once we’ve been here a while, Mary and I will have picking sessions to attend every night of the week with very short drives from one to another. This is our kind of place!
2 comments on “We're now moved in to our new home in eastern TN”
richdissmore Says:
Tuesday, June 7, 2011 @4:41:31 PM
that sounds really cool a friend of mine retired like me now he started to pick with firends to make a little money for groeres now he plays more then he ever wanted he lives in friend ship and adems wisconsin my firend is in to b.g. they play some old time very glad you found people to jam with i,m jaming next week with firends in the wild thyme band here in racine wis they play irish, old time, and some others keep fiddlen
wilford Says:
Wednesday, June 8, 2011 @6:58:01 AM
I googled all over TN to find the hottest spot for Bluegrass jams and I came up with eastern TN, so we moved here for the pickin' and we are sure not disappointed. There's basically pickin' here every night of the week and weekend.
Couldn't be happier.
Thanks, and have a great day and keep up your pickin'. :-)
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