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No Mountain Country For Old Men
Raymond Fairchild is a man of few words. But, it only takes those few words to truly grasp a man that ultimately lives up to myth and legend. If you didn’t know where the Maggie Valley Opry House was, you’d probably pass right by it on the way to the bright lights and chance of Harrah’s Casino in Cherokee or to the hip hustle and bustle of Asheville. The unassuming music hall is tucked behind a quaint motel that’s seen better days, in a tiny North Carolina town that’s seen better years. But that doesn’t deter Fairchild from opening his banjo case, picking up his trusty instrument and heading for the stage every night of the week from the late spring until early fall. After 25 years of do-or-die devotion to his Opry House, Fairchild struggles to stay relevant, yet as he laments the dwindling crowds over the years, he’s unwilling to sacrifice the purity of the music. “It’s great here, but people just don’t turn out to sit like I think they should. They got other music on their mind, especially the youngsters,” he said. “Some of the old people will come here and sit, but very few young people. I think bluegrass is the
A Southern Perspective on music, art, and life from the Carolina’s
greatest music in the world, and it’s done suffered. Music doesn’t have to be jazzed up.” Raised in nearby Cherokee, Fairchild holds tightly to his Native American ancestry. Learning how to play banjo by ear when he was teenager, plunking coin after coin into the jukebox, he developed an enormous passion for the timeless melodies of Bill Monroe or Flatt & Scruggs.
year-old got by as a moonshiner, running through the thick woods and backcountry roads of the Appalachians, always one step ahead of the law. “I was just too fast to be caught,” he chuckled. Though he still makes moonshine jelly that’ll cure any ailment you may have, his signature ‘shine recipe is now being produced by the new Howling Moon Distillery in Asheville — a legal operation quite
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“When it comes down to bluegrass, the only bluegrass man that really did it and could take anybody and train them to do it, is buried six feet under in Kentucky, and that’s Bill Monroe,” he said. While perfecting his sound, aptly called the “Fairchild Style,” the 74-
different from Fairchild’s back in the day. “You ever go through a laurel, hauling a 50-gallon barrel of moonshine in the pitch-black, without no flashlight like you have today?” he asked. “If you haven’t, I recommend you try.”
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