Hammons Family Fiddle & Banjo Contest + World Class Jam · First Press Release

MARLINTON, W.Va. — The music of Pocahontas County’s Hammons family survives in the Library of Congress and other folklife archives. It also survives in a less formal way: passed directly from one musician to another, often while sitting knee to knee.

The family’s fiddle tunes, banjo music, ballads, stories and woods lore became widely known through recordings made during the 20th century. West Virginia University folklorist Louis Chappell recorded noted fiddler Edden Hammons in 1947. In the early 1970s, folklorists Alan Jabbour and Carl Fleischhauer made repeated visits to members of the family. Their work resulted in a 1973 Library of Congress collection documenting the family’s music and lives.

Those recordings preserved an important body of Appalachian tradition, but the music did not remain confined to records and archives.

Musicians throughout Pocahontas County learned directly from the Hammons family and from others who had spent time with them. The Bing brothers, Richard Hefner, Mike Burns and Dwight Diller were among the musicians who helped carry those tunes and playing styles into another generation.

For Diller, that process included years spent visiting Burl, Sherman and Maggie Hammons. He later shared what he had learned through performances, recordings, teaching and his film, “Across the Yew Pines,” which explored the family’s music in the context of the land and culture that shaped it.

The Pocahontas County Opera House Story Sessions have added another layer to that record by preserving local musicians’ memories of the family and the traditional music community that grew around them. Those accounts show that learning a tune often meant more than getting the notes right. It also meant listening to the stories, phrasing and experiences that came with it.

That chain continues through musicians such as Trevor Hammons, the great-grandson of Lee Hammons. Trevor learned banjo from Pam Lund, who had learned Hammons family music from musicians connected to the older generation. His playing represents both a return of the music to the family and another link in its continuing passage through Pocahontas County.

The fifth annual Hammons Family Fiddle & Banjo Contest + World Class Jam will celebrate that living tradition Sept. 25-26 in Marlinton.

The weekend begins with a square dance from 7 to 9 p.m. Friday, Sept. 25, at the Pocahontas County Opera House. Juanita Fireball & the Clifftop Drifters and The State Birds with special guests will provide the music, with Lou Maiuri and Toney Minney calling the dances.

Free contests, performances and jam sessions will continue Saturday, Sept. 26, at the Opera House, Rivertown and Discovery Junction. Musicians and listeners are invited to take part in a tradition that has endured not only because it was recorded but because people continued to sit down together and share it.

More information is available at HammonsFiddleBanjo.com.