LOWNDES COUNTY – Jeff Long sits on a swing holding an acoustic guitar, asking his bandmates what song they want to play next.
After a few seconds no one responds, prompting Long to look up from under the bill of his ball cap and ask, “How ‘bout some Oak Ridge Boys?”
His bandmates, who have all played bluegrass together for 15 years, nod in agreement, as does Jerry McGinnis, a fiddler from Maryland who Long and his bandmates met about 15 minutes before.
Then Long primes the small crowd of listeners gathered with the musicians around a fire pit.
“The Oak Ridge Boys played this song once and made $1 million,” he proclaimed. “We’ve played it a million times and haven’t made $1.”
The players launch into “The Baptism of Jesse Taylor” – a song about a man who turned away from drinking and gambling and was baptized by a church in the town creek. After it was over, Long admitted, “We sped it up a bit.”
Long, a pastor and “picker” from Kennedy, Alabama, was one of the key draws to the inaugural Camp and Jam held Thursday through Saturday at the Lake Lowndes State Park campground. The event packed the 50-spot campground Friday, said Rhonda Richardson, president for the park’s Friends organization. Campers joined different pickers around two separate fire pits from dusk until the musicians got tired of playing.
Richardson, a resident of New Hope, helped form the Friends of Lake Lowndes State Park to bring more awareness to the park’s programs and natural beauty. She leads a group of 20 members to plan events and raise funds for projects there – like the fire pit areas and a small amphitheater.
Some of the campers pick, Richardson said, but she recruited musicians like Long and Nashville-based gospel singer/songwriter Tonja Rose to help make the first Camp and Jam a success.
“We’re very excited,” she said of Friday’s turnout. “We really didn’t know how this was going to roll.”
Long and his bandmates – another guitarist, a banjo player and one on standup bass – play concerts at various church events around the region. He said campfire picking is “just kind of natural.”
“No distortion. No nothing,” he said. “You can either play or you can’t.”
Up the hill Friday, at the second fire pit, Rose picked a guitar and sang old hymns like “I’ll Fly Away” and “I Saw the Light” with locals Amy Elsmore and Dennis McKay.
Rose said she has performed in all 50 states, first as a country artist before turning completely to gospel, but the campfire scene offered “no pressure.”
“You don’t have to worry about missing a note or singing the wrong words,” she said. “You don’t have to be ‘on.’”
McKay, a musician for almost 50 years, agreed.
“We love the fellowship, taking the formality out of it and enjoying the raw music,” he said. “… There’s an old saying: ‘Music speaks when words fail.’”
This weekend was Rose’s second time playing in Lowndes County, after she met and became friends with Richardson, a singer in her own right, at a gospel music convention about five years ago.
Rose said her father started a gospel group in North Carolina and would get her to sing as a child at their concerts.
“My dad has told me since, ‘I wish you hadn’t gotten into music,’” Rose said, laughing. “I’m like, ‘This is your fault.’”
Richardson, meanwhile, sat without an instrument around the fire pit, prepared to join in the singing when the spirit moved her. She was very clear, though, she doesn’t play.
“I don’t pick nothing but my teeth,” she said.
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 47 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
