Notes from my Knapsack 9-26-19

Notes from my Knapsack 9-26-19

Jeff Gill

 

So much music but give me more

___

 

Granville has a stellar reputation around education, and Greek Revival architecture, and general atmospheric charm, but I'm not sure we're as well known for music as we should be.

 

Like so many of you, I was fascinated by the PBS series "Country Music" by Ken Burns and his creative team, tracing the intertwining of African and European instruments and styles into the culture of the American South and the mixing of ethnicities and technologies to produce gospel music, western styles, bluegrass, Texas swing, and so much more, all under the overarching label of country. The hillbilly, honky tonk narrative of country doesn't have deep roots in Our Fayre Village, but that same complexity and mysteriously intertwining storyline does touch down along Broadway.

 

There's a few ancient instruments at the Granville Historical Society showing the musical aspirations of the 1805 settlers, and the earlier Welsh pioneers loved their vocal assemblies, the "eisteddfod" gatherings that persist into the present day. We've got precious historical photographs of a high school marching band around 1900, and tales of the "Halfway House" next to the Dugway where more elemental music ruled the nights.

 

We've got twenty years now of the HotLicks Bluesfest right downtown, and newly arrived in the area the Ohiolina Music Festival last weekend at Infirmary Mound Park just south of the village.

 

My first encounter with Granville's music scene was on a Tuesday morning in Slayter up on the Denison campus, many years ago, and that region-wide gathering of bluegrass musicians just jamming around with each other, and visitors invited to sing along, softly or with vigor as the case may be. Now, Denison has had a bluegrass concentration to major in for their students for a decade, and their Bluegrass Ensemble plays anywhere from festivals on the road to the Candlelight Christmas Walking Tour on Broadway.

 

Denison supports both campus and community in participation with their choruses and other musical ensembles; you can also find soloists and bands playing in restaurants along the village streets and at the Granville Inn, with national reputations or local reknown. The high school offers both bands and choirs, an orchestra and a fair number of individual acts both in house and out around the community.

 

This is a community that loves music. We show up, even when thunderstorms threaten, for "Concerts on the Green," once on the lower campus of the college and now out behind the Bryn Du Mansion, thanks to our Granville Recreation District.

 

But there will be a return, now that the Eisner Center construction is completed, at least for this autumn, with a special "Fall Concert on the Green" on Saturday, October 5^th at 5:00 PM. On the Fine Arts Quad along West Broadway, the lower campus of Denison, we'll get to hear "Rock This Town" which is bringing us their take on the swing revival, emulating the Brian Setzer Orchestra. 

 

So much music. The holiday concerts at Granville High School literally sell out, where so many schools and communities work to just get a decent audience for their kids. We love our local musicians more than we do the ones who come from far away, and the Vail Series regularly fills Swasey Chapel for globally significant artists.

 

This is a music loving community, and the soundtrack of our village is complex and various: one of the many reasons I love it here.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he has his own set list that plays in his head even without earphones. Tell him your favorite music at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.