The Crooked Road: Virginia’s Heritage Music Trail has developed two attractive and informative traveling exhibits available to communities within its ten-county region for calendar year 2010. Those Counties include: Carroll, Dickenson, Floyd, Franklin, Grayson, Lee, Patrick, Scott, Washington and Wise County in Virginia. The exhibits are entitled: Musical Styles Along the Crooked Road and Crooked Road Royalty.

Crooked Road Royalty highlights the careers of the Hill Billies, the Stoneman Family, the Carter Family, and the Stanley Brothers, four Virginian powerhouse groups that helped build the American country music industry. Musical Styles Along the Crooked Road presents the rich variety of roots music that Southwest Virginians sing and play – fiddle and banjo tunes, bluegrass, ballads of love and death, sentimental mountain songs, blues, and gospel. Both exhibits include rare film footage and photographs of historic Crooked Road musicians.

Possible locations for the exhibit are: museums, libraries, government buildings or offices, performance venues, festivals, and other public places. Each is available for a one-month period beginning January 2010. There is no charge for the exhibits, but transportation is required. The exhibits can easily fit into a full size car or van. Each exhibit consists of twelve collapsible panels, each 40″ x 80″ when unrolled. The exhibits are available either as self-standing or wall-mounted, and each exhibit includes a flat screen television and DVD player for the exhibit video.

The exhibits were produced by the Blue Ridge Institute & Museum for The Crooked Road with funding from the Virginia Tobacco Indemnification & Community Revitalization Commission.

For more information or to reserve the exhibit for your community, please contact The Crooked Road office at (276) 492-2085 or email: jromeo@thecrookedroad.org

– From the The Crooked Road