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Feed & Seed concerts reopen in North Carolina

The grass is back! Feed & Seed, a popular live music venue in western North Carolina near Asheville, has reopened after having been on pause due to the global pandemic. The historic building offers bands a place to play, and attendees a haven to enjoy listening and dancing to good bluegrass music. On May 19, their first show in two and a half years, was held featuring Lynn Goldsmith & Jeter Mountain Band of nearby Henderson County, NC.

“It’s a great venue for bluegrass music,” stressed Goldsmith. “The atmosphere there takes you back to the feeling of earlier days when bluegrass was played throughout a lot of rural areas. We’re so glad it has opened back up after the long stretch of being closed. It’s definitely our favorite place to play because the crowd brings so much energy with their clogging and enthusiasm! We missed it so much and it felt like reuniting with a long lost friend!”

“120 people showed up. We’re back open, but with a different format,” explained Phillip Trees, pastor of Feed and Seed Church. “We had a good run. We used to have shows every Friday and Saturday night (before the pandemic), but with the onslaught of breweries in the area, offering live music on the weekends, we decided to change it up.”

Their new format will feature bluegrass music on the third Thursday of each month (7:00-9:00 p.m.), Gospel bluegrass events on Sunday evenings (6:00 p.m.), and Monday night jams (7:00-9:00 p.m.) where a host band performs, and then attendees are invited to play along. All events are free, open to the public with a donation box for the band located by the door. There will be ticketed events on select weekends that feature national touring bands.

“100 percent of the donations go for the band,” Feed and Seed’s pastor elaborated. “Our church (which meets in the building each Sunday morning at 11:00) supports it to reach the community.”

Held in a 100 year old feed and seed store built in 1920 and still owned by the same family, Trees and his congregation rented and renovated the building in 2007 to have a place to assemble for worship. After holding services there for a year, they realized with its high ceiling, hardwood floors, great acoustics, church pews, and theater seats that it was the perfect spot for live music. So in 2008, they held their first bluegrass show.

Their website states: “The building they call home is revived from its former glory and retains its history and local culture. The church focuses on community and brings the best of Appalachian Music to the area. The modern purpose of the building has redirected from Feed Supply to one of Feeding the Soul through inspiration and good music. This building is a place where all are welcome and culture, arts, and community come to life!”

“People call it the ‘Little Ryman of the Blue Ridge’ (after the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville),” shared Trees. “We get tourists. Folks come to Asheville to see Biltmore and hear bluegrass.”

During shows, Trees emcees, runs the sound board, and does odd jobs, “like making sure there’s toilet paper in the restrooms.”

“We have a bluegrass triangle,” Trees described. “You have the Earl Scruggs Center in Shelby, Doc Watson’s home in Boone, and Balsam Range in Haywood County. We’re right in the middle of it. ETSU students come here to perform. Our shows are 80% local bands, 15% regional, and 5% national.”

The air-conditioned building seats 165 and has been featured on PBS-TV and in Southern Living magazine.

Larry Cordle, Nashville-based singer/songwriter, has performed at Feed and Seed. He shared, “A great venue. I loved playing there. Just knowing it was old; I could just imagine the stories that must have been swapped there. The songwriter in me wishes I could have eavesdropped on some of those conversations. I reckon that’s why I felt so at home there. Great place to swap stories with other songwriters.”

“Our band members love playing at The Fletcher Feed & Seed. The sound system is excellent. The crowd truly appreciates your music with their enthusiasm. Man, can those folks flat foot,” shared Linzey Ham of the locally-based Catawba Bluegrass Band.

Upcoming third Thursday shows include: the Byrd Family Bluegrass Band on June 19, Liberty Road Bluegrass on July 21, and Junction 280 on August 20. Ticketed shows feature the Robertson Boys on July 16 and Caroline & Company on August 6.

“Hopefully, Larry Sparks will be coming in November for our grand finale of the season,” Trees stated.

The pastor and his flock are happy to return to hosting live music events. “It’s been a blessing for our church to help the community.”

Feed and Seed is located at 3715 Hendersonville Rd Fletcher, NC 28732. Call (828) 216-3492 for more information.

IBMA Film Festival announces attractions

The films to be screened during the debut IBMA Bluegrass Film Festival at the 2014 World of Bluegrass Convention have been announced. Eight different projects will be shown, including a pair of highlight films that were selected for special merit. All have been profiled here at Bluegrass Today and should be at least conceptually familiar to dedicated readers.

The two highlight films are Banjo Romantika by Lee Bidgood, and The Porchlight Sessions from Anna Schwaber, both documentaries. Bidgood’s project, made with Shara Lange, chronicles the development of the bluegrass music scene in Czech Republic, with assistance from East Tennessee State University. Porchlight is more a journey of discovery, where Schwaber travels to a number of bluegrass festivals and speaks with artists about the music’s history, and where it is going.

Both of these films will be screened during the business conference portion of the week, including a Q&A with the filmmakers. They will be shown again during that weekend’s Wide Open Bluegrass event, October 3-4, along with these six other selected productions:

At the Feed & Seed – April Janow
The Cricket – Andrew Cartoun
G2 – Mind Over Matter – David Elfgren
Herschel Sizemore: Mandolin in B – Rick Bowman
The History of Future Folk – Jeremy Walker
The Tao of Bluegrass – A Portrait of Peter Rowan – Christine Funk

The weekend screenings will be free of charge and open to the public.

Film Festival Committee Chair Michael Hall, who had initiated what is thought to be the very first bluegrass film festival for the Northern California Bluegrass Society in 2008, says that the organization is happy to now include the visual arts in its annual celebration.

“The first IBMA Film Festival will welcome bluegrass filmmakers to the mix of creative professionals at the World Of Bluegrass. Films about bluegrass music history, culture, performers, and lifestyles help tell the bluegrass story to existing fans and new fans alike. These films are now beginning to reach beyond ‘film’ audiences to ‘music’ audiences and are an important developing area of bluegrass event programming. Thanks to the IBMA’s staff and volunteers for supporting this new trend by introducing the films at the World Of Bluegrass.”

For more details on the IBMA Bluegrass Film Festival, and all eight of these films, visit IBMA online.

At The Feed & Seed wins major award

At The Feed & Seed, an independent documentary film about the celebrated bluegrass venue in Fletcher, NC, picked up the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the 15th Annual Bare Bones International Film and Music Festival earlier this month.

The film is a joint project of April Janow and Dax Cuesta, who made the jump from production accountants to filmmakers after working on The Hunger Games in nearby Asheville in 2011. Janow had stayed in Fletcher for the duration, and fell in love with the Feed & Seed, an old hardware store that was converted into a church and music hall by Philip Trees when his small church found itself without a home in 2007.

Their film captures the culture of small town America, the charm of the folks who live in Fletcher, and their love for bluegrass music.

April says that the award offers she and Dax some validation for their project.

“We are thrilled that our documentary connected so well with the Bare Bones Festival organizers and attendees. Being able to bring something as special as the traditions of the Feed & Seed and bluegrass music to new audiences and have it so well received is what makes filmmaking a success.”

Here’s a preview…

The filmmakers are hoping to screen At The Feed & Seed during IBMA’s World of Bluegrass week in Raleigh this Fall, so be on the lookout.

At The Feed & Seed

Back in 2012 we did a feature on Feed & Seed, a unique music venue in Fletcher, NC housed in what was once a thriving local business, Fletcher Supply Company. It was part hardware store and part seed mill serving the largely rural and agrarian population starting in 1919.

The building sat idle for many years in the late 20th century until a small church that had been meeting in a nearby park approached the owner about renting it as a worship space. Philip Trees and his congregation moved in in 2007, and before long, after noting the big room’s natural acoustic qualities, began to host bluegrass concerts on Friday and Saturday evenings in addition to church services on Sunday.

The Feed & Seed has become a very popular site for music and dancing in western North Carolina, and is set to be the subject of a documentary film by April Janow and Dax Cuesta of SIC Films, titled simply At The Feed & Seed. They discovered the place by chance while working on another film shooting nearby, and found its charm irresistible.

April recounts how they fell in love with Fletcher and its residents, along with the Feed & Seed, back in 2011.

“Both Dax and I were working as accountants on The Hunger Games in Asheville. I rented a house in Fletcher, NC and would drive past the Feed & Seed every day. This was the summer of 2011, and on Friday and Saturday nights, the F&S was so busy that people were watching the shows from outside. A year later, I was back in Asheville and went to a Saturday show and got to experience the magic of the Feed & Seed. The people were so welcoming, and the bluegrass music and clogging was like a lovely step back in time. I had been emailing with Pastor Phillip Trees about some CD’s for a friend, and we met up that night. He is such a personable pastor, and has such a joy and enthusiasm about the Feed & Seed, which is quite infectious.

I spoke to Dax about what I’d experienced, and we talked about sharing the Feed & Seed as a documentary about its history, the people and the music. When we approached Pastor Trees, he was with the idea from the beginning.

Fletcher and the Feed & Seed are treasures that should be shared, as the people, the music and the dancing are not something that someone in a different part of the country would have the opportunity to experience. It’s definitely something that shouldn’t slip away, in this time of smart media and life going by so quickly.”

She also caught us up on the history of the building, which at various times in its life has housed a butcher shop, ceramics studio, TV repair shop, and bingo hall after an early life as a feed and hardware store.

“The Feed & Seed was built by the Youngblood family in 1919, and was the only mercantile in a 25-mile area for quite awhile. Thanks to some great people at the NC Dept of Cultural Resources, the Baker-Barber Collection and the Hendersonville Library, and the tireless work of Bob Davy with the Fletcher Arts & Heritage Association, we were given the opportunity to use fantastic photographs from the era. One of the great things that Pastor Trees has done is to have a mini-museum inside the Feed & Seed, with original pieces from the era. There is an old cash receipts machine, that local families can see what their grandparents and great-grandparents purchased back in the day, for example.

We were so fortunate that Phillip’s enthusiasm had us meet up and film bands and dancers. The main band that we followed, Lonesome Will Mullins & The Virginia Playboys, are amazing musicians and their own cast of characters. Will is a phenomenal claw-hammer banjo player, on top of everything else, and at the time of filming, Jake and Adam Burrows had only been playing their instruments for four years. The Burrows Brothers are such talented boys to see and hear…we were incredibly lucky that the timing worked out so well.

Phillip’s relationship with the owner of the Feed & Seed, Harry Thomas, Sr., was also a big part of our film. Harry was a WWII veteran and a retired Army MSgt, and a treasure of the Greatest Generation. Both Dax and I were lucky to call him a friend as well, and the stories he shared of his life and what he accomplished were something that everyone could take a lesson from. Unfortunately, Harry passed away in November of last year. We were very fortunate that Harry was able to see the finished film before he passed.”

At The Feed Seed is constructed in three acts, with the building playing a key role.

“We start with the history of both the Feed and Seed then and now, with our middle section being about the music and a typical Saturday night at the Feed & Seed, then ending with Pastor Tree’s church service. Throughout the film, we asked the question, ‘what does the Feed & Seed mean to you,’ and the answers were great. One couple met there, another couple from Chicago plan their vacations around going to the F&S, and a church member talks about her struggles and how Pastor Trees and the F&S church has helped her.

And now we get to Pastor Trees. The story of how he and his wife got started with their parish, ending up having services in Fletcher Park before meeting up with Harry and being able to rent the Feed & Seed, is something that we thought was important to the film. Phillip’s family (wife Amy, son Nathan and daughter Brie) and the congregants cleaned up the building, turning it into a cornerstone of the area. Phillip also discovered that the building was five-sided, due to a bad invention from the Youngbloods back in the day, which gives the building it’s fantastic acoustics. Phillip has also gotten into the 21st century with live web streams on Fridays and Saturdays.

Fletcher and the Feed & Seed are treasures that should be shared, as the people, the music and the dancing are not something that someone in a different part of the country would have the opportunity to experience. It’s definitely something that shouldn’t slip away, in this time of smart media and life going by so quickly.”

The finished project runs 71 minutes, and is currently being entered and screened on the film festival circuit. It will debut on April 5 at the Bare Bones Film & Music Festival in Muskogee, OK. The producers expect to present it for video on demand distribution by the end of 2014.

Here’s the trailer…

You can find additional information, including more photos and video, on the At The Feed & Seed web site.