Homegrown String Band

Location: R.A. Fountain

From our promo for this show:

The Homegrown String Band from Rocky Point, NY, will perform a concert of bluegrass and old-time music at Fountain General Store this Saturday night.

Sing Out! magazine says Homegrown “transports the listener back to the days of families gathering together to sing the old tunes.” Rick Jackofsky says, “We do what we can with the instruments we have at our disposal: guitar, banjo, ukelele, fiddle, jaw harp, mountain dulcimer, mandolin, clawhammer banjo, harmonica, and percussive flatfoot dance.”

Jackofsky and his wife, Georgianne, made the decision in 1992, with their two daughters, Erica and Annalee, to get rid of their television. Georgianne explains: “We began using the traditional arts of storytelling, music, and dance to entertain ourselves.” Gradually, as family members learned different musical instruments, their band came together.

The Homegrown String Band has been performing at coffehouses and festivals from Maine to Missouri since 1997. They are regularly listed on Appalachian Fiddle and Bluegrass Association questionnaires as one of the bands fans most want to see at a festival.

Although Homegrown hasn’t played this part of the state before, they are no strangers to the old-time music scene in North Carolina. Daughter Erica won a youth scholarship to the Swannanoa Gathering at Warren Wilson College in 2001, when she was 16, to study both fiddling and dancing, with Ralph Blizzard and Rodney Sutton respectively.

Homegrown has released three critically acclaimed CDs: Blind Dog Thumping on the Porch, Big Fork, Little Fork, and their newest, Rock Hollow. All will be available at their Fountain performance. You can hear Homegrown String Band songs on their web site (linked above) and you can see a short documentary of the band here. 

Tags: acoustic Americana, Appalachian, bluegrass, Concert, folk, old-time, original