When guitarist Wayne Henderson from Grayson County, Virginia and Jeff Little from Boone, North Carolina, take the stage you can expect not only traditional Bluegrass favorites but a mix of music that seldom finds it way onto stages around here.

At the Floyd Country Store on Mother’s Day, the guitarist who also makes the instrument for famous players including Eric Clapton in his small shop in Rugby and the piano player from Boone performed a collection of songs that ranged from Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five” to Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On” to the ballpark classic “Take Me Out to The Ball Game.”

The appreciative audience enjoyed the show.

The Roanoke Valley Harley Owners Group, which includes members from Floyd County — including Stayce Eller, this year’s chapter director — won the Virginia Championship Chili Cook-off today.

The group can represent Virginia in the national cook-off in Palm Springs, California, later this year.

The Supervisors agreed to not raise taxes for the upcoming fiscal year as they got closer to a final budget for the upcoming year. A couple of sticking points: Money for the school system and a proposed assistant commonwealth’s attorney. Here’s a video highlighting discussion on those points.

I’ve been lucky to live in several nice and interesting places in a life that started in Tampa, Florida, migrated to Floyd County at age 5, then to Farmville, Virignia, at 8, back to Floyd County at 13, on to Roanoke at 15, then to St. Louis, Missoui and Alton, Illinois, at 21, on to Washington, DC, at 32 and back to Floyd at 56.

From those locations, I have been fortunate enough to travel the world, visit all continents and work in both fascinating and dangerous locales.

Here’s a short video that highlights where Amy and I have lived.

Keep hoping the weather gets warm enough on Friday nights for music to return to the streets.

That music is a major part of what makes our town so unique in the Spring, Summer and Fall months of the year.

Maybe soon.

A revised video of Washington, DC, where Amy and I lived for 23 years.

Music, as noted in earlier stories, is a central part of life and culture around here and I’ve spent a major part of the last nine years since returning to the county trying to capture that culture in photos and in video shot on the streets, in entertainment venues and elsewhere.

Here’s the latest offering, part of a series of shorts that will be expanded one day into a full-length documentary.

Another in a series of videos about the music scene in Floyd.  This piece is compiled of scenes shot since 2004, the year I arrived back in the Floyd area.