The Washington Post

Floyd Country Store Exterior

Think Floyd
Looking for the roots of bluegrass? Let your thoughts turn to this tiny Virginia burg and its neighbors.

By Julian Smith, January 28, 2004

This unprepossessing place, with its shelves of rusty saw blades and Raggedy Ann dolls, is slowly gaining fame as one of the best places on the East Coast to hear live bluegrass and country music (real country — we’ll get to that) in a setting so sincere that it’s almost hard for a city dweller to comprehend.

It’s Friday night, the town of Floyd is hopping and we’re one stop into our roots-music tour of southwest Virginia. Thanks to history and a lingering isolation, there is a wealth of out-of-the-way places with live music and dancing in this part of the south-central Appalachians. We have only a weekend, though, so we’ve narrowed it down to two places: Floyd tonight and the Carter Family Fold farther south tomorrow.

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