Hillbilly Heaven

The Moonshiners Reunion & Mountain Music Festival is full of down home fun
BY Nathan Bayne

The first time a fellow passed me a half-gallon Mason jar full of wild peaches and wild dirty moonshine, I would have resisted if I’d known how much I’d end up liking it. And while you can expect to see several folks wielding white lightning at the 9th Annual Moonshiners Reunion this weekend in New Prospect, the real attraction is what’s on stage. The Moonshiners Reunion & Mountain Music Festival is a two-day event featuring local and regional bluegrass bands on an outdoor stage with surrounding campsites and the beauty of the Foothills ushering in the fall.”We’re sort of the outlaws of bluegrass,” says Barney Barnwell of the Plum Hollow Band, which headlines the event. Barnwell hosts the festival on his 50-acre farm near Spartanburg and welcomes in nearly a half-dozen other traditional and alternative bluegrass bands. Scheduled to perform are the Custom Grass Snakes, the Electric City Hillbillys, the Drovers Old Time Medicine Show, Cedar Top and Hobo.

But the impressive collection of talent is only part of the Moonshiners experience, as informal jam sessions take place all along the winding wooded trails behind the stage. “I’ve counted up to seven banjo pickers at one campsite,” Barnwell says. “We want people that are into the music and into the atmosphere of getting down in the woods and having a party.”

As much a cultural celebration as anything else, the festival celebrates the heritage of folk music and the history of moonshining near South Carolina’s “Dark Corners.” There’s usually more than one Confederate flag flying amongst the campsites and plenty of fresh venison being stewed, as the diversity of festival goers reflects the broad spectrum of bluegrass lovers.

“College kids and bootleggers seem to mix real well together,” Barnwell says. “We’ve got the youngest of the young, and the oldest of the old.”

Ed Campbell or “Grandpa,” as he goes by on stage, of the Drovers Old Time Medicine Show, echoes Barnwell. “Moonshiners Reunion has a lot younger crowd than normal bluegrass festivals,” he says. “It’s more of a raise hell crowd, with a lot more partying.” But Campbell adds that at a recent show, “A 60-something-year-old guy told me he’d been to Moonshiner’s and loved it.”

“You got your hippie crowd and your hard core folks there together,” Campbell says. “The bands are as diverse as the crowd and that helps make it unique. There’s the folk side of bluegrass, the traditional stuff, and then there’s Barney and them mixing in some Black Sabbath and Jethro Tull.”

Without a doubt, the festival field is always most crowded when Barnwells’ Plum Hollow Band takes the stage, blending high-energy traditional bluegrass with rock n’ roll, creating something they call “Mountain Rock.” Many of their songs are about moonshining and southern culture. Mixing Johnny Cash, Jimi Hendrix and Cream with bluegrass and gospel, the band produces a truly unique and captivating sound. Barnwell is himself an amazing entertainer, as he dances around the stage in his signature overalls, conducting the band with the whipping of his fiddle bow.

The Plum Hollow Band is currently finishing up a new CD with songs such as “I Don’t Want Nothin’ I Got To Feed” and “I Won’t Live Nowhere I Can’t Piss Out in the Yard.”

While many festivals in our region have become quite commercialized and expensive, the Moonshiners Reunion seems to be more about the music than the money. “We don’t bring in any national entertainment because we want the festival to keep its character,” Barnwell explains. “When other events like MerleFest began hosting national acts, they started losing their regional tradition and ran off the locals.”

Camping is included in the price of admission and is encouraged. There’s food available, but most folks cook out on open fires. There are showers and public toilets available, as well as a couple of vendors who display a variety of goods like quilts and flags. “We won’t let vendors come in with a bunch of (crap). We usually only have two, and one of ’em is selling peanuts.”

The musicians are very accessible throughout the weekend, and are likely to end up playing around campfires Friday and Saturday nights after their sets are completed. “We cap the attendance at 1,500,” Barnwell says, “so we can leave everybody room to get off to their selves if they want to.”