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Round Hill jam session in peril
Bluegrass guitar player Randy Collins says he doesn't know where Loudoun bluegrass would be without the Round Hill Arts Center.“Bluegrass is passed from person to person -- it's learned by going to jam sessions,” said Collins, a steel-string guitar player for the bluegrass band Flint Hollow. “If these sorts of events don't occur, the music kind of dies.”
The Round Hill Arts Center is housed in a two-story wood-frame building on Loudoun Street, which was formerly an old furniture factory built in the late 1880s. It hosts a monthly bluegrass and folk jam session, which attracts about 200 people -- twice that many in the summer.
“It's a very informal kind of setting and a lot of fun,” Collins said.
A visit from the Loudoun County Fire Marshal last week threatened to cancel the event, which has been held without fail on the last Friday of each month since August 2003.
“Whenever we're aware of a problem or a potential issue, we have an obligation to check it out,” said Chief Fire Marshal Keith Brower, who wouldn't say what prompted the visit.
The building is slated for business uses and can host a maximum of 49 people at a time. The center draws in more than four times that amount and is considered an assembly hall.
Changes are needed to bring the building up to code if it is to continue being used as an assembly hall, Brower said.
Some of those changes could include adding a sprinkler system, emergency lighting and exit signs, and changing the doors to open outward rather than inward, the fire marshal said.
Wally Johnson, who co-owns the building with his wife, Carolyn Kruger, estimates the cost of these additions between $50,000 and $100,000.
Currently, the monthly jam session is free of charge, but Johnson said funds will need to be raised to pay for improvements.
“People are going to step up and help,” he said.
Johnson and his wife donated the building five years ago to be used as an arts center.
The county fire marshal's visit did not interrupt the March 28 event. The arts center was allowed to carry on with plans by closing off the second floor, which is used primarily for Celtic musicians to jam, and by adding tents outside the building for other musicians.
“The county opened their arms to let this event continue,” said event regular John Foug, a Lovettsville resident who goes to the jam session to watch his 16-year-old son Eli Apperson play guitar. He said the musicians who attend the event are a tightknit group.
“It's not going to go away,” Foug said of the event. “It's going to thrive.”
Allowing it to carry on in March was a one-time thing, Johnson said, who is concerned about the status of this month's jam session.
But regulars said the event won't be held up by anything.
Foug said about three or four years ago, he was helping Johnson carry bags of ice to the arts center for the concert. Johnson was down because a family member had recently died, and Foug suggested Johnson cancel the event.
“Wally said, 'John, I couldn't stop this is I tried,'” Foug said.
For more information on the Round Hill Arts Center, visit www.roundhillartscenter.org.
Contact the reporter at hhobbs@timespapers.com
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