This is the latest installment in our Main Street NC series from the WUNC Politics Podcast. We're visiting communities across the state to hear from local leaders about the positives going on in their towns, and the challenges they face, from storm damage to gentrification.
For the past two decades, music has filled the otherwise quiet streets of downtown Fountain every week.
Nationally touring bands like Ohio-based "My Brother’s Keeper," along with local musicians, play at the R.A. Fountain General Store in this town of just 400 people between Wilson and Greenville.
Alex Albright and his wife Elizabeth host concerts in the 100-year-old general store that still has many of its original features. The bands are surrounded by old store shelves now filled with books and antiques. And at intermission, the crowds seated in old church pews head to the soda fountain in back for fresh-squeezed orangeade and cups of ice cream from a local creamery.
Now the general store is no longer the only place to find music in this sleepy two-block historic downtown.
A couple doors down from the concert venue, Freeman Vines has set up his workshop in an old drug store. Sawdust covers the old floors where the 82-year-old builds custom guitars from reclaimed wood. Vines’ guitars have been played by prominent blues and R&B musicians like Albert White.
Vines tells me how his guitars produce a different sound than their mass-produced counterparts.
“We were using old wood that had been here for years, rained on, peed on,” he said. “It had a different tone than the commercially processed wood, a different tone. You could put the same John Browne pickup and stuff on a commercial piece of wood, and it didn't sound like it did on the wood that had been abused and thrown away and rained on and stuff.”
It's a complicated process but it results in unique instruments that have been featured in art museums.
Vines moved his workshop from a small barn to this downtown storefront thanks to his partnership with the Music Maker Relief Foundation, led by folklorist and photographer Tim Duffy. Duffy also helped produce a book about his work, including one of his guitars made from wood from a “hanging tree” used in lynchings.
“He said, ‘you need somewhere to work,’ and he surprised me when he gave me the keys to the place,” Vines said.
That’s the kind of support for older musicians that Music Maker has become known for across the South, Duffy says.
“Music Maker Foundation has been going since 1994 to help musicians help themselves, keep music alive and keep southern musical traditions,” he said. “We help with sustenance, helping them keep their rent going, medicine going, professional development, helping them make CDs, by doing books and museum exhibitions.”
Music Maker expanded its presence in Fountain this year, buying two more storefronts next to the Vines workshop to build a recording studio and photography studio. The goal is to provide an easily accessible location in eastern North Carolina for bands and musicians to produce albums and publicity materials – and sometimes perform at the R.A. Fountain General Store while they’re in town.
Music Maker’s work is funded by donors and charitable foundations from across the country, but it’s also received some support from the North Carolina Arts Council.
That’s the organization funded by state government that backs arts initiatives across the state. Executive director Jeff Bell explains how the agency helps ensure the state’s smallest communities have access to the arts.
“One of the things North Carolina is really known for, as far as the state arts agency, is our investment in all 100 counties,” he said. “That's now our biggest grant program, and that's $6.3 million of the money that we received to grant out from the state goes out to all 100 counties. “
Bell says the legislature has increased Arts Council funding in recent years, but more money can be used to expand the arts – and the economic activity it brings – to communities large and small.
“Artists and arts organizations know how to do a lot with a little bit of money, so the return on the investment is phenomenal,” he said.
Back in Fountain, Duffy is working to organize recording sessions with an array of musicians. He’s getting help from Freeman Vines’ sister Alice, who lives nearby and has toured internationally with her gospel group, the Glorifying Vines Sisters. She’s performed with the likes of the Blind Boys of Alabama and has deep connections in the musical community.
She says her musical career had slowed down a bit by the time her group connected with Music Maker. The nonprofit has helped them book gigs and plan tours.
“Music Maker picked us back up, put us back on the road, and it has been a great blessing to us,” Alice Vines said.
The new facilities from Music Maker, coupled with the long-running success of the concerts at R.A. Fountain General Store, show the impact that music and the arts can have in North Carolina’s rural communities.
WUNC spoke with Tim Duffy from the Music Maker Relief Foundation and Alex Albright of the R.A. Fountain General Store at the new recording studio about how their efforts are revitalizing Fountain.
NOTE: This transcript has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Why did Music Maker choose Fountain as you were looking to expand with this recording studio?
Duffy: "Because Fountain is like one of the great cradles of African American musical experience in the world. It's where gospel music was created, here in this corridor of the Carolinas, and there's this huge community of music here. It's a wonderful community, very welcoming and very rich culturally."
How did the R.A. Fountain General Store get started as a performance venue?
Albright: "It was an accident, really. We tried a business that would be open every day, and it failed miserably, but people enjoyed the music. We discovered what a gorgeous sound was produced in that old building, and so we started gradually evolving more into a music venue."
Have you had any challenges with getting both performing artists and crowds to come out to a venue in a town this tiny?
Albright: "Almost every person who plays here wants to know about how many people do we expect? And we expect to open the doors and see what happens. That's all we can do. Sometimes there's a big crowd… But we've had some great shows with eight people in the audience."
Is this kind of unique approach a model that allows life to be brought back into these old buildings?
Albright: "What really helps is to have a good day job. I taught at (East Carolina University) for 37 years, and I often said that my business was subsidized by the state. It's very difficult to go in unless you got really deep pockets to do the years that it takes to turn something around. It's been quite helpful for Tim to move his operation here, but yeah, it's been 21 years, and we've spent a lot of time looking at empty streets."
What sort of advantages are there to this space? Because you could put a recording studio in a strip mall anywhere.
Duffy: "Nashville, Tennessee, offers the most state-of-the-art studios in the world, and they all leave looking for places like Fountain, because it has a vibe. It has Miss Paulette to go meet at one of the most delightful post offices in the in the country. You go find vintage records down at Alex's place and find an old book at Alex's. All these musicians are very well known, very well-traveled. They love coming here. They drive from Mississippi or Nashville, and they just treasure coming back here, just for the experience. They think it's like Muscle Shoals used to be in the ‘60s."
Listen to the full podcast episode here. And find WUNC on the radio in Fountain and Pitt County at 90.9 FM.
