Friday Night Jamboree, Rockbridge, Missouri 

A sandstone-colored ’94 GMC backs into the grassy parking lot, muffler growling, checkered race flags adorning the rear window. The blue-jean-clad driver hops out into the cool Ozark dusk, moving swiftly but unhurriedly toward the bed of the pickup. Dropping the tailgate, he reaches into the back and deftly removes a large, black object with an unmistakable shape.

A double bass.

It’s Friday night, and for some Southwest Missourians, that means only one thing: the weekly gathering at Athel Jackson’s barn – the Friday Night Jamboree.

Tucked away in the Ozarks – the definitive region that belongs to itself more than any particular state – jam sessions are a tie that links a rocky history to the rocky terrain.

Somewhere between hardship and dignity, with roots in religion and war, tradition emerges in the form of a distinct and sometimes ancient musical repertoire.

Over the past 10 to 20 years, the traditional Ozark jam session, centuries in the making, has experienced an inexplicable revival. Jam sessions fill old schoolhouses, barns and homes five nights a week across southwest Missouri. Yet, the passing of a generation threatens to bring an end or at least a decline in not only the music but also a way of life.

For the previous 40 miles, the road had dwindled from divided highway to shoulderless two-lane, to a curving, twisting local road. Rockbridge, Mo., my assumed destination, turned out to be a trout ranch in a valley with no explained exits. But the polite receptionist confidently provided directions, with scattered comments on the character and health of the jamboree’s regulars.

Four miles, she estimated.

Slightly more than four miles up Highway N, the white-lettered black sign pointed directly to the destination: “Friday Night Jamboree.” The dirt driveway led into a dairy farm amid the distinctive rolling hills as the sun was just beginning to set over the blue Ozark horizon.

The parking lot, a grassy expanse that bore no explanation beyond an arrow-shaped parking sign, left me more than a little confused. I pulled in next to another car from which a couple was emerging.

“Are ya lost?” the gentleman asked, sounding certain.

I explained I was exactly where I was supposed to be. I just didn’t know where to park.

Without a question, he invited me in.

His back is to the stage, but as Gordon McCann orates the history of the Ozarks, it is hard to believe he is missing a note. McCann, a 74-year-old retired businessman from Springfield, Mo., has become a student of his own world. Raised in the Ozarks, the amateur guitar player and music historian is a loquacious proponent of Ozark culture, history and, above all, music.

“There should never have been a Southern Missouri and Northern Arkansas,” McCann said, quoting a friend’s comment about the regions’ aligned values and identical European roots. “It should have been the state of the Ozarks.”

About 30 years ago, McCann began a simple project that has turned into an extensive historical documentation. Now boasting a computer database of 62,000 Ozark fiddle tunes and drawers filled with more than 3,000 tape recordings, McCann began taping the actual jam sessions in 1972 out of a simple desire to learn the aurally passed music.

Not until he began taping did he realize the volume and variety of the fiddlers’ repertoires. Without a written note or often even the ability to read music, the fiddlers boasted memorized collections of hundreds of tunes – some dating to the late 1600s.

“It hasn’t been written down,” McCann said of the music tradition. “It’s all come aurally. It’s gone from family to family or neighbor to neighbor. That’s why you have so many different styles. Nobody hears the same thing exactly the same. And it’s OK to have your own lick, as they call it, as long as you don’t lose the identity of the tune. But when they lose the identity of the tune, they just give it another name, and you’ve got another tune.”

Somehow in this aural passing, the original tunes remain pure. While playing a traditional song with fiddlers from Ireland, McCann said he noticed that, despite the tune’s crossing the ocean 200 years ago, he didn’t need to change a note. As change diffused across the country and community jam sessions collapsed behind the power of television, the Ozark musicians somehow managed to hang on.

“Well, because we just remained more isolated here,” McCann explained. “There wasn’t any reason for anybody to come in down here. They’d come look at this rocky soil, and they didn’t want to fool with that, you know.”

The Civil War’s violence and family splits between the North and the South, combined with the hardships of the land and a short life expectancy, left the people with a tension to be relieved. McCain said the customary music and dancing filled their leisure time and provided the necessary relief.

Although life is less challenging today, the music tradition continues. But McCann fears a decline is in sight.

“When [my] generation here is gone, I don’t know what you’re going to find,” McCann said. “You go to a square dance, and you go to these music parties, you’ll see children there up ’til about junior high age, then there’s a big gap. You won’t see teenagers. They’ll say, ‘It’s not cool.’”

He contends that television and mass media have the potential to drown the centuries-old musical tradition of the Ozarks. Up until this point, the traditional fiddle music has not become marketable, changing only as the fiddlers themselves adapt it. But McCann said the popular music market increasingly threatens this custom.

“It’s just a different world, you know,” he said. “What the sociologists call this in the rest of the country is mainstreaming. Everybody wants to be like Chicago or New York or Hollywood or something like that. That didn’t get here, but it’s getting here now.”

Athel Jackson’s “barn” does not appear to be a barn at all. Built for the Ava, Mo., 4-H club and casual music events, Jackson began renting the rather generic-looking building about two years ago to a group of jam-session enthusiasts seeking a site.

With white walls and baby blue trim, meager decorations and a collection of mismatched tables and chairs, the barn’s purpose overpowers its décor. A complete kitchen lies to the left upon entrance, an elevated quilting area to the right. And straight ahead in the T-shaped open space, beyond the lawn furniture and several rows of pews, resides a simple stage.

Carpeted, with a low, white guardrail, the stage’s centrality is unmistakable.

Thirteen folding chairs and two microphones wait in an ellipse for the musicians to arrive. And, ever so gradually, they do.

With a flow of greetings – “hi,” “hello” and the occasional “howdy” – the musicians and their eager audience begin to stream through the doorways, dropping their $2 cover charge in a rectangular plastic container and signing the attendance book. Those bearing potluck dishes head directly toward the kitchen as musicians walk the maze of salutations while lugging their instruments toward the stage.

Don Walker, one of the Jamboree’s organizers, said musicians and avid listeners can find Ozark jam sessions to attend nearly every night of the week – except Wednesday and Sunday, when religion takes precedence.

Despite the camaraderie of the Jamboree, Walker insists the presence of “strangers” is common. Yet, as the musicians’ attention turns from greeting old friends to introducing themselves to me, I realize that I am noticeably the nonregular.

But the atmosphere is welcoming nonetheless – for musicians, nonmusicians and the requisite in-betweens.

“There’s a lot of people up there playing that’s good, and I can remember when they couldn’t play at all,” Walker said, describing the presence of beginners.

“I was one of them,” double bassist Harold Goodnight said, nudging Walker and emitting an easy, unguarded laugh.

By 6:55 p.m., musicians are easing toward the stage, opening cases and removing instruments – ranging from homemade mandolins to Glen Simpson’s $5,000 guitar. The sound of plucking strings resonates behind the potluck conversation, and as it picks up, more musicians catch on. The first hint of a melody breaks through at 7:05 p.m. As the musicians gradually fill the circle of folded chairs, a microphone is positioned. And then, out of a handful of concurrent warm-up tunes, a cohesive melody begins behind the lead of a guitar.

The barn’s owner, Athel Jackson, keeps his eyes on the stage, comfortable in his blue flannel shirt and dark blue jeans. Mainly a bluegrass man and mandolin player, Jackson started playing the guitar at the age of 8 amid a culture of jam sessions. There, the young musician learned the art of
jamming the traditional way: by ear.

“Some of my mother’s people who were musicians, they couldn’t even write their names,” he said. “But play music? Yeah. You could call that a natural gift.”

Jackson, a soft-spoken retired dairy farmer who crafts his own intricate mandolins during the winter, said jam sessions like the Jamboree feature a combination of bluegrass, country and gospel music. As the microphone passes from musician to musician, the style changes according to the tastes, and often talents, of the lead.

When a wayward note strikes in the background, Jackson doesn’t bat an eye. To him, the learning environment of the jam session is its main purpose. Young musicians, like the 7- and 9-year-old fiddlers currently fighting through their turn at the lead, learn to erase stage fright and adapt to the styles of the adjacent musicians. Most importantly, however, they inherit and continue the tradition.

“If we don’t get the younger people going, it’ll die out,” Jackson proclaimed without a hint of speculation as to whether or not the next generation will accept the responsibility. 

But for now, listening to a jam session on his own property, Jackson is doing his part.

When the jam session moved here two years ago, he admitted he wondered how exactly he would feel about the presence of 60 to 80 people on his property each Friday night. Now, the 73-year-old Jackson said he looks forward to it, which, in the eyes of frequent attendees, may be a bit of an understatement.

“In the summertime, we get [the musicians] out of here, and we lock the door, but they sit out on the porch and play ’til 2 o’clock in the morning,” said Walker, who runs the jam session with his wife and two other couples. He added that it seems not to bother Jackson a bit.

“Sometimes Athel stays with them,” Walker said.

But at the moment, Jackson’s mandolin remains in its case.

The fiddle tune ends raggedly, with instruments fading out one by one as the musicians recognize the conclusion and devise their exits – some more smoothly than others.

An untrained voice belting a gospel tune follows a pure, subtle instrumental by a seasoned country guitarist.

The microphone continues to rotate clockwise and lands in front of the banjo of D.J. Shumate. Adjusting the microphone’s height, he nonchalantly readies himself like the pro he is.

In an instant, the 12-year-old’s fingers are dancing across the strings at a lightning pace. His right hand is a blur, but D.J. glances calmly around the circle watching the movements of his fellow musicians.

Confident and charismatic, D.J. appears to notice no difference – in age, status or skill – between himself and the other musicians. His beige “Backyard Bluegrass” T-shirt and matching hat advertise the band in which he and his father play.

Later, stroking a guitar, he casually proclaims that he can play nearly anything with strings. But the banjo, which D.J. has played for about three years, is the easy favorite – despite the rapidity of bluegrass.

“I’m just watchin’ people and watchin’ where they go to, and I just kind of relax, and [my fingers] just fly,” he said after denying the need to think as he plays.

For D.J., who plays and learns by ear, jam sessions have been intrinsic to his development.

“Well, there was a couple of people that taught me a couple of chords, and then I just sat in the jam sessions, and I would watch people, and by watchin’ people, I would be able to see stuff and try it,” he said.

The conversation ends with a short guitar serenade and a prompt return to the circle. It took coaxing to get D.J. to leave the stage, and, as if magnetized, he returns directly.

Perhaps this 12-year-old musician is exactly what Athel Jackson was talking about when he said the jam sessions exist to pass on the tradition.          

At 10:30 p.m., the Friday Night Jamboree begins to wind down. The audience clears out, and the circle tightens to a few of the most devoted. Conversation keeps some hanging around the door as goodbyes blend into extended conversations and second goodbyes.

As summer arrives, the music will stretch into the morning hours, and, as the years pass, more substantial changes may weigh on the Jamboree.
But for now, the tradition remains.    

Gordon McCann is one of the last to stroll out the door. His concerns for the future of the Ozark music culture remain to the end of the evening, but McCann recognizes that he has witnessed a range of changes in his region – from the increasing property development to the escalating pervasiveness of mainstream music.

Having spent his entire life in the Ozarks, McCann places his faith in the Ozark’s distinctive and resolute character.

“It’s the people,” he said, explaining his reason for never leaving the Ozarks. “Oh, I tell ya, they’re just wonderful people.”

Photos by Roger Meissen