Pickin' sessions are as old as Southern music

Pam Teston had the chairs pulled round as pickers arrived, guitar cases in hand, to Bayvale Baptist Church.

The stage was set, but there was something about it that wouldn't do justice to the Americana music played here, said Mrs. Teston, who organizes these monthly Pick'n and Praise'n nights.

"I wish we just had a big ol' front porch to be playing from," she said. "It's that sort of old country soul you find here."

A dozen or more musicians meet on the third Saturdays of the month. Some nights they play in a round, showcasing original songs or covers. Other nights they'll share the stage in a guitar pull.

Pickin' nights like these are the original open-mic nights. They're as old as the music itself, said Wade Teston, Mrs. Teston's husband, who plays guitar at Pick'n and Praise'n nights.

"What you have here is a Southern tradition. It might not look like much, but there's real talent in this room," he said.

Pickin' nights have been a Southern staple since the 1800s, even before bluegrass emerged in the 1940s, said Glenn Hinson, an associate professor of folklore and anthropology at the University of North Carolina.

"It's been a part of Southern culture as long as there's been a Southern culture," Dr. Hinson said. "I dare say one could trace that as far back as one could trace the music."

The earliest gatherings included fiddles, as they do today, but might also have included reed instruments, piano or cello.

"It was whatever they had," he said. "They'd all be playing by ear, the same way fiddlers do today."

There's not much written about the history of pickers because "their sort of informal gathering has always existed," said Dr. Hinson, who edited a volume on folklife in The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture .

Nonetheless, the sessions have their own informal code of conduct that's persisted through centuries, he said. At Bayvale, Pickin' nights are free to play, free to listen. Anybody can join, but plenty of people just listen.

"It's a showcase for musicians, but some people just want to hear this sort of music played," said Lori Newton, who sang with her son Tyler, 8. "You never know who you're going to be singing for."

The music draws a diverse crowd.

"The idea behind the session is community. It's a group of musicians coming together with a shared heritage and musical knowledge," Dr. Hinson said. "The picking session is one of those places in the South that really can cross class boundaries."

In the Jim Crow South of the 1930s and '40s, black and white musicians picked together, he said.

"You have working people, and you have folks who are much more firmly middle class who are on common ground at a pickin' session. You have folks with a lot of education and folks with little formal education," he said. "They're people who in most areas of Southern life aren't interacting anywhere else."

"The pickin' sessions," he said, "became a unifier."

Mrs. Teston never knows who, or just how many people, will show up.

"You learn to trust that there are people who still care about old timey music," she said.

Many are drawn to the music because it reminds them of a slower pace of life.

"In humid weather these guitars still think they're trees. They don't cooperate," said Douglas Oxford, a regular participant at the sessions. "We spend as much time tuning as pickin', and that's OK."

Reach Kelly Jasper at (706) 823-3552 or kelly.jasper@augustachronicle.com.