Crooked Road CD Series [Back]

Gin Burris: Wind & Rain

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Gin Burris was born in 1953 and has lived all her life in Carroll County, Virginia.  Born to Roscoe and Ethel Lovell Burcham, Gin entered into a family with a profoundly rich musical heritage.  Music has been a part of Gin's life from the beginning.  "Dad says that when I was born,” Gin recalls, “Dr. Beeken slapped me on the rear and I hit a perfect high C.  That's a little early for me to remember but if he says it, then it must be true!"  In Gin’s southern mountain childhood, music was not just for public performance and presentation; it was a constant presence in the home, made with family and friends for pleasure and company.  Gin remembers Sundays in particular as a time of music making:

Every Sunday afternoon we would go to my grandmother's, my mother's mother, and sing. She lived right beside her mom and dad, which would have been my Great-Grandpa Smith. It was an every Sunday thing after church, and I just thought everybody did that. I grew up thinking that everybody made music on Sunday evenin'. I found out later that everybody didn't.

Gin says that there were hymns and folksongs performed at these gatherings, as well as some popular country music of the day.

Gin’s great-grandfather on her mother's side was legendary old-time fiddle and banjo player Glenn Smith, who appears on several Folkways records from the 1960's, notably Traditional Music From Grayson and Carroll Counties, Virginia, released in 1962, as well as a seminal collection on County Records, Clawhammer Banjo Vol. 2.  One of Smith's instruments is housed at the Smithsonian Institution. 

Gin's great aunt, Evelyn Smith Farmer, who plays guitar and autoharp, and Gin's mother, Ethel, performed on the radio in Galax, VA on Saturday mornings when Ethel was a teenager.  They were known as The Sunshine Girls, after their sponsor Sunshine Mills, purveyors of flour and corn meal.  Gin's uncle, Jesse Lovell, is also a well known guitar player and singer in the area.  The family's ancestry is from England, and Gin has traced their lineage in Virginia back to before the Civil War.

On Gin’s father Roscoe’s side, the family’s roots have also been traced back to England, going back to the 1500s.  The family came to America in the late 1670s, and settled in what is now the Grayson and Carroll County region of Virginia sometime in the mid 1700s.  Roscoe's great uncle, Sidna Myers, was a storied fiddle and banjo player who appears on John Cohen's legendary field recordings from 1965, released as High Atmosphere.  Sidna also appears with his nephew, Fulton "Jimmy Natural" Myers, with whom he played music for over 50 years, on the aforementioned County Records Clawhammer Banjo collection that features Glenn Smith.  For years, a large photograph depicting Sidna and Fulton on Sidna's front porch graced the walls of the Smithsonian Institution.   It now hangs in the First National Bank building in that cherished hotbed of old-time music, Galax, Virginia.

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