Crooked Road CD Series [Back]

Gin Burris: Wind & Rain

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Gin soon became a seasoned performer with her family, which traveled during the summers as a family troupe of old-time flatfoot dancers.  Some family members danced, while others provided the music.  One time, they performed for the infamous Governor George Wallace of Alabama.  Mostly, they would perform at music festivals and fiddlers’ conventions.  These gatherings usually center around contests between the performers. When Gin was fifteen or sixteen years old she entered a singing competition for the first time.  Until then, she had competed only as a dancer.

It was at this time in her life that Gin first became aware of the wealth and uniqueness of her musical upbringing:

I would say probably when I first started competing, when I was like 15, 16 years old is probably when it really, actually sunk in what the songs were that I was singing. The old-time music... I grew up hearing it from the time I was born, and I just thought everybody played it.  I thought it was a common thing.  But when I got into high school, I found out a lot of my friends didn't even know what I was talking about.  Then it hit me that it must be something kind of special that we've got, because the majority of them didn't even go to the fiddlers’ conventions or anything.  I was like, "I can't believe this.  I thought everybody done this!”

In addition to dancing and singing, Gin is a bassist, as well as a master player of the dulcimer.  Gin is also a wife and mother who makes her home in Hillsville, Virginia.  When time permits, she and her husband Joey, who is a fine old-time and bluegrass musician as well, continue to perform at fiddlers’ conventions.  They have both amassed an impressive number of ribbons and awards over the years, including many at the Galax Old Fiddlers’ Convention, one of the most prestigious competitions in the field.  Of special note in a long career of championships, Gin's 2006 victory in the dulcimer category at Galax marked an astounding seven championships in that category alone.  She has also won at many other competitions in several different categories.  Only an elite few musicians can lay claim to performance careers as successful as those of the Burrises.

When asked what victory stands out the most in her many years of competition, Gin recalls one some years ago at Galax, a small contest called the Twin County Hillbilly Championships:

I won first place in the vocal. I was 29 years old, and that was the first time I have ever won anything singing. The first time!  I had competed since I was 15, all over the place, and never won a thing. That's the one that stands out the most. I had competed for 13 or 14 years in folksong and never won a thing in the world, and then I won first place. It was a lot easier after that, I think.

Given that performers are usually limited to entering only one category in the competitions and that Gin hasn't fronted a band for some years, her remarkable talent as a singer is relatively unknown to the world at large. "I don't get asked to do a lot of shows," she says, amazingly.  "A lot of people don't even know I sing."

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