Music’s spirit alive
Story by Samantha Corona
Photos by Jerry Martin
Submitted photos
Up on the mountain top in the early spring, it’s quiet.
But inside the house at the bottom of White’s Mountain Lane, the spirit of bluegrass music is alive and well.
Pictures cover the dining room table, and there are many more where those came from. Each snapshot bears a special memory, a familiar group of faces and a glimpse of what happens on White’s Mountain when the weather warms up and the pickers start strumming.
“It is definitely a love,” said Tommy White, namesake and owner of the park called White’s Mountain.
That love White talks so passionately about is not only for a style of music, but for the weekend-long event he and his wife, Sybil, host twice a year just up the hill from their St. Clair Springs home – The White’s Mountain Festival “Bluegrass on the Mountain.”
“There is no profit, and sometimes we don’t break even,” White said. “We do it each time because we enjoy it and because there is something special about bluegrass.”
White started playing his own rendition of bluegrass music years ago after he picked up a banjo. He served as a captain in the U.S. Army and after some time, told Sybil he was going to pursue a pilot’s license.
“She said, ‘Oh no, you’re not,’” White laughed. “So, I took the money I was going to use for my license and bought a banjo. I quickly realized that I couldn’t sing and play the banjo, so I traded it in for a guitar, and the rest is history.”
Through her family, Sybil has been around the bluegrass-style music throughout her life. She picked up her bass, and together with friends, weekly jam sessions turned into playing shows and a $500 prize from a bluegrass band contest.
As the number of players outgrew the house, White said some friends suggested that he and Sybil make an outdoor space by opening up the cow pasture area at the top of their hill. The Whites looked into what it would take, and started to work.
“We built the entire park,” White said. “She planted every shrub and I dug every hole. We built everything up there.”
The park features a main stage that plays host to bands from surrounding cities in Alabama, as well as Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky and Florida.
It faces an open space that White reconstructed from a ravine into an amphitheater-style area that allows music lovers to bring their own chairs and blankets and be comfortable while enjoying the weekend entertainment.
Space at the very top of the mountain is reserved for those who want to set up campers and tents to stay through the weekend, although White said those spots are often limited.
There is also a concession area and picnic tables for guests to share snacks and conversations, and an old-time inspired General Store that houses White’s extensive antique collectables.
“It is designed for people who love the old traditional music and the times when you played with your family and friends and enjoyed the company,” White said. “Our friends and neighbors all perform, and we also enjoy meeting new people who want to be a part of it.”
Through word of mouth, the White’s Mountain Bluegrass Festival has grown from the once friends-only jam sessions to the weekend-long celebrations of music and history each June and October. White said performers often contact him and Sybil for the chance to play at the festival, and they’ve had guests visit from as far away as Europe and India.
Last year’s October festival drew 300-400 guests to the mountain, the usual attendance average for each event. And in recent years, it was nominated for an Alabama Tourism Award from the St. Clair County Tourism Department.
“Anything we can do to show off our home and what a great place St. Clair County is, that’s what we want to do,” White said.
In the fall, the Whites also hold an annual event called “Chimney Corner.” Families and guests are welcome to experience the fall setting on the mountain, take rides on the two-car train and get hands-on into some activities from the early days, including making maple syrup and hominy, blacksmithing, corn shelling and pumpkin picking in the White’s own pumpkin patch.
Guests can tour the old General store and see the old mailboxes from the early St. Clair Springs post office and a fully restored (and working) wood-burning stove.
White has put together a collection that takes you back in time to see everything from oil lanterns to separators that divided cream from milk, the first churners, coffee grinders, flour sifters and even gourd spoons that helped in gathering water from the wells and streams.
“In those days, there was no Wal-Mart on every corner or open around the clock. If you didn’t make it, then you didn’t have it. This was a means of survival for many people,” White said. “We try to keep some of those processes visible because a lot of people have never seen how some of these things were done.”
Tommy and Sybil are definitely proud of that history and enjoy being able to share it with others through their knowledge, their mementos and the music they believe is the soundtrack to it all.
“There’s definitely a spirit about it. Something about when you get with friends and play, and it all turns out right. You feel like you’re doing something that your ancestors did,” White said.
“You tell me that there is nothing spiritual about that.”
