CityView Magazine

listening and keeping time with their toes. Marsha and Martin Olive of Smithfield own Cypress House and have been welcoming bluegrass lovers each week since 2002. They charge the musicians $3 each to play. Listeners get in for $5. The music begins every Thursday night around 6:30. Marsha said she locks the doors at 10, but that doesn’t mean the musicians go home. “I leave here, and they’re out in the yard playing,” she said with a laugh and a shrug. Many bluegrass musicians learned to play as children, having grown up in families where learning an instrument or singing in church was part of everyday life. Many, like Marsha Olive, who joins the bands to sing a few tunes most nights at Cypress House, had musically- inclined parents. Her mother, Dorothy Honeycutt Moore, encouraged her daughter to sing in church. “I was raised up in music,” Marsha said. “My mother plays the piano, and if someone gives her the opportunity to play, she’s there.” Jim Caulder of Lumberton knows the guitar, mandolin and the banjo and plays wherever he can, from Carthage to Shallotte. He’s president of the Lumber River Regional Bluegrass Association and likes to organize jam sessions and events. “Music is an expression, and it’s an attempt, a need to express yourself,” said Caulder, whose first instrument was a harmonica, which he got at age 4. “Bluegrass music is built around stories, just like in life. Those who can sing it with the most expression and emotion are the most successful.” Country folks in rural North Carolina would often get together to tie tobacco or slaughter a hog or shuck a few bushels of corn. Often there would be music and dancing after the work was done, Caulder said. Many musicians are self-taught, he added, or learned the skill from a parent, uncle, aunt or cousin. Once they learn to play, though, most of them are hooked. The music lives in their souls. And these souls live to play it. “It’s like being an alcoholic,” said Charles Carlisle of Autryville, who’s Top | Charles Harold, left, and Carlisle Norris croon bluegrass tunes at Cypress House. Center | Folks of all ages gather here every Thursday night, including Autri Ivey, left, and Autumn Baker. Bottom | Johnny MacLamb, left, and O.A. Champion have help from a few friends. CityViewNC.com | 49

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