Old Time Dance With Twin Creeks Stringband

In the late 1970s, a group of neighbors and friends got together to play the music that had been passed down in the Dry Hill and Ferrum areas of Franklin County. Some of the musicians were falling behind on their timing one day while playing and having some fun, and one spectator commented that he was going to call the group the Dry Hill Draggers. Banjo player Jimmy Boyd and his brother Billy Boyd started the official Dry Hill Draggers band in 1981. The group flourished, and more than thirty years later, some of the Dry Hill Draggers members formed Twin Creeks Stringband, including Jared Boyd, grandson of Jimmy Boyd, a third generation claw-hammer banjo player; his dad Stacy Boyd on upright bass; Jason Hambrick on guitar and vocals; and Chris Prillaman on fiddle. Twin Creeks Stringband has a particularly driving old-time beat that is irresistible to dancers, and they are popular performers at the Blue Ridge Folklife Festival, as well as at the Galax Old Fiddlers’ Convention.