Galax's Old Fiddler's Convention Turns 90, and the Back Roads Still Sound Like Home

A Place Among the Fiddlers

David Alm leaves Interstate 81 for the back roads of southwest Virginia to attend the 90th annual Old Fiddler's Convention in Galax, a small independent city near the North Carolina border. He describes handmade roadside signs, slow-driving valleys, and a gathering of musicians that has drawn fiddlers, banjo players, and guitarists for nine decades. The piece is a personal essay about finding a place among them.