PUMPKINTOWN — A lilting rhythm of strums, plucks, picks and slides, backed by a steady bass thump, filled a century-old schoolhouse. The music floated through the wide-open door and around the corner, reaching the cemetery holding the bones of the village’s first settler.
This remote corner of South Carolina in the Blue Ridge Mountain foothills is part of the Upstate region, which was ravaged just a week earlier by Helene — a powerful hurricane that still packed tropical-storm force winds and rain when it pushed this far inland from the Florida Gulf.
But the music played on, specifically Oct. 4, for the weekly bluegrass jam at the historic Oolenoy Community House in Pickens County. More than a dozen musicians toted banjos, guitars, dobros, a mandolin and one fiddle across the threshold and took seats gathered in a circle on the rich wooden floor. The stage behind them was adorned with a large mural of a pumpkin, an homage to the town's name — which lore says came from a long-ago traveler marveling at the valley filled with the large fruit.
Others joined to hear the music, and to connect with community that had been mostly distanced for a week by downed trees, sagging power lines and impassable roads. They pushed on without electricity, internet or cell service.
“There’s a community there right now,” said Josh Johnson, who grew up in Pumpkintown and now organizes the weekly jams. “We had it right after covid, then things got back to normal. Now, with the hurricane, it’s back again.”
Josh Johnson, center, plays fiddle while flanked by his daughter, Molly, and Doug Turner, both playing banjo during the Friday night bluegrass jam at the Oolenoy Community House in Pumpkintown on Oct. 4, 2024.
This night, especially, Stephen Wright needed its return.
He arrived in town before the storm, staying in an RV along a secluded stretch of the Saluda River. He was back to comfort his ailing father. But he moved from the river’s edge just before the storm arrived.
On Sept. 27, Helene flooded the Saluda far beyond its banks. Its entire flow changed direction, Wright said.
When he made his way out to the road the next day, Wright found tree after tree blocking his way to a Greenville hospital. Some 30 neighbors, wielding chainsaws and collective grit, worked six hours to clear the way — and get Wright to his father’s side.
“I went straight to the hospital, dirty,” said Wright, who grew up in Greenville but now lives in Columbia.
Ansel Wright died Thursday. He was to be buried Oct. 5.
The night before the service, his son came to Pumpkintown with Larry Anderson, his father’s longtime best friend.
“I try to be here every time they open the doors,” said Anderson, 78.
Stephen Wright and Larry Anderson tap their feet as they listen to musicians play in the Friday night bluegrass jam at the Oolenoy Community House in Pumpkintown on Oct. 4, 2024.
On this night, he told Stephen Wright that he needed to be here, too. His father often played guitar within these walls, though he picked with a smaller group in an adjoining room rather than sit in on the jam.
One day when he builds up the courage, Stephen Wright plans to play his father’s favorite song — “Walk With Me,” by The Primitive Quartet.
That will take time, he admitted.
“I’ll probably play it here,” Wright said, seated on a church pew in the back of the community house to listen, tap his feet and think of his father. At times, his eyes welled.
“We’ve got to count our blessings, and this is one of them,” he said of the gathering.
Oregon Long, of Dacusville, drops money into the donation jar at the Oolenoy Community House in Pumpkintown, Pickens County, during the Friday night bluegrass jam, Oct. 4, 2024.
Kenny Bradley sat up front with his wife, her sister and her husband. He also thought of his father when a particular tune was played — known as “Soldier’s Joy,” here and by a reference to the Sixtowns in Northern Ireland, where Bradley is from.
He said the music was similar to the traditional string music that is played in Scotland and Ireland. Music from here even makes it back there, he said.
“It shows you that music travels across the sea,” said Bradley, who plays tenor banjo in Draperstown, located in Northern Ireland’s Sperrin Mountains. He and his wife arrived after the storm to visit family that moved to the area in May.
Indeed, that is the history of Appalachian and Americana folk music, which are influences on bluegrass. Its roots are Scots Irish, brought by people who settled in the mountains and other parts of the South.
Cars parked outside the Oolenoy Community House in Pumpkintown, Pickens County, for the Friday night bluegrass jam, Oct. 4, 2024.
“The music has progressed over time, but the way that it is passed down is exactly the same,” said Johnson, 48. “I think that is one of the things that makes this music so unique — it’s still an oral tradition.”
After skipping the Friday the storm hit, Johnson said it was important to bring people back together and reestablish community. The Pumpkintown jam is one of many held in the Upstate, as well as across Appalachia and the country. Sadly, many have come and gone.
After being held at the Pumpkintown Mountain Opry and the former Foothills Mall in Easley, Oolenoy Community House has hosted the jam for three decades. At $60 for the weekly rental, Johnson said they hardly look to make money through donations or hawking hot coffee and cold soda. They just want to keep the doors open.
“When we come down here on Friday nights, it’s as much a community event as it is about the music,” he said.
This night, he was joined by his daughter, Molly, who grew up coming to the center and jams. Now that she is part of a band, “The Wilder Flower,” that isn’t always possible. This weekend’s gigs, however, got canceled.
She took her place in the circle and played banjo for hours. Another band member, Danielle Yother, arrived with her guitar. (The third band member is Madeline Diefauf on fiddle.)
Danielle Yother, center, plays guitar during the Friday night bluegrass jam at the Oolenoy Community House in Pumpkintown on Oct. 4, 2024. To her right is William Campbell of Easley on bass, and to her left is Libby Cantrell of Tigerville on dobro.
Yother also grew up spending Friday nights at Pumpkintown jams. She and Johnson both were part of the Young Appalachian Musicians (YAM) program.
“It’s always good to be able to come back here,” said Yother, 25, of Pickens. “It’s like a family (and) welcoming here.
“It’s not very hard to just show up.”
Dean Henderson, wearing a worn hat with the pumpkin mural to his back, got the night started with Bill Monroe's "I Wonder Where You Are Tonight." He strummed his guitar and others joined with mandolin, another guitar and a few banjos. More musicians — and people to listen — arrived over time, and the music carried on for hours.
From left, Doug Turner of Simpsonville plays banjo, Dean Henderson of Pickens plays guitar and Paulette Henderson plays mandolin at the Friday night bluegrass jam at the Oolenoy Community House in Pumpkintown on Oct. 4, 2024.
"I look forward to this. It will even make your foot jump up and down," said Anderson, tapping his black lace-up shoe on the wooden floor with his left foot and bouncing his right hand on his knee.
Cowboy boots, work boots, Crocs and running shoes joined in, keeping time and marking the offbeat tempo — even if they weren't playing. They were equally part of the community gathered in the old white schoolhouse tucked on a hillside off the beaten path.