Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 12, 1993 TAG: 9308130176
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: GALAX LENGTH: Long
The stone dust would have killed him - in a horrible way.
In his lungs, it would have hardened to rock and, in time, cracked them open, causing him to bleed to death from the inside. After 20 years of carving tombstones, all the signs were there: the wheezing, a nagging cough, shortness of breath and no stamina.
"It got so bad I couldn't walk from the house to the car," he said.
Cigarettes only compounded the problem.
So, Tom Barr quit smoking. He quit the stone work.
And he turned to a life of music and sawdust.
Today, Tom Barr hardly has a minute to breathe, much less cough or wheeze. In his hometown of Galax, as he darts between his Main Street music store, the old Rex Theatre that he hopes to reopen as a live music venue and his backyard workshop, Barr is the picture of renewed exuberance - and a symbol of downtown vitality.
More and more, he is also taking a higher profile during the annual Old Fiddlers' Convention, which runs through Saturday night in Galax's Felts Park.
Last year, he spearheaded an effort by downtown merchants to sponsor a music and crafts festival to coincide with the fiddler's convention. His idea was that the convention runs mostly at night, why not give people something to do during the daytime?
Now in its second year, downtown Fiddlefest will feature its own music stage separate from the Felts Park stage, plus crafts, clogging demonstrations and a Saturday afternoon dance contest. Barr said he only sees it growing from here.
Then, of course, there is Barr's Fiddle Shop on Main Street.
During the convention, the store itself becomes another stage of sorts. Musicians gather there for impromptu jam sessions. The curious come to listen.
Sometimes, it is difficult to get in the door, Barr said.
Barr's has mom-and-pop written all over it, from the pegboard-lined walls to the cluttered array of instruments to the old accordion Barr keeps on hand to fool with when the notion hits.
Downstairs, there are more instruments, in various states of disrepair. Barr plans to fix them eventually. "I'm pretty much behind," he explained, with considerable understatement. In fact, between repairs and back orders for handcrafted instruments, he is two years behind.
Stapled along one wall of the basement are snapshots from fiddlers' conventions of years past. Someday, Barr hopes to use the pictures and convert this cellar into a fiddlers' museum and coffee shop.
There isn't time for that now, however.
Around the corner, Barr has a more pressing project at the long-neglected Rex Theatre. Once Galax's only movie house, it has been bought by the Downtown Association to use for its monthly Mountain Music Jamborees and other events.
Barr is overseeing its restoration.
Appropriately, the two movie posters up in the lobby are from "The Big Fix" and "Lucky Lady." "Those are the only signs we could find to stick in there," he said.
The Rex hasn't been open for a decade and needs a $250,000 overhaul. However, with $60,000 in repairs, Barr believes he can have the theater open - at least for the monthly jamborees - by November.
Then the concerts, which Barr helped get going a year ago, can go through the winter. Currently, they are held outside in a converted parking lot a few blocks away.
Saving the Rex has become a community effort. "For most of the people in town, their first dates or their first kiss probably was done in this theater. People have these memories of these old places like that," Barr said.
Barr, 51, grew up on a farm outside Galax, in Grayson County, where his family didn't have much and played music for their entertainment. A childhood accident left him blind in one eye.
As an adult, Barr became an apprentice draftsman at a tombstone and monument company in Mount Airy, N.C. He labored there 20 years, commuting from Galax, and left behind at least one public legacy.
Barr carved the Vietnam War Memorial in Lexington, Ky.
With his health declining, though, he was forced to quit about 10 years ago, and started handcrafting fiddles and banjos and dulcimers to order. "I just traded cutting stone for cutting wood," he said.
Hardly. Two of Barr's pieces are now part of a Ferrum College exhibit on handcrafted musical instruments that is touring the state. He has customers in Australia, England and Italy.
In 1985, he opened his fiddle shop, first in a basement under the local Goodwill store. He moved downtown in 1990. But his main workshop is at home in an unheated shed he built in the backyard.
The shed smells of aged maple wood and spruce. Piled just about everywhere are blocks of lumber waiting to be transformed into something musical. Most of the timber was cut by Barr himself on nearby White Top Mountain.
"I've got enough wood to last probably another 100 years," he said.
Choosing just the right piece is important. Barr picks his wood by the sound it makes when he taps on it with his knuckle. A good piece will resonate naturally, he said.
Barr shares his workshop with a mother bird that decided to nest among the wood scraps this summer. He tries to spend three days a week in the shop if he can, leaving his son, Steve, to run the store downtown. His wife, Becky, works in physical therapy.
In the last 15 years, he estimates he has made more than 400 instruments, from guitars to mandolins to autoharps to fiddles and banjos. His prices range from $200 to $1,000 per finished piece.
No two are ever alike. Some have carved designs notched into the woodwork. And each has its own distinct pitch and personality, according to what nature has done with the original piece of wood.
Barr is mostly self-taught. He also learned some of his techniques from several older instrument makers around Galax who have since died. Either way, Barr believes he is on the right track.
In 1988, he went to Italy with his band, the Blue Ridge Mountain String Band, on a trip sponsored by the U.S. State Department to showcase American music. While there, he spent one morning observing a violin maker at his shop in Venice and discovered they basically shared the same methods.
Barr does the same at his own shop. His door is always open to anyone interested in learning his craft, and he said about a half-dozen people who got their start with him are still making instruments.
That rewarding, he said.
It is also fulfilling to walk around the fiddlers' convention and find a dozen or more musicians playing his instruments. "That makes it worthwhile," he said.
Musicians, in turn, are loyal to Barr. He regularly corresponds with musician friends from Florida to Wisconsin. During the convention each year, about 30 people come and camp at his house. His annual Friday night barbecues during the convention typically draw 150 people.
It is a gratifying life - and it sure beats the alternative, Barr said.
"I don't miss that stone dust a bit."
The 58th Annual Old Fiddlers' Convention continues through Saturday in Felts Park, Galax. Tonight and Friday, 6 p.m.; Saturday, noon. 236-8541.
by CNB