Floyd, Virginia is getting attention these days. Since the opening of the Crooked Road, Virginia’s Heritage Music Trail, the town has been featured in countless magazine and newspaper articles from the obscure Subaru’s Drive, to the ubiquitous Everyday with Rachel Ray. It’s also experiencing growth and change due to grant and government money that is reviving and renewing its downtown buildings and businesses. The jury is still out as to whether all this interest and “rural renewal” will bring an economic boom or destroy its homegrown funky character; but it is probably fair to say that the attention is inevitable. Floyd has been “discovered” as a distinctive community and treasure trove of authentic musical expression for decades. One of the primary stops made by Crooked Road pilgrims is located down a nondescript alley marked by a small faded wooden sign - County Sales.
Like many successful businesses that thrive in rural America, County Sales’ success is due to a convergence of one person’s passion with a market’s need. David Freeman was an avid collector of old records and spent his spare time scouring the southern states for old 78s and 45s. To pay for his travels (and the records), he sold duplicates through auctions. Soon, record collector friends in England and North Ireland convinced him to supply their mail order customers with American country LPs. He took a leap of faith and began a mail order business, County Sales (in October 1965), and a record label County Records (in 1964).
He met his wife through a mutual love of Bluegrass music and wanted to move south when their first child was born. While returning from the Galax Fiddlers Convention one year they saw an ad in the Roanoke Times for a farmhouse in Floyd, and ended up moving therein the mid-seventies. Five years later they moved to Roanoke, then to Charlottesville in 1996. They now live in Chapel Hill, N.C. however, County Sales is still in Floyd. Freeman’s label, County Records, and another label, Rebel Records, remain in Charlottesville where son Mark has taken over most of the duties.
Freeman heard the country music of the 1940s and 50s before he “discovered” old time and bluegrass. His early favorites were Hank Snow, The Louvin Brothers, Mac Wiseman, Bill Monroe and Flatt & Scruggs. Wiseman, Monroe and Flatt and Scruggs were considered country artists until the late 1950s when the term “Bluegrass” started to be used to describe their sound. His interests broadened to include old time acts like the Carter Family, Charlie Poole and Blue Sky Boys. Early country blues artists like Charlie Patton, Blind Willie McTell and Robert Johnson caught Freeman’s ear as well, but he couldn’t afford to collect them as well as the country items he found.
Although he tends to prefer more traditional forms, Freeman feels that there are first class
contemporary Bluegrass bands who are grounded in tradition but have a contemporary touch in their instrumentation and choice of material. He especially likes Blue Highway, Rhonda Vincent, Del McCoury, the Lonesome River Band, Lost & Found, and Kenny & Amanda Smith. He enjoys the great gospel groups like Paul Williams, the Forbes Family and the Marshall Family.
In fact, Freeman generally feels positive about the state of old time music today due to the healthy number of younger groups who keep the old styles and tunes alive. As for bluegrass, he is amazed at the number of youngsters and family groups playing bluegrass well these days and keep the spirit of Bill Monroe, Ralph Stanley and Jimmy Martin. Making the traditional styles work for them, even as they adapt newer material, keeps the music vibrant and relevant. Freeman also believes the overall quality of musicianship has improved dramatically since the early days. However, he sometimes rues the loss of the hard-edged, down home rural flavor that bluegrass used to have, but is thankful for what has been preserved on record. Freeman’s catalogue makes both the old and new available.
Over the years County Sales has seen several changes in how music is distributed. LPs were a relatively new format when the catalogue began and 45s still had a market. Digital downloading now threatens major labels and their retail outlets, yet the music available through County Sales is more sought after by an older generation that is not as interested in downloading. Although they have been able to keep their heads above water selling CDs, Freeman admits that sales of actual CDs are down. Some of the loss is made up by selling through i-tunes, Napster, e-music and other online outlets. In fact, Freeman embraces this new method of distribution as helpful to labels, retailers, artists and the audience for their product.
Like the town of Floyd itself, Freeman’s Floyd business has undergone some significant changes over the years. Freeman was attracted to the music because of its rural nature, and believes very little of that is left in most of the acoustic music coming out today. According to Freeman this “is to be expected, because every aspect of our lives has become so homogenized by TV and the media that there really is hardly any ‘rural’ America any more.” This might be true of the changes the town of Floyd is going through. Once again Freeman’s words offer encouragement; “I feel that even though the rural edge is gone, there still can be great acoustic music today, based on the music and traditional of yesterday.” Perhaps that’s true of Floyd as well.
