Music trends come and go. Venues open and close. But the Awendaw Green Barn Jam just keeps chugging along.
The weekly Wednesday night jam session at the space near Awendaw does, in fact, take place in a big barn on the property, as it has for the last 15 years.
The Barn Jam isn’t strictly a jam session, though. If you go to the next two editions on March 18 or 25, you won’t see a circle of dudes sitting around with acoustic guitars. The Barn Jam is more an exercise in eclectic booking. It’s an opportunity to sample a variety of musical styles in one evening.
On March 25, for example, you can catch the old-school folk blues Nick Andrew Staver, the acoustic-electric Americana of Austin Miller, the harmony-vocal drenched rock of the trio Gale Bird, Southern roots-rock from the Cody Marlowe Band and fresh new alternative rock from Private Violet.
It will be all in one night through a first-rate sound system — and all for $10. The acts on the schedule are local and national, it’s BYOB and you can even bring your dog, if he or she is friendly.
It’s a low-key, low-stress environment, and the vibe is, for lack of a better phrase, “very chill.”
And that’s exactly how the founder and organizer of the Barn Jam, dentist and passionate local music supporter Dr. Eddie White, likes it.
“It’s like a backyard barbecue with a built-in PA,” White said in a recent interview with the Charleston City Paper. “It’s about a half-acre, and we have a great covered stage. There are around 300 chairs and 25 picnic tables. We have a beautiful pond beside us. We have a wood-fired pizza oven and a restaurant called The Roost that has been our food vendor for over 10 years.”
“It is, as they say in Pawleys Island, ‘elegantly shabby,’ ” White added.
While not a musician himself, White devours music like it’s a free buffet.
“It’s just all about the music,” he said. “We do bluegrass, singer-songwriters, rock ‘n’ roll, hip-hop, spoken word and occasionally a jazz set.”
And if you attend a Barn Jam, you’ll note that the lineup is never five artists from the same genre. If there’s a blues act onstage, there’s not another one waiting in the wings.
“I always like to mix it up,” White said. “I like to have a bluegrass band and then a rock and roll band and then a singer-songwriter. I love that variety.”
As fitting as Awendaw Green is for the Barn Jam, it hasn’t always been the jam’s home.
“A buddy of mine and I ended up buying a piece of property about 15 miles north of Charleston,” White said. “We were doing some house shows on this little piece of property out in the middle of nowhere. It was free for the first two or three years, but then the federales (he means the police) showed up, and it turns out we didn’t have a single permit to do any of it.”
After a couple of temporary spots (presumably with the correct permits), the Barn Jam found its home at Awendaw Green 15 years ago.
White said that the crowd the jam attracts is an outgrowth of the event’s stylistic variety.
“I tell people that the crowd is typically cops and drunks and mothers and me and you and your cousin’s sister’s Uncle Andy,” he said. “It’s just a bunch of different people. Most of them have a real appreciation for music or are musicians looking to connect with people.”
And even after running the event for more than 15 years, White still sounds like one of those passionate music fans out in the crowd.
“The most rewarding part is that every friggin’ Wednesday, I get to connect with a different group of musicians,” he said. “And that, to me, has been the biggest part of why I continue to do this.”
More: awendawgreen.com/barn-jams.html
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