♪ BILLY SHIELDS: Welcome to Galax, Virginia where music spills out into the street.

Galax has also hosted the annual Old Fiddlers Convention.

TOM JONES: 1935, like I say, it started out with the Galax Moose Lodge and the PTA, and then they dropped out of it and then basically, the Moose took it over.

A couple years, they had it for two times per year and now it's grown so much that basically we just only have it one week long.

♪ BILLY SHIELDS: It has brought together all kinds of musicians from all over the world for 87 years, skipping only two years due to the Second World War and COVID.

TYLER HUGHES: This is actually one of the longest running music festivals in the Commonwealth of Virginia, if not the entire Southeast.

So we're celebrating these sort of traditions that have been taking place generation after generation.

TOM JONES: Approximately 1,100 individual participants, ♪ 127 bluegrass bands registered, ♪ and 66 old-time bands registered to play.

♪ BILLY SHIELDS: It takes place at a campground but it's not just a place to camp and jam.

♪ There's a stage for competition.

The audience and the participants are often one and the same.

TYLER HUGHES: Well, I think the reason why so many people travel from literally all across the world to a place like Galax in southwest Virginia is because of the community that surrounds this music.

This is a type of music that you can just pull up a chair, you can walk out to any of these jams this evening with your guitar or your fiddle and sit down and make new friends.

TARA LINHARDT: This convention's not about fiddlers.

It's not about contests.

It's about, you know, fellowship and friendship and enjoying music and culture and good times together.

♪ BILLY SHIELDS: There are strict rules governing what represents an old time band, but as one group proved this year, ♪ there are a lot of types of traditional fiddle tunes.

Meet the Swanky Kitchen Band from the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean.

Band leader Samuel Rose went to last year's convention.

SAMUEL ROSE: I didn't walk with my fiddle 'cause I didn't know what I was walking into.

I thought I was going to be a spectator, and I realized that I wasn't bringing anything to the party.

♪ BILLY SHIELDS: He brought his fiddle this year ♪ along with a full band.

KAREN EDIE: We are the last remaining band in Cayman that does our Indigenous music.

So it's really a lot on our shoulders to ensure that it's carried forward for the generations to come.

♪ BILLY SHIELDS: And so far as the crowd reaction goes, well, everyone in Galax was a Kitchen music fan that night.

SAMUEL ROSE: It's just a privilege to be amongst so many wonderful musicians.

And so for us, it was just an opportunity to showcase and share our heritage with the audience, all of whom have been so warm and so welcoming to us.

So it was very humbling to go on the stage and to receive that warm applause, to hear the cheers.

BILLY SHIELDS: Regardless of what tradition you come from for the thousands of people who come here, ♪ the Fiddlers Convention is a great opportunity to hear champion fiddlers, cut a rug or grill outside.