HOT SPRINGS - As thru-hikers make their Appalachian Trail trek through Hot Springs, many of them may choose to stop for a rest at Sunnybank Inn in Hot Springs, and some may not know about the extensive history of the building prior to their visit.
The weekend of May 3-5, Madison County residents will hear from Daron Douglas, the great-granddaughter of famous Madison County ballad singer, Jane Hicks Gentry, as Douglas will be hosting a weekend of traditional songs, history and folklore at the inn, which has been owned by Elmer Hall since 1978.
The Sunnybank Inn event, Voices of Yore, is a retreat that includes four workshop sessions and meals, plus two nights accommodations.
On May 4, Douglas will put on a free event at Chestnut Hall in which she will perform a number of her great-grandmother's ballads, and a question and answer session will follow.
The weekend festivities will close with a church service at nearby Dorland Memorial Presbyterian Church.
Douglas, who lives in New Orleans, plays fiddle and dulcimer and sings ballads passed down by her family.
Across from the Dorland Memorial Baptist Church sits the Dorland Institute, a Presbyterian mission school where Jane Hicks Gentry, who was born in Watauga County, and her husband Newt Gentry enrolled their nine children.
While living at the home that is now Sunnybank, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Gentry taught the piano to many family members, including her daughter — Douglas' grandmother — Lillie Maude Gentry Long, and a host of Madison County residents as well.
Lillie Maude Gentry Long went on to teach a number of Madison County residents, as well.
Jane Hicks Gentry was featured prominently in Cecil Sharp's 1916 book, "English Folk Songs of the Southern Appalachia." Sharp's journey to the mountains of North Carolina served as an inspiration for the 2000 drama film "Songcatcher."
"This set off the whole interest in Appalachian culture," Hall said. "The rest of the country thought everybody down here was a drunken hillbilly hick. But it wasn't at all. There were real centers of high culture, and Jane Gentry was one of those people.
"Sharp discovered the Southern ballad tradition that's still alive here. In England, they'd forgotten the melodies, but they didn't know what they sounded like. So, when he came here, he went nuts, because he was a musicologist."
Ultimately, Sharp collected more than 70 songs from Gentry in his two volumes of Southern Appalachian songs, more than from any other artist.
As for Sunnybank Inn, the historic Hot Springs home where Jane Hicks Gentry lived for many years, Hall first visited the home in 1976 when he stayed at the home while hiking the Appalachian Trail.
Hall, a self-proclaimed "historian by nature" was living in Madison County and searching for a home when he saw Gentry's granddaughter was selling the home. He ended up buying it in 1978.
Hall said he is excited about Douglas's return to Hot Springs.
"It's fun to hear stories about what was where, when, and that sort of thing," said Hall of Douglas's presentations. "It's always fun to visit with Daron, and she's a great musician and storyteller."
The home was built in 1840, and Hall still celebrates the musical history of the Italianate Victorian home. When The News-Record & Sentinel paid Hall a visit April 18, he said Sunnybank, which he refers to as a "hiker hostel," held a jam session featuring a number of hikers the night before, as the music room boasts a number of stringed instruments, as well as the same piano Gentry played in the 1910s when Sharp visited her.
Douglas spent many summers in the home while she was growing up.
Douglas visits Hot Springs at least once a year for family reunions, but the workshop and presentation weekend will mark her first since 2016.
"I'm totally excited because I sing the ballads lots of places, and I play for English country dancing and contra dancing, and whenever I play a festival, we'd always have a ballad swap, and no matter where I would go people would say, 'That song just reminds me of my grandmother,' she said.
"So I think the place is important, but the time, it takes people to another time. So, to have the place added in, it's going to explode. It's amazing to have them in that house where those ballads were sung to me, and before me, and before my mom. It's amazing."
Some of the songs she will be performing might mark the first time the songs have been played in Madison County in more than 100 years, according to Douglas.
"One of the songs is the most beautiful song about lovesickness, and it ends with, 'My drink shall be of trouble's tears.' If that kind of poetry doesn't settle your heart, that gives me chills. That's poetry," she said.
"We're always looking for new ways to say things. This is finding old ways to say things."
For more information and reservations to the retreat, call 828-622-7206.
Johnny Casey has served more than three years as the Madison County communities reporter for The Citizen Times and The News-Record & Sentinel. He was recognized with a first-place award in beat news reporting in 2023 by the North Carolina Press Association.
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