Highways · Crooked Road Caravan 2026 · Whitetop Mountain Band
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Written by Dan
We heard the Whitetop Mountain Band play the Rex Theater in Galax, Virginia, on a Friday night of our Crooked Road Caravan (here's how the night went). This is who they are, where the band came from, and where you can hear them.
The Whitetop Mountain Band. Photo used with the band's permission.
A March 2025 concert listing names five members. Lineups shift from show to show, so check the band's own site before you go if you're hoping to hear a particular player.
Earlier listings also name Jackson Cunningham on mandolin, guitar, claw-hammer banjo and harmonica, and Frank Rische on mandolin, vocals and guitar.
The band starts with a fiddler named Albert Hash, who was born in Rugby, Virginia, on June 27, 1917. He built his first fiddle at age 10, working with a pocket knife and whatever materials he could find, and over his lifetime he built more than 300 of them, many with carved backs and scrolls. He also helped a young Wayne Henderson, now a renowned guitar builder, when Henderson was learning to build instruments.
Whitetop was already famous for its music by then. From 1931 to 1939, the White Top Folk Festival drew crowds up the mountain to hear Appalachian music. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt came in 1933, and by 1935 more than 10,000 people were listening to more than 300 performers. Hash was 16 when he hiked up to that 1933 festival, carrying the fiddle he'd made himself in a flour sack.
The band's roots go back to the 1940s, when Hash played in an early group called the Whitetop Mountain Boys with Frank, Henry and Dent Blevins. The lineup most people know came together in the 1970s: Hash, his brother-in-law Thornton Spencer, Thornton's wife Emily, Flurry Dowe, and Tom and Becky Barr. Hash had taught Thornton to play the fiddle back in the 1940s, starting with two tunes and a fiddle of his own to practice on.
Hash also taught, and so did the Spencers. They offered free old-time music lessons at Mt. Rogers School, a small K-12 public school in Whitetop, where students learned fiddle, banjo, guitar and bass, and learned to dance. The school's band is named the Albert Hash Memorial String Band. Hash died on January 28, 1983, and Emily took over the program after that. Thornton died in November 2017 at age 82, and his son Kilby took his place in the band. The Albert Hash Memorial Festival has celebrated his legacy since 2007, and he was inducted into the Blue Ridge Music Hall of Fame in 2010.
We caught them at the Rex Theater in Galax, one of the venues along Virginia's Crooked Road. The band is also a staple at the Carter Family Fold, appeared at the 2019 Richmond Folk Festival, and played a free jamboree at Wytheville Community College in March 2025. The best place to find current dates is the band's own website.
Who founded the Whitetop Mountain Band?
The fiddler and fiddle maker Albert Hash. The band's roots go back to the 1940s, and its best-known lineup came together in the 1970s with his brother-in-law Thornton Spencer, Thornton's wife Emily, Flurry Dowe, and Tom and Becky Barr.
Who is in the Whitetop Mountain Band now?
A March 2025 concert listing names Emily Spencer (banjo, vocals), Martha Spencer (guitar, fiddle, banjo, vocals), Kilby Spencer (fiddle), Ersel Fletcher (guitar, vocals) and Debbie Bramer (bass).
Where is the Whitetop Mountain Band from?
The band is from the community of Whitetop, Virginia, in Grayson County, in the mountains near the North Carolina line.
What kind of music does the Whitetop Mountain Band play?
Traditional old-time music and bluegrass, including fiddle and banjo instrumentals, solos, and harmony vocals on blues, classic country, honky-tonk, old-time ballads and four-part mountain gospel.
Where can I hear the Whitetop Mountain Band?
They play venues around Virginia and beyond, including the Rex Theater in Galax and the Carter Family Fold, and they have appeared at the Richmond Folk Festival. Check the band's website for current dates.
History from Wikipedia's Albert Hash article, Blue Ridge National Heritage Area, Bluegrass Today, the Richmond Folk Festival and the band's website. Sources differ on exactly when the band formed, so the dates above are given as decades.
