Old-Time
Grayson County, VA
Nobody’s Business hails from the Grayson Highlands mountain region of Southwest Virginia, where the state borders North Carolina and Tennessee. The band is steeped in the traditions of rural “Old-time” mountain music that has been passed down through generations in this unique area of the Blue Ridge mountains. While often lumped in by casual listeners outside the region with its musical offspring bluegrass, old-time string band music developed in the nineteenth century, when European and African musical styles converged in America’s first frontier, the Blue Ridge. Predominantly fiddle- and banjo-driven, old-time is what luminary cultural scholar and advocate Joe Wilson described as “frontier music,” primarily intended for dancing and entertainment at house parties, community gatherings, and jam sessions. Grayson and the surrounding counties in southwestern Virginia remain an epicenter of old-time to this day, and Nobody’s Business is among its most talented current torchbearers.
Nobody’s Business is led by mandolinist, guitarist, and vocalist Jackson Cunningham. Learning at a young age, Jackson has lent his musicianship and signature “high and lonesome” vocal stylings to numerous traditional bluegrass and old-time bands over the years, including the legendary Whitetop Mountain Band as well as the Cabin Creek Boys, South Carolina Broadcasters, and The Dixie Bluegrass Boys. He has also emerged as one of the region’s finest and most sought-after guitar builders, no small praise in a county that is home to Wayne Henderson, Jimmy Edmonds, and numerous other celebrated luthiers. In Nobody’s Business, Jackson is joined by multi-instrumentalist, music historian, and prominent Appalachian music archivist Trevor McKenzie on fiddle, and bassist Stu Geisbert, who has performed with Ronnie Stoneman and Benton Flippen.