Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion

Bristol Rhythm and Roots Reunion a non-profit organization which hosts an annual 3-day Americana music festival in the twin cities of Bristol, Virginia and Bristol, Tennessee.

Celebrating Bristol's heritage as the "Birthplace of Country Music" (a designation recognizing the early Jimmie Rogers and Carter Family recordings made there in the 1920s collectively known as the Bristol Sessions), Rhythm & Roots has hosted musicians such as Ralph Stanley, Sam Bush, Doc Watson, The Avett Brothers, John Cowan, Langhorne Slim, and Del McCoury. Since the first festival in 2001, Rhythm and Roots has grown to include 4 main stages (3 of which are outdoors), a dance tent, and 12 smaller stages inside the various shops, restaurants, and bars in the 4-block festival area. In 2008, the festival hosted over 50 bands and received an audience of over 32,000 people from across the United States. In 2009, the September festival received the award from the Virginia Association of Convention and Visitors Bureaus for "Best Destination Event of 2009." In addition to the annual festival, Rhythm and Roots Reunion also hosts events such as the monthly Border Bash concert series and the weekly Great On State concert series during the summer.

Rhythm

Rhythm (from Greek ῥυθμός, rhythmos, "any regular recurring motion, symmetry" (Liddell and Scott 1996)) generally means a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions" (Anon. 1971, 2537). This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time can apply to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or frequency of anything from microseconds to millions of years.

In the performance arts rhythm is the timing of events on a human scale; of musical sounds and silences, of the steps of a dance, or the meter of spoken language and poetry. Rhythm may also refer to visual presentation, as "timed movement through space" (Jirousek 1995, ) and a common language of pattern unites rhythm with geometry. In recent years, rhythm and meter have become an important area of research among music scholars. Recent work in these areas includes books by Maury Yeston (Yeston 1976), Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff, Jonathan Kramer, Christopher Hasty (Hasty 1997), Godfried Toussaint (Toussaint 2005), William Rothstein, and Joel Lester (Lester 1986).

Root

In vascular plants, the root is the organ of a plant that typically lies below the surface of the soil. However, roots can also be aerial or aerating (growing up above the ground or especially above water). Furthermore, a stem normally occurring below ground is not exceptional either (see rhizome). Therefore, the root is best defined as the non-leaf, non-nodes bearing parts of the plant's body. However, important internal structural differences between stems and roots exist.

The first root that comes from a plant is called the radicle. The four major functions of roots are 1) absorption of water and inorganic nutrients, 2) anchoring of the plant body to the ground, and supporting it, 3) storage of food and nutrients, 4) vegetative reproduction. In response to the concentration of nutrients, roots also synthesise cytokinin, which acts as a signal as to how fast the shoots can grow. Roots often function in storage of food and nutrients. The roots of most vascular plant species enter into symbiosis with certain fungi to form mycorrhizae, and a large range of other organisms including bacteria also closely associate with roots.

Bristol, Virginia

Bristol is an independent city in the U.S. state of Virginia. As of the 2010 census, the population was 17,835. It is the twin city of Bristol, Tennessee, just across the state line, which runs down the middle of its main street, State Street. The Bureau of Economic Analysis combines the city of Bristol, Virginia, with neighboring Washington County, Virginia, for statistical purposes. Bristol is a principal city of the Kingsport–Bristol–Bristol, TN-VA Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is a component of the Johnson City–Kingsport–Bristol, TN-VA Combined Statistical Area – commonly known as the "Tri-Cities" region.

History

Originally named "Goodson", it was renamed "Bristol" (after Bristol, England) in 1890.

The Grove, Solar Hill Historic District, and Walnut Grove are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Geography

Bristol is located in southwestern Virginia at 36°36′N 82°11′W / 36.600°N 82.183°W / 36.600; -82.183 (36.6111, -82.1762). It is bordered to the west, north, and east by Washington County, Virginia, and to the south by the city of Bristol in Sullivan County, Tennessee.