Tyler & Marty: Page 1
On a hot summer night in 2006, two friends took the stage at the storied old-time and bluegrass music festival in Galax, Virginia. One would would sing while the other played along. When the next friend’s turn to compete arrived, they would switch roles. While neither friend is a musical virtuoso, their love for the music and their belief in each other resulted in a very special sound that embodies much of the great musical tradition of southwest Virginia.
While our modern world seems increasingly fixated on the cult of celebrity and and the superficial trappings that accompany it, there is still a vital strain of music that lives on in the day-to-day lives of people everywhere who uphold and celebrate the traditions of their heritage. Nowhere is this more in evidence than along what is known as Virginia’s Crooked Road, an important music heritage trail that winds through southwest Virginia. It was into this rich heritage that Marty Leedy was born in 1969.
Marty’s father is a huge fan of the music of the region, and took his son to many festivals while Marty was growing up, including many visits to Galax. “I’ve been going to festivals for years with my dad. We would just go around and listen to songs and jams at night, and that was great fun.” Like many people exposed to this kind of music, several years ago Marty decided that listening was not enough. Although a late-comer by some standards, Marty bought a guitar and began to teach himself to play. He also began singing in church. He began bringing his guitar to festivals and local jam sessions, such as the one held at the Bluegrass Musician’s Supply Shop in Columbus, Ohio, where Marty currently resides. It was there one day that he met Tyler Williams, a young singer and musician from Marysville, about 45 minutes out of Columbus. Tyler remembers:
We knew a lot of the same songs, and our voices blended pretty good. We’re both kind of talkers, and we got to talkin. He walked in when I was about to do ‘Nine Pound Hammer’ and sang tenor with me.
Thus began the musical friendship which led to the recording of this CD.