Ron Short featured at “Lunch on the Lawn” July 17

BIG STONE GAP — The Southwest Virginia Museum Historical State Park will host its next event in the weekly “Lunch on the Lawn” series Friday, July 17 at 12 p.m., featuring Ron Short. 

 Ron Short is a veteran singer/songwriter/musician/playwright who was born in Dickenson County, Virginia. He is a multi-instrumentalist and his music ranges from Old Regular Baptist “lined-out” singing to new songs and styles of an Americana singer/songwriter. For the past thirty years he has performed with Roadside Theater throughout the world in venues as diverse as the Divadlo Theater in Brno, Czech Republic, Lincoln Center in New York City, and the National Folklife Festival in Washington D.C. to the Old Indian Bottom Baptist church, Blackey, Kentucky and the Farmers and Ranchers Hall in Choteau, Montana, and too many music festivals to name. He has written a dozen plays, with music, which have been produced by Roadside Theater, a branch of the multi-media cooperative Appalshop in Whitesburg, KY. He is a co-producer of “Music of Coal: Mining Songs from the Appalachian Coalfields”. He is also the musical director of Music of Coal concerts. He produced Lonesome Record’s “Appalachia: Music From Home,” a collection of Appalachian music which is the companion CD for the PBS Series, “Appalachia: A History of Mountains and People.” With his band The Possum Playboys he’s produced two CDs “Rooster Named Jack” and “Hillbilly Highway.”    

 The “Lunch on the Lawn” event is free and open to the public. Visitors may bring their own lunch or purchase a delicious lunch from Smokin Pete’s Barbeque Food Truck.

 Participants are required to social distance between those not in the same household. Face coverings are required if you enter the Museum for any reason during your visit. In case of inclement weather the event will be canceled.

 For more information, please call the Southwest Virginia Museum Historical State Park at 276/523-1322.