The Blue Mountain Songbird Strikes All The Right Chords
Bess Putnam offers the stories and the sounds of sweet music.
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By Peyton Tochterman
here’s a musician strumming a tune that’s not just off the beaten path— it’s creating its own path. Working in the unpretentious corners of Loudoun and Fauquier counties, there’s a musician and teacher who is borrowing from the past, giving to the present, all to educate and preserve our heritage for the future. Her name? Bess Putnam. Call her the Blue Mountain Songbird or the anti-star of the music world. Either way, she’s tossing the rulebook of mainstream melody into the bonfire of authentic Americana and tradition. As she puts it, “I just play the songs I like. That’s my genre.” What a refreshing sentiment. In a family where music wasn’t just a pastime but the very air they breathed, Bess’s upbringing was a tapestry woven with the twangs of guitars and the soulful strikes of piano keys. Her maestro mother, with a pitch so perfect it could put the phonies of Auto-Tune to shame, and her dad, a living room legend strumming stories in every chord, were her first ticket to this endless symphony. “Daddy was a cowboy,” she said. “He was always chasing rainbows. He spoke in absolutes. Tractors were green. Truck was spelled ‘FORD.’ And we listened to Willie Nelson.” Bess’s tale isn’t one of chasing neon-lit dreams or the glittery mirage of fame. She grew up in Virginia and went to Los Angeles three times to “make it.” She left each time with an uncomfortable feeling. “It just isn’t what music should be about out there,” she said. She’s the kind of artist who’d rather sing to the heartbeats of a few in a dusty old church than to the faceless crowd of a stadium. She teaches music at Wakefield, and it’s not just about music; it’s a sanctuary where she’s planting seeds of subtle rebellion against the factory-produced hits that clog our airwaves. It’s about real songs. As for her performances with the Virginia Piedmont Heritage Foundation, it’s about striking that chord with her audience that makes them come to understand not just her a little better, it’s about resonating with the stories etched in the soil of the land. The next one will find her at Buchanan Hall on Feb. 9 th doing a Patsy Cline retrospective concert. Her concerts are time machines, trips back to the Civil War, to the local fields and the camps, weaving local history with melodies in a way that would make your history textbooks weep with envy. When Bess plays and sings, it’s not just music—it’s a history lesson, a love letter to the landscapes, a sermon from the church of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Offstage, she’s as rooted as the music she plays. She’s out there running Whisperwood Cattle in the Middleburg area with her husband Steven, not as some hobby, but as a testament to her bond with the land, the community. She’s not just a singer; she’s a teacher, a historian, a farmer, and a breath of fresh air in the musical world stale with the cookie cutter pop songs that fill the streaming services. She’s also a mom, with two daughters, Gwenevere and Lila. In a world where music has become more about the flash than the feeling, more about the downloads than the down-home, Bess Putnam stands out. She’s a reminder of what music can and should be—a tapestry of stories, histories, and raw, unadulterated emotion and truth. So, here’s to Bess, the Blue Mountain Songbird, who’s not just singing songs but is a song herself, echoing through the mountains and valleys of our beloved Blue Ridge Mountain home.
MIDDLEBURG SUSTAINABILITY COMMITTEE| Winter 2024
