Sounds of Summer Concert

Don’t miss this! Big Al Hall & The Marching Rams will hit the stage at 6:30pm this Thursday, 07/08/2010 in the Wrightsville Beach Park at 1 Bob Sawyer Drive, Wrightsville Beach, NC. Bring a picnic and enjoy a music-filled day in Wrightsville Beach Park. Sponsored by WECT and hosted by Wrightsville Beach Parks & Recreation. In the event of rain, concert will be held the following Thursdays. (See Summer Concert schedule here)

Alex Hall, or Big Al, was raised and educated in the bread basket of traditional old time and string band music. The border between western Virginia and North Carolina is home to the oldest and most popular fiddle conventions and traditional music festivals in America. It was at these festivals he learned the traditional songs and tunes handed down through the generations. Here, also, he found other like-minded young people who saw the raw beauty in the ancient music. Alex quickly saw and felt a likeness between the energy of the Alt-rock and punk music popular at the time and the rowdy moods of the old time string bands. This connection is one that seemed far-fetched then but one that many make today.

Shortly after college, Alex started his first old time bands. These projects help to launch the musical career of many of the most popular artists in the genre. Finding his way to Nashville he began to focus on songwriting. After Nashville, Alex made his way to Wilmington, NC. It was here that he teamed up with local rockers Kevin and Lincoln and began to combine modern sounds with old. After adding their friend Jones on upright bass they started recording Alex’s original material as well as new takes on traditional songs. The band has two new records coming out in 2010.

Big Al Hall has gathered a devout fan base with his high energy shows and earnest songwriting. When the band plays the acoustic jammers, metal and punk rockers and music lovers young and old all turn out to dance, clap and sing along with Big Al Hall.

Airlie Gardens

While you are at Wrightsville Beach take a day trip to Airlie Gardens! The gardens are in all their glory right now and Garden Tours are available.

Generations of locals and tourists travel to the historic property with its beautiful azaleas, dogwoods, camellias and various annuals bring a splash of color to the waterside oaks and pines.

A 67-acre county park, Airlie Gardens garnered nationwide fame for its spectacular plantings, which at one time included more than 600,000 azalea bushes and more than 5,000 camellias.

The most famous couple to originally owned the property were J. Pembroke Jones, a wealthy rice trader, and wife Sarah (Sadie) Jones, who bought a 150-acre tract in 1886. They named their estate “Airlie,” after the ancestral Scottish home of Jones’ family.

After the Joneses’ deaths, the Airlie property passed to the Corbett family in 1948. Bertha and Waddell Corbett operated the gardens as a private tourist attraction for many years. In 1999, in cooperation with the N.C. Coastal Land Trust, New Hanover County acquired Airlie from the Corbetts at a cost of $10.5 million.

Attractions include the gigantic Airlie Oak, estimated to be more than 460 years old, the Pergola Fountain and plantings arranged to bloom year-round.

The property known as Airlie was part of a 640-acre land grant from King George II to the Ogden brothers in 1735; by the 1800s much of the original acreage had been transferred to Joshua Grainger Wright.
It was not until the arrival of Sarah Jones, wife of Pembroke Jones, that a formal garden was created. The Joneses were wealthy industrialists noted for their lavish entertaining.

They used Airlie as a means to accommodate their guests and parties.

Sarah Jones began planting the property in 1901 and later in 1906 commissioned German landscape architect Rudolf Topel to transform the tract into a picturesque garden. Airlie reached its peak during the 1920s, at which time it was reported that over a half million azaleas and 5,000 camellias were in the garden; many of these plants still bloom and thrive in the garden. The 67-acres of today’s Airlie are all that remain of the original 155-acre estate.
The Corbett Family purchased the Airlie property from the Joneses in 1948 and used the gardens as a primary residence. Local business owners with strong ties to the community, the Corbetts would open the garden to the public several seasons throughout the year, especially in the spring during azalea bloom. In 1999 the family sold the property to New Hanover County.

Today, Airlie is a local treasure as one of the last undeveloped land tracts along Bradley Creek. The gardens are undergoing restoration and are now preserved for public use.

Regular season hours at Airlie are 9 a.m.-5 p.m., seven days a week. During spring bloom season (April 3-May 17), the gardens stay open till 7 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Winter hours (Jan. 2-March 19) are 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday.
Cost: Admission is $5 for adults, $3 for children aged 6-12. Children younger than 6 are admitted free.