Ten years ago they flocked to this place like pilgrims to the shrine-- not just from the nearby Bluegrass towns, but from all over the nation. They came for the country music and the All-Day Sings and to get a look at the Old Kentucky Barn Dance they'd heard so often on their radios at home. It got so big that 15,000 people showed up one summer Saturday night, and a national magazine sent down a team of cameras to record the scene for posterity.

Now perhaps 150 will show up. They come down from Berea and Crab Orchard, and Preachersville, and from places like Egypt and Shoulderblade across the mountains. Not many from out of state. Not even enough to justify using the barn, which is closed until spring, when the crowds will pick up again.

Only the locals show up in the winter. They come with guitars and bass fiddles and old songbooks, and they gather in the studio to do a radio show that you can still hear in some cities, but not in so many as you could a few years back. The show starts around 7 and winds up at 9:30 -- just about the time the hillbilly singers and the Bluegrass banjo champs are warming up at Gerde's in New York's Greenwich Village.

Folks around here don't have much time for strangers. You ask what goes on at Renfro Valley and they shrug and say, “Not much.” You want to find a restaurant after 8 p.m. and -- if you can find anybody to ask -- they'll direct you to Lexington, an hour's drive.

You have a thirst and they tell you, “This here's a dry county.” Pause. “Yep, dry county.” Another pause. “Maybe if you go up the road a piece to where you find a sort of restaurant, maybe somebody there can fix you up.”

So if you want entertainment in these parts, you go to Renfro Valley and you go early. The studio is warm and the music is every bit as real as the people who sing it.

“Well, now, for all you folks out there in radioland, I want to say that we got a little gal visitin' with us this evenin'. Little Brenda Wallen, from up in Winchester, I believe. . .”

And little Brenda sings: “Beeyooteeful lies, beeyooteeful lies. . . each one a heartbreak. . . in perfect disguise. . .”

Then the Hibbard Brothers quartet, lean mountain faces and huge hands poking out of gabardine sleeves -- “O, what a time we will have up in heaven. . .”

A murmur of approval from the audience. A flashbulb pops near the back of the room. Things are picking up. The Farmer Sisters take their turn at the mike, with a rippling version of “You're the Reason.”

A few cheers from the crowd, a quick burst of fiddle music from a man beside the piano, then somebody holds up a hand for silence. Time for the commercial.