FARMVILLE, Va. – The lads south of Richmond were on a high when viral phenomenon Oliver Anthony made a surprise appearance at a street festival here Saturday night.
Anthony’s “Wealthy Men North of Richmond” has rocketed to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart, propelling a once-unknown songwriter from south-central Virginia onto the national stage.
But he’s staying near his roots.
He opened his Rock the Block festival appearance by reading a Bible verse to the group of about 350 locals then said, “Despite what you’ve been reading on the Web, this song still rings true,” and launched into his first song, “Ain’t Got a Dollar.”
His life has modified since he first sang its lyric “I ain’t gotta dollar, But I don’t need a dime,” along with his estimated earnings now as high as $40,000 a day.
Then the group became his chorus when he sang his viral hit hit “Wealthy Men North of Richmond,” and when he invited anyone who wanted an autograph or photo after his four-tune set on the “Rock the Block” festival stage on Fourth Street, squeezed between the Railroad Club and First Baptist Church, he was mobbed.
It was his second Farmville gig in 4 days. On Wednesday evening he took to the stage on the North Street Press Club to perform for one more 500 people, including a family from California.
Just as he was singing, “Wealthy Men North of Richmond” formed the opening query of the Republican presidential debate, held in Milwaukee, WI.
The North Street Press Club is where Anthony, 31, showed up out of the blue just two months ago, its open mic emcee Chaz Knapp, a neighborhood musician, told The Post.
“We fixed him as much as mic his guitar when he showed up back then and he was so good that the entire place perked up and I wanted him to remain for more but he just left,” Knapp, 52, a Marine veteran and native musician, told The Post.
“He was such a humble guy. Then two weeks ago when his song blew up I messaged my friend on the club and said, ‘See, I told you that dude could sing!’”
On Wednesday Anthony returned along with his signature Gretsch G9220 Bobtail Round Neck Resonator. Knapp had someone snap a photograph of them together.
Veteran guitarist T.J. Peterson of Farmville said Anthony gave him the fun of a lifetime when he let Peterson and his band get onstage after Anthony’s performance Wednesday night.
“That’s one real, God-fearing man and I even have total respect for him,” Peterson, 38, told The Post. “First I used to be watching him sing after which he sat down and watched me sing. And this can be a guy who had people all around the country coming to see him.
“One guy got here from California. I’ve met quite a lot of people within the music industry but never anyone like him. I don’t even think what he’s singing is political. He’s singing for all of us.”
Knapp said Anthony’s Wednesday night show going down through the Republican debate was not lost on the locals.
“It was very ironic that he was here doing a free show for his hometown people — people he knows, families he didn’t know who got here from throughout — while the wealthy men north of Richmond were up there battling it out on the rostrum about things that don’t even concern the typical person within the room.”
Anthony is the stage name of Chris Lunsford, who grew up about an hour away, the one child of Connie and Steve Lunsford.
Based on his Facebook posts, he dropped out of highschool and worked in factories within the Marion County, NC area until 2013 when he suffered an injury on the job and moved back to Virginia.
His stage name was inspired by his grandfather, Anthony Oliver Ingle, who died in 2019 aged 86. Ingle was himself named for his grandfather, a Confederate veteran whom he never met, and Anthony has said that his grandfather’s upbringing in impoverished Appalachian Virginia through the Depression has inspired him. On Saturday he posted an image of a framed poem he had inherited from his grandfather.
In an in depth biography Anthony wrote Aug. 17 on his Facebook page, he says he was a salesman for ten years with substance abuse and mental health issues who now lives on 90 acres he bought in 2019 “in a 27′ camper with a tarp on the roof that I got off of craigslist for $750.”
His Facebook page lists Farmville as his current location but only a few people on the town appear to know him nor does he have any family ties here.
His last known address was round the corner to his parents’ home, 65 miles to the east in North Dinwiddie.
Two sources within the local music industry said he has a pregnant wife, Tiffany, who’s due in November, and two other children. To date his videos just show Anthony along with his two dogs.
Fans of Anthony are die-hard however the response to his song has been divided. Anthony was initially embraced as a voice for conservative, rural America, along with his words taken up as a rebuke of President Biden’s administration and the Democrats — prompting a backlash from liberals, and claims Anthony was a fake, molded and propelled to the highest by shadowy right-wing interests.
On Friday he somewhat abruptly turned somewhat on his conservative base. Anthony posted a message on YouTube taking each Republicans and Democrats to task for attempting to make use of “Wealthy Men North of Richmond” to their very own ends.
“I hate to see that song being weaponized,” he said. “I see the appropriate attempting to characterize me as certainly one of their very own and I see the left attempting to discredit me, I suppose in retaliation. That s–t has got to stop.”
And later within the day he posted on Facebook that his rejection of conservative politicians didn’t make him a Biden supporter saying: “Though Biden’s most definitely an issue, the lyrics aren’t exclusively knocking Biden, it’s greater and broader than that.”
Though Anthony has referenced himself being from Appalachia, Farmville just isn’t Appalachian, and its streets are dotted with refurbished old red brick warehouses, originally belonging to wealthy tobacco dealers, and to modern restaurants that will not look misplaced in Brooklyn.
It’s a school town, home to each Longwood University and Hampden-Sydney College. The world itself is split, politically and geographically.
Prince Edward County voted 51.9 to 46.3 for Joe Biden in 2020, while Cumberland County — Farmville is the seat of each — voted for Trump 56.8 to 41.9.
And Farmville’s mayor, Brian Vincent, won by running without party affiliation.
Across the Appomattox River, on the grittier fringe of town, the owner and patrons at Big Daddy’s Saloon & Tap House mostly gave an enormous thumbs as much as Anthony — but some wondered why he never shows up on this side of town.
Big Daddy owner Jeff Legursky said he felt Anthony goes after the Biden Administration which he feels has wrecked the country, and was glad.
“They don’t care about America,” Legursky said. “They stole the election from Trump, I actually imagine that. Persons are bored with having a boot on their throat. He’s singing about real America, people like me are bored with the federal government telling us what we will or cannot do.”
“You gotta wonder a little bit bit about him,” said Matt Newhouse, 40, as he vaped outside of Big Daddy’s. “From what I can tell the boy owns a little bit of property around here.
“He also seems to have come up really fast, like perhaps he had help. But I don’t know. Got nothing against the guy needless to say and he’s saying what quite a lot of people think.”
Newhouse echoed some who point to online conspiracy theories alleging a coordinated campaign by some conservative accounts on Twitter to amplify his presence.
“None of this necessarily adds up for a man who lives off the land and recorded a video and is primary; he’s got knowledgeable camera crew following him around,” a performer who asked to not be named for skilled reasons told The Post.
As they discussed Anthony, Newhouse and other customers at Big Daddy’s ordered “Irish automobile bombs” (shots of Jameson and Baileys dropped right into a half glass of Guinness), agreeing that the singer, a recovering alcoholic, was not prone to join them drinking anytime soon.
Anthony released a recent song Wednesday titled “I Want To Go Home,” and told the Free Press after his performance that families are “torn apart” as a consequence of the influx of technology.
“I’ve seen this in my very own household at times,” he said. “Where you’ll have a complete family under the identical roof and as an alternative of them spending time with one another and caring about one another, every certainly one of them is sitting there just their very own piece of technology.”
Anthony also arrange his own website, using a small-town business in nearby Blackstone to make the merchandise; Mountain Creek Signs and Graphics owner Anthony DeMarco proudly posted a selfie on its Facebook page. Other people have posted dollars Anthony has signed for them along with his lyric: “Ain’t s–t.”
His manager, Draven Riffe, told The Post that Anthony is prepping to do a podcast with “certainly one of his heroes” in just a few days.
Christopher Page, 40, a neighborhood musician and DJ in addition to a councilman in a close-by town, said he had been vaguely aware of Anthony as a neighborhood musician.
The outdoor gig in Farmville was his second appearance on stage in his hometown in 4 days.
“He’s got an awesome voice however it’s what he’s singing about that’s hitting a nerve,” Page told The Post outside Big Daddy’s.
“Twenty five cents used to purchase something. 100 bucks used to purchase something. Now 100 bucks is value lower than 25 cents.
“Government has grown a lot over the previous few years and the control they’re having over our lives — it’s hurting the working man and woman however it’s hurting everyone which is why everyone seems to be referring to Anthony’s songs.”
Additional reporting by Samuel Corum
