ROCKY MOUNT - At nine o'clock Thursday morning, cars packed the parking lot at the Dairy Queen on Virginia 40. A few people had to park across the highway and walk in past the life-size green concrete pig.

At the front end of the restaurant, shift leader Connie Darnell and her crew scuttled to meet customer's demands for coffee and biscuits. And at the back, the DQ Bluegrass Band unpacked their instruments while their eager audience waited. Extra chairs were brought out for the full house. The band's leader, James Guilliams, 62, stood his bass upright and prepared to play. The band began its Dairy Queen concerts about five years ago, he said, and it didn't take much pleading with management to secure the venue. "We just asked and she said 'yes.'"

The band's five members don't play together any other place. It's an informal arrangement, with a lineup that's gradually evolved. The current members, all Franklin County residents, include Guilliams on bass; Fulton Dillon, 68, on guitar; Allen McBride, 66, on mandolin; Junior Montgomery, 74, on banjo; and Dewey Prillaman, 74, on fiddle. The group already had a fast-food connection before coming to Dairy Queen - at one time they played regularly at a nearby Hardee's.

"What better way to socialize than over a good DQ breakfast and music?" asked Nancy Prillaman, the fiddler's wife, as the music started. She usually comes to hear her husband play, she said. "I have to come out here and tell him what he does wrong."

The crowd of about 40, many of them old-timers, tapped their feet, slapped their knees and clapped along. "Most everybody's retired," Nancy Prillaman said. "It just gives you something to look forward to each week."

"It's family. Even though you might not be kin, it's family," said Callaway construction worker Carolyn Rakes, who came down with her mother, Annette Saul, to see the show.

When the boys launched into "Blue Ridge Mountain Home," nearly everyone sang along.

With a grin, Nancy Prillaman made a reference to the influx of northerners around Smith Mountain Lake that has swelled Franklin County's population in recent years. "They think they can convert us old Franklin County people from being country," she said. "Uh-uh. It don't work."

If anything, it might be working in reverse. Tom Malishaucki, a self-described "damn Yankee" from Perkasie, Pa., stood toward the back of the crowd, enjoying the jam session. He moved to Glade Hill in pursuit of "an easier way of life," he said. He's taking music lessons from Dewey Prillaman.

Malishaucki raved about Prillaman's skill with a fiddle. "It walks and talks and plays and dances for him."

During a break in the flow of customers, Darnell and two members of her crew emerged from the kitchen to enjoy a rendition of "I'll Fly Away." Darnell bounced a little as she tapped her foot, singing along: "When I die, hallelujah, by and by, I'll fly away."

Occasionally a customer surprised by the live band will ask her, "'Why do y'all do that?'" Darnell said. As an answer, she'll point to the crowd, "and I say, 'Well, look!'"

It's a mutually beneficial relationship, she said. "They [band members] come in and they get a free breakfast." And the music pulls in the customers. "Once in a while they'll drag us up there. We'll do a little flat-footing with them."

Franklin County and Dairy Queen seem to have a special relationship. Nine years ago, the county garnered attention for having five of the restaurants - one for every 8,000 people, the most per capita of any county or city in Virginia. These days, there are only four, but they remain a popular local staple.

The one where the DQ Band plays is most easily distinguished by the pig statue in front, nicknamed "Biscuit," which manager Leanne Bowman paints every month with a new design. On Thursday, Biscuit still was decked out in Easter finery, with colored eggs and lilies.

Though not famous, the DQ Band is not unknown. The Web site Blue Ridge Music Trails, an Internet guide to places to find folk music in the Blue Ridge Mountains, lists the Thursday morning jam sessions at DQ and gives directions to get there. "You had better get there early, too, or you will be left standing out by the coffee dispenser," the Web site warns.

Thursday's session ended after a few couples flat-footed to the tune of "Orange Blossom Special." As his fellow band members packed up, Prillaman recalled playing bluegrass on the old WDBJ radio shows and his friendship in the 1950s with country music legend Patsy Cline. He said the 1985 movie made about her too-short life, "Sweet Dreams," portrayed her as much wilder than she really was. "She wasn't like that, believe me."

On the Internet:

blueridgemusic.org

News researcher Belinda Harris

contributed to this report.