CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Felisha Chase cocked an ear. She stood atop a mountain in Southern West Virginia. She was hunting. Not for deer, not for bear.

She was hunting a rhythm.

And there it was -- a syncopated banjo beat off in the woods. Yeah, she could rap to that!

And that's how it came to be that a slim, white chick with a hip-hop vibe found a pickup band in the woods at this month's Appalachian String Band Festival. The result?

World, please meet the award-winning band Teaspoon and the Whoevers.

They don't exist anymore. She never even got the name of the guitar player who joined up with the other instrumentalists she found in woods, including an upright bass guy and a mandolin player.

While they did exist on the Clifftop stage, competing in the festival's neotraditional string band contest at Camp Washington-Carver in early August, it was a dream come true for the 42-year-old Shrewsbury native.

"That's exactly how it happened," says Chase, standing inside Frütcake, Jon and Keeley Steele's latest restaurant venture on Charleston's East End, where she now works.

Chase -- aka "Teaspoon" -- stood up to perform the intro to the song that she and the Whoevers performed in the neotrad string band contest. It's a contest in which anything goes, genre-wise, so long as you've got at least three performers and stringed instruments. Cue Chase's "Last Night at Clifftop":

"I came upon these banjo pickers in the woods/ And the boys had rhythm, yeah, the boys sounded good./ I started spittin' my rhyme and I joined right in./ And one looked at the other and said 'Do that again ...'"

The judges were impressed. The pickup band earned third place in the contest. Better still, "Last Night at Clifftop" won Best Song.

So, who is this Teaspoon and what can Chase tell us about her?

Teaspoon was born at Charleston's downtown bus transit station some years ago, a place where Chase recalled she has met some real characters.

"I befriended Cornbread, Count, 6'9", Red and other 'real people' who didn't want everyone to know their 'government names.' I liked the idea of anonymity. It made me feel safe and freed me up creatively."

If you eat at the Steeles' other restaurants -- Bluegrass Kitchen and Tricky Fish -- you might not only have met Teaspoon, but might have been entertained by one of her raps.

"I started washing dishes at the Bluegrass. I was always singing and dancing. Just singing because it's just such a spiritual thing. I kind of worked it out with my co-workers -- at 9 p.m., can I please put in my hip-hop? Then, I'd just go bananas the whole time we were closing up shop."

She thought it'd be fun to do ditties for customers and began writing and spouting some spontaneous jingles. One became a Tricky Fish anthem. (A sample: "The Tricky Fish is a fry shack in your neighborhood. With a name like that, it oughta be good. They got po' boy sandwiches and fish tacos. Miss Keeley keep it fresh, man, you really oughta go ...")

Chase's life story could well be stitched together listening to her episodic raps.

"I grew up in Shrewsbury down the road and I actually have a little rap about that 'cause I grew up behind the Coal Miner's Lounge, which was my school bus stop. It took a while to realize we were different, that we didn't have as much as, you know, our neighbors. That didn't sink in till about fourth grade."

Later, at DuPont High School, where close friends called her "Flea" because she was so small, she performed with the Bellaires ("I rang the E-flat bell!").

When boom boxes started appearing in the '80s, she felt an immediate kinship.

"I felt drawn to those kids in the hallway with their beat boxes. I wanted to be near it; I was just fascinated."

At first, she didn't think she could afford college. But she won a vocal scholarship to Ohio Valley University, a private school affiliated with the Church of Christ, a faith that doesn't believe in using musical instruments in its worship. That had the benefit of training her ear when she won a spot on the school's elite a cappella show troupe, "learning to harmonize, learning to blend with the people beside you," Chase said.

Back home, she took up teaching for 10 years, first as a science instructor at East Bank Junior High, then as a fourth-grade teacher at Pratt Elementary.

Wanting a life change, she moved on to that place of employ familiar to many a wannabe performer.

"I found myself in the restaurants, like so many struggling artists. And I'm trying to find my niche here on the East End where I'm surrounded by artistic people."

Teaspoon is on the hunt for some musical kismet, especially now that the late, lamented Teaspoon and the Whoevers found some on that mountain one exhilarating Friday night.

"Not only do you have to find other like-minded talented people, you have to find the right chemistry as well for hanging out long hours in tight spaces and getting your schedules to work together.

"So I'm looking for that kind of magic now -- to collaborate with people, to get my songs actually arranged. Trying to find that new niche."

Reach Douglas Imbrogno at doug...@cnpapers.com or 304-348-3017.