Mountain music returns to its roots at Smoky Mountain Folk Festival
Four decades of tradition have built the foundation for the Smoky Mountain Folk Festival, which will launch into its 41st year on Sept. 2 and 3 at Stuart Auditorium in Lake Junaluska.
More than 200 dancers and musicians grace the shores of Lake Junaluska to entertain spectators over the Labor Day weekend.
Open tent shows will kick off each evening of entertainment at 5 p.m. Shows on the main stage in the 2,000-seat auditorium will start at 6:30 p.m. and end after 11 p.m.
The festival offers the chance to experience a broad range of musical and dance styles. Masters of traditional bluegrass instruments such as the banjo and fiddle will show of their skills, and more unorthodox and unusual instruments such as the dulcimer, harmonica, Native American flute, bagpipes and even spoons and a carpenter’s saw will provide the weekend’s music.
Buck dancers, square dancers, ballad singers and other traditional performers will round out the thoroughly Appalachian lineup.
The festival finds its history in Festival Director Joe Sam Queen, who teamed up with a local fiddler to celebrate the mountain music and dance of his grandfather, who had recently died.
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Those first festivals were held in the gym of what is now Waynesville Middle School.
“My grandfather, Sam Queen, made mountain music and dancing such a big part of this community’s life, we wanted to carry on this family tradition and share it with the community just as he had done,” said Queen.
So he gathered local talents to keep the traditions alive, and they proved popular with local crowds.
The audiences began to grow and eventually outpaced the meager space offered by the gym.
Today, the performances garner more than 1,500 visitors each night.
But though the festival has grown in size, the traditions that inspired its inception still inform the festival today. Each festivalgoer, for example, is still given a free slice of watermelon to munch on while enjoying the show.
Tickets are $12 at the door and $10 in advance. Children under 12 are admitted free. For more information, call 828.452.1688.
Performers List — 2011 Smoky Mountain Folk Festival
Senator Joe Sam Queen- Master of Ceremonies
Friday Sept. 2
5:00 Open Tent Show
Stoney Creek Boys
6:30 — Mountain Tradition
Lee Knight
Honey Hollar
7 p.m. — Cole Mountain Cloggers
George & Brook Buckner
Roger Howell
Rodney Sutton
7:30 — UNC A Smooth Dancers
The Trantham Family
Mack Snoderly
8 p.m. — Dixie Darlin’s
Laura Boosinger
Spirit Fiddle/ Robin Warren
8:35 — Green Valley Cloggers
Phil & Gaye Johnson
Cockman Family
9:15 — Southern Mountain Smoke
Ken Harrison
Joe Pendland
9:45 — Bailey Mountain Cloggers
Ross Brothers
Bryan McDowell
Stony Creek Boys
10:15 — J Creek Cloggers
10:30 — Southern Mountain Smoke
Stoney Creek Boys
Also expected to perform: Don Pedi, Karen “Sugar” Barnes, Bobby Hicks
Hazel Creek, and Mike Lowe
Saturday, Sept. 3
5 p.m.— Open Tent Show
Whitewater Bluegrass Co.
6:30 — Fines Creek Flatfooters
Helena Hunt & Tracy Best
Ken Harrison
7 p.m. — Southern Mountain Fire-Smooth
Betty Smith
Mack Snoderly
7:30 — Stoney Creek Cloggers
Phil & Anne Case
Hominy Valley Boys
8 p.m. — Southern Appalachian Cloggers
Trantham Family
The Cockman Family
8:45 — Appalachian Mountaineers
Paul’s Creek
Spirit Fiddle/Robin Warren
9:15 — Smoky Mountain Stompers
Joe Pendland
Whitewater Bluegrass
William Ritter
10 — Southern Mountain Fire Cloggers
Mike Pilgram
Whitewater Bluegrass Co.
*All performers are volunteer; therefore schedule could change without notice.
