Smoky Mountain Folk Festival scheduled

The 50th Annual Smoky Mountain Folk Festival, to be held August 30-31 at Lake Junaluska Conference & Retreat Center, is two nights of traditional music and dance of the Southern Appalachian region.

The outside open tent show features talent from 5 - 6:30 p.m., and the main shows begin at 6:30 p.m. on the grand stage of Stuart Auditorium, overlooking beautiful Lake Junaluska, North Carolina.

Both nights will include some of the region's finest fiddlers, banjo players, string bands, ballad singers, buck dancers, and square dance teams, as well as the marvelous sounds of dulcimer, harmonica, bagpipes, spoons, saws and folk ensembles.

“I was home from college in 1969 when the town of Waynesville asked me to call a street dance,” said festival director Joe Sam Queen. “The Smoky Mountain Folk Festival grew out that street dance. We started in the gym at the old Tuscola High School, and now, 50 years later, we are still celebrating our mountain heritage.”

Ballad singers and banjo players still grace the stage as do fiddlers and string bands.

Friday will feature house band, The Stoney Creek Boys with their 16-year-old female fiddler Rhiannon Ramsey. “Rhiannon took Arvil Freeman’s place in the band and is doing a fine job,” Queen said.

You can still hear Arvil with the Midnight Plowboys and Haywood County fiddler Brian McDowell. Other local favorites include Travis Stuart and The J. Creek Cloggers. The Cockman Family and the Trantham Family will be performing both nights. On Saturday night the house band will be The Whitewater Bluegrass Company with Uncle Ted White.  Four-time Grammy award winner, David Holt will be there with multi-instrumentalist Josh Goforth. Roger Howell and Alan Johnson will do a tribute to the late guitarist Danny Johnson, and Flave Hart and Mack Snoderly will also be resurrecting the memory of the Carroll Best Stringband with their choice of tunes.  Saturday night dance teams include The Green Valley Cloggers and the Southern Appalachian Cloggers.

Call 800-222-4930 for ticket information or visit the website here.