Browse Items (23 total)

The White Top Folk Festival grew out of a suggestion made to Abingdon attorney John Blakemore that a fiddler’s contest be held on White Top on the 4th of July. 13 In addition to being an attorney, Blakemore was a well-connected politician and an…

Photograph of the three individuals responsible for programming and promotion of the White Top Folk Festival, which took place in the 1930s in Grayson County, Virginia on property owned by John Blakemore. Annabel Morris Buchanan, who was credited as…

Image of a promotional flyer advertising the first WTFF in 1931

Broadsheet announcing details of the 1932 WTFF originally distributed as a tri-fold brocure(two sided)

Broadsheet announcing details of the 1932 WTFF originally distributed as a tri-fold brocure(two sided)

"Holy folk" settin' there? Not a bit of it. The holy folk are standing outside the ropes while a handful of city folk sit... According to Dave Whisnant, Charles Seeger was not as impressed with the White Top Folk Festival, which he attended in 1936…

Dancer Harve Sheets and local musicians, including guitarist Henry Whitter, were regulars at White Top.

Council Cruise was from nearby Damascus, Va. He and his family were fixtures at the WTFF. "Each year he performed and brought both his neighbors and other members of his large family to perform." His wife is next to him; the other two men are not…

Richard Chase, a folklorist who brought a number of folk traditions to the WTFF, primarily dance and drama. His influence in festival programming waxed as the influence of Annabel Buchanan's began to wane in the latter half of the thirties.

John Powell "coaching" a musician
"What sorts of music were they [John Powell and Annabel Morris Buchanan] looking for?
"[T]hey wanted old time "folk music of white mountaineers... .
"To get what they wanted, they knew they would have to exercise…