Browse Items (23 total)

Largely overshadowed by the presence of John Powell and later Richard Chase, Annabel Morris Buchanan was the animating spirit of the White Top Folk Festival.
"Nationwide publicity about the White Top Folk Festival in newspapers and magazines helped…

Folklorist and musician Lamar Bascom Lunsford (1888-1973) was the creative force behind The Asheville Mountain Dance and Folk Festival. Started in 1927 as the the "Rhododendron Festival" it is thought to be the first "Folk Festival."

Charles Seeger and Ruth Crawford Seeger, his second wife, traveled through Western North Carolina in the 20s and 30s, playing to entertain themselves and others but also listening and learning from local musicians.

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…

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

Festival-goers participating in a folk dance

"The reception in Abingdon was grand, with people filling the train station platform, leaning over the rope lines, reaching out to wave at Mrs. Roosevelt with their hands, hats, and handkerchiefs."
["A First Lady in a False Kingdom," p. 189]

"Mrs. Roosevelt's arrival on the last day (of the 1933 festival) boosted the crowd beyond all records (by some estimates as many as 22,000 people attended). She arrived at noon and attended the special folk music program given by some of the contest…

"The idea to invite Eleanor Roosevelt to the festival came from the event's founder and director, Annabel Morris Buchanan...
"In February 1933 she wrote to the soon-to-be first lady: 'I think you and President Roosevelt might find the mountain, with…

"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…