Browse Items (117 total)

"[T]he history of the White Top Folk festival cannot be understood apart from the conflicted personal and working relationship between John Powell and Annabel Morris Buchanan. To Buchanan, Powell was at once teacher, role model, co-worker,…

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…

Festival organizer John Powell instructs musicians W.B. Hunt, Emory Stroop, C.B Wohlford, Jess Johnston (with fiddle), Winston Wilkinson, Horton Barker, and Council Cruise (seated bottom right), on the fine points of traditional music

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…

Mrs.Hall, standing on the porch of her house on Laurel Ave. in Damascus

Lee Smith is the author of 17 works of fiction including Fair and Tender Ladies, Oral History, and recent novel, Guests on Earth. She has received many awards including the North Carolina Award for Literature and an Academy Award in Fiction from…

Book cover from early printing of book (date unspecified)

"In the fall of 1945, after World War II ended, expansion of the Damascus Lumber Corporation, owned by the Lincoln Furniture Company of Marion, began."

Lou Crabtree Lou V. Crabtree (1913-2006)- "Lou Crabtree...lived most of her life in Washington County, VA. Her career...included school teaching, farming, directing a band, and lecturing. Her first book, a collection of short stories entitled Sweet…