Smoky Mountain Folk Festival Celebrates Fifty Years of Music and Dance

08/30/19 • 2 min

Down the Road on the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina

Back in 1969, while still a college student, Joe Sam Queen, grandson of legendary dancer Sam Love Queen, was asked by the town of Waynesville to call a square dance on the streets of downtown. The square dance became the Smoky Mountain Folk Festival and this Labor Day weekend, in 2019, it celebrates 50 years.

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Fiddler Carley Arrowood Lends Her Voice to Mountain Music

It’s not unusual for a mountain musician to be a part of several different musical traditions. A Blue Ridge fiddler might play in a mountain swing session on Friday night, sit in with an old-time band playing for a square dance on Saturday night, and sing in the church choir on Sunday morning. In this respect, Carley Arrowood is in good company. But Carley stands out in her youth: few artists as young as she have already mastered so many genres. She plays, sings, and writes bluegrass and gospel music, and was a classical performer as a child.

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Lillian Chase Fiddles a Smooth Mountain Blend of Bluegrass and Old-Time Music

Fiddler Lillian Chase is young–she was born in 2003–but she is the steward of a centuries-old musical tradition of her native Blue Ridge Mountains. Raised in a family that has been living in the mountains for six generations, Lillian had an early ear for Appalachian music. At the age of four she decided that she wanted to play the fiddle, and two years later, began to learn the instrument. Now an accomplished musician in a variety of genres – including old-time, bluegrass, and classical – Lillian exemplifies the stylistic versatility for which musicians around Asheville, North Carolina, are known.