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Belknap Folk Festival '72
CHRIS POTTERS
What do a seventy-two year
old great-grandfather from West
Virginia, a fifteen year old South
End high school girl, U of L's
director of student activities,
and Louisville's mayor have in
common? They will all be
participating in the 2nd Annual
Belknap Folk and Crafts Festival
here on campus September
1 3-16. In addition there will be
nearly seventy other craftsmen
and musicians taking part in this
four-day series of concerts,
workshops, ex hi bits, and
demonstrations.
The festival participants are
coming to the University from
a 11 over the country. The
majority will be from Kentucky,
but all the surrounding states
will be represented, as well as
Michigan, Wisconsin,
Massa ch usett s, New York,
Arkansas, and other states.
Coming from Missouri will be a
woman who is keeping alive the
art of making dolls from a
variety of materials. Coming
from W est V i r g inia is a
contingent of fiddlers who are
well-remembered from last
year's festival. Lee Triplett, Ira
Mullins, and their back-up guitar
man, Dana Perkins, came on the
bus from Charleston last year,
after hitch-hiking from their
home in Clay County. They rode
14 hours on the bus - including
a two-hour bre kdown, during
which they entertained the other
passengers by fiddling. At the
festival they played for the sheer
joy of it in their rooms at Miller,
in the lobby of the UC, and on
the festival stage. They had
never been to a city as big as
Louisville before. Lee is over
seventy; Ira is nearly as old.
From Arkansas we will have
Almeda Riddle, who is
"Granny" to several generations.
She is a fine singer in the old
traditional style - she sings
unaccompanied ballads,
childre:n's songs, old-time parlor
songs, and hymns. She is a
special favorite of all who hear
her, and you'll know her by her
white poke bonnet - just say
"Hi, Granny!" and you'll be
greeted with a wonderful smile
and a pat on the arm. She has
severall recordings out, which
will be on sale in the record
booth. She will be at Friday's
ballad workshop.
On1e of the highlights of any
festivaJ is the singing and playing
of J.P. and Annadeene Fraley.
J.P. pllays the fiddle ; Annadeene
plays guitar with him. They are
well-known throughout the
Ashland area as square-dance
musiciLans and balladeers (along
with their daughter Danielle)
and have performed at all the
regional festivals for several
years. They also have their own
Fraley Family Festival every
year at Carter Cave State Park,
which is a gathering of the clan
and of friends from near and far
for a weekend of music and
reunion. This year J.P. and
Annadeene were invited to play
at th'e National Folk Festival,
and both made quite an
impression on the audiences. J.P.
was written up in the New York
Times: and was descrived at the
Fox Hollow Festival later in the
month as "the sweetest fiddler I
ever heard play'' by Gilles
Lozier, a Canadian fiddler who
will a.lso be with us during the
week.
AUI the daytime activities of
the Elelknap Festival will take
place between the library and
the U.C. Building. There will be
a sta~:e set up for a free concert
every day at noon, and
workshops on guitar, banjo,
dulcimer, fiddle, and other
mountain instruments through
the afternoons. In addition there
will be craft demonstrations
throughout the week, beginning
with a macrame workshop on
Wednesday afternoon. (A
complete schedule of events is
on What's Happening page.)
Most Louisvillians are familiar
with the work Lou Tate has
done at the Little Loomhouse
on Kenwood Hill to further the
art of spinning and weaving, and
this year she has moved her
annual fall open house to the
University campus in
conjunction with the Belknap
Festival. Lou and her friends will
be on hand every day with
demonstrations of spinning,
weaving, tie-dye, vegetable
dyeing, and related crafts. There
will also be an opportunity for
anyone who wishes to try his
hand at weaving on her looms.
There wiU be workshops on
weaving also.
A special attraction on
Thursday afternoon will be the
Children's Concert, which, like
all the other daytime events, is
free. Most of the performers
(singers, musicians, storytellers.
and even a theatrical troupe
acting out old folk tales) wiU be
on hand to entertain as many
children as can be squeezed onto
the lawn. And all the children in
LouisvilJe have been invited to
attend - children of all ages.
Daily through the week the
Rauch Planetarium on 2nd
Street is showing a special
attraction designed especially for
the festival, "Folklore and the
Stars," whiCh will incorporate
many of the old superstitions
and tales surrounding the
movement of the sky. The
regular admission fee for the
Planetarium will apply.
The biggest attraction of the
festival will · again this year be
the evening concerts.
Approximately forty musicians
will be participating - music
ranging from blues to bluegrass,
from infectious fiddle music and
foot-tapping frailing banjo to the
sweet simple tones of the
mountain dulcimer and the a
cape]]a singing of Granny
Riddle. The show starts each
night at seven and lasts till it's
over - usually by midnight. A
ticket for the four nights cost
only $3.00 - just about the best
bargain in town. If you can only
make it one or two nights, it'll
cost you $1.00at the door .
There will be music on the stage
of every kind.
People who didn't know each
other on the 13th will play on
stage together on the 15th - for
that's the wondrous thing about
folk festivals. Everybody loves
the music, and the feeling
spreads to the audience and to
all the performers: the feeling
that whether you're fifteen or
seventy-two, from the city or
from the country, when the
fiddles and the banjos and the
autoharps come out of the cases,
and somebody calls for "Old Joe
Clark" or "Wildwood Flower"
or "Foggy Mountain
Breakdown," then the music
makes friends faster than
anybody's handshake. Lee
Triplett won't care how long
your hair is when he shows you
all the ribbons he's won for
fiddling; Granny Riddle won't
care if the women show up in
work shirts and jeans or in
miniskirts as long as they want
to share in her music. The music
is the reason for the festival.
By the time Saturday night
rolls around all of us who have
come every night will be
exhausted, but euphoric, and
terribly sorry to see all our
friends go home to Missouri, and
West Virginia, and Michigan, and
Arkansas. And we will be
waiting for Mxt year to come
around, just like they've been
waiting to be back with us all
this year.