35 Annual Home Craft Days at Mounain Empire Community College in Big Stone Gap, October 20, 21, and 22
There is an old joke about a man who walks into a fancy restaurant wearing a pair of automobile jumper cables as a necktie. The manager looks him over and warns him, “You can come in, but don’t start anything.” Thirty-five years ago, Mountain Empire Community College professor Roddy Moore’s folklore class started something. They called it Home Craft Day festival. It was a simple celebration of mountain folkways and folklore. Of course, there was music and food and crafts and dancing, but most importantly there was a sense of pride in belonging to mountain culture. After thirty-five years, MECC still feels that pride and each year they share it with the community through the annual Home Craft Days festival.
The 35th Annual Home Craft Days Festival will be held Friday through Sunday, October 20-22, 2006 on the Big Stone Gap campus. The festival assembles some of the mountain empire’s finest traditional artists and artisans, including musicians, story spinners, dancers, artists, crafters and cooks on the Big Stone Gap, Virginia campus for a harvest hoedown.
Home Craft Days will begin at 7 PM Friday evening with a concert in the beautiful, intimate Goodloe Center featuring the Reed Island Rounders, Dale Jett and Friends, Jeff Little, Ron Short and Jimmy and Ada McCowan.
The Reed Island Rounders is a versatile old-time string band who hail from Carroll County, VA. Fiddler Betty Vornbrock and her husband, guitarist Billy Cornette are joined by banjo player Diane Jones. Betty and Diane are award-winning instrumentalists. Add Billy’s solid rhythm guitar and Diane’s singing and you have a first class old-time band that can play hardy hoedowns as well as sweet waltzes.
Dale Jett is no stranger to the stage at MECC, having performed with his mother, Janette Carter, for many years. Janette passed away earlier this year but Dale carries on the Carter Family legacy with his friends Oscar Harris and Steve Davidson. They honed their picking and singing skills as house band at the Carter Fold. Besides Carter Family music, Dale and Friends sing their favorites from the best contemporary songwriters
New to the Home Craft Days festival are Jeff Little, the Piano Man of the Blue Ridge, and West Virginians Ada and Jimmy McCowan. Jeff Little grew up in Boone, NC where he learned to play fiddle tunes on piano with some of the area’s best traditional musicians. Jeff also sings and plays harmonica on his favorite rockabilly numbers. His music has taken him from the Blue Ridge to Sri Lanka, Oman, France and Tanzania. Ada and Jimmy McCowan are well known in traditional musical circles from their band Outdoor Plumbing Company. Now a duet, these versatile musicians play old-time music with depth and soul.
Besides being a renowned singer, songwriter, playwright and member of Appalshop’s Roadside Theatre for the past 25 years, Ron Short teaches at MECC’s Mountain Music School and is coordinator of the adult evening old-time music classes. He will again give his String Band Class their final exam by featuring them on the Friday and Saturday programs. It is big fun with a big group, many of whom will go on to even bigger venues through Ron’s tutelage.
To commemorate the 35th anniversary, MECC is issuing “Anchored in Love: Music of Home Craft Days 2001-2005,” a 2-CD recording of live performances from the past five years will be available. Producer Tommy Bledsoe has spent the past year reviewing over 85 hours of live recording to select festival gems from over 40 acts for the two CD’s. This is the fifth recording of music from Home Craft Days, including a 5-CD anthology for the 30th anniversary.
Over 30 musical, storytelling and dance acts will entertain during the 35th celebration of Home Craft Days. Friday’s program begins at 7 PM. The music program begins at 10 AM on Saturday and Sunday and continues until 6 PM. In addition to the entertainment, crafters and artists will sell and demonstrate traditional Appalachian mountain folk arts and crafts, including painting, pottery, needlework, woodcrafts, blacksmithing, broom making, corn grinding and many others. Foods of many varieties are available throughout the festival, including freshly pressed apple cider.
Admission is free to all the festival events. Shuttle service will be provided from off-site parking lots. Mountain Empire Community College is located on US Route 23 just south of Big Stone Gap, Virginia. For more information, call 276-523-2400 or visit their website at
Mountain Empire Community College Home Craft Days 2006 Schedule
Saturday, October 21
10 AM Ada and Jimmy McCown
10:30 Reed Island Rounders
11:00 Jim & Alberta Stanley
11:30 Peters Brothers & Lee County Grass
12 Noon Anndrena Belcher and Melanie Spangler
12:30 Eddie Lynn Snodderly
1:00 Roan Mountain Moonshiners
1:30 Ken Childress & Jimmy Mullins
2:00 Brickey Brothers & Uncut Grass and Virginia Sugarcane Cloggers
2:30 Ron Short & MECC String Band
3:00 Bill McCall & Southern Country
3:30 Midnight Ramblers with Virginia Sugarcane Cloggers
4:00 Glenn Roberts & Albert Elliott
4:30 Home Folks Band & Virginia Sugarcane Cloggers
5:00 Deborah Jean and Randy Sheets
5:30 Just Friends
Sunday, October 22
10:30 Vincent Ringrose
11:00 Johnny Osborne & Todd Meade
11:30 Richard Phillips, Jeff Burleson & Ron Samples
12 Noon Jack Wright
12:30 Angelyn DeBord
1:00 Dale Jett, Oscar Harris, Steve Davidson
1:30 Fred O’Quinn & Bluegrass Travelers with Hillbilly Square Dancers
2:00 Lee Smith Singers
2:30 The Sherman Family
3:00 Scott County Boys with Hillbilly Square Dancers
3:30 Papa Joe Smiddy and Reedy Creek Band
4:00 Lee Sexton with Doug Dorschug
4:30 Charlie Engle
5:00 TBA
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