34th MECC Home Craft Days Festival

Mountain Empire Community College will change its focus from college classes to timeless traditions with the 34th Annual Home Craft Days Festival on October 14-16. 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 an old time harvest hoedown.

The festival, which started in 1972 as a one-day folklore class project, has grown to a major three-day extravaganza involving over thirty musical performances, almost two hundred crafts exhibitors and several thousand eager festival attendees. Mountain Empire Community College’s Department of Continuing Studies is the host, and the free festival is their gift to the region.

2005 National Heritage Fellowship Recipient Janette Carter will perform October 14th at the Goodloe Center.

Janette Carter will perform Carter Family standards known the world over. Janette was awarded the National Endowments for the Arts National Heritage Award, the highest award given to traditional artists. It recognizes her lifetime commitment to carrying on the Carter Family tradition, and her 30+ years of promoting traditional music through weekly programs at the Carter Fold, in Hiltons, VA. Steve Davidson, Theresa Jett and Oscar Harris, who make up the band Mendota, will join Janette.

Trey Hensley and Twin Springs Bluegrass band (pictured above) are younger performers carrying on the region's traditions.

Another newcomer, Trey Hensley is fast becoming known as a talented guitar player, despite being barely fifteen years old. He is following in the footsteps of bluegrass legends Marty Stuart and Ricky Skaggs, who launched their careers as teenagers. He performed on the Grand Ole Opry alongside Stuart, Skaggs and others, including banjo master, Earl Scruggs. He keeps good company in his band, Drivin’ Force, which consists of Susie and Jerry Keys, Tommy Austin and G. C. Matlock. All are veteran performers and exemplary musicians.

Twin Springs Band returns to Home Craft Days to bring their energetic old-time-infused bluegrass picking and singing to audiences on Friday and Sunday. Fiddler Todd Meade got his start as a toddler, listening and playing along with his great-grandfather, Uncle Charlie Osborne. After a stint with bluegrass legend, Ralph Stanley, Todd returned home to resume playing with Twin Springs’ band mates, Matthew Cruby on banjo, guitarist Matthew Bright and singer/bassist Vickie Austin.

One offshoot of the Home Craft Days festival is a traditional music program that teaches young and not-so-young pickers and singers. The Continuing Education Department classes are taught by local instructors, many of whom have decades of playing experience. Ron Short is one such teacher whose resume places him in an elite group of performing artists. He is well known for his work with Appalshop’s Roadside Theater, with whom he has worked for over 20 years. On Friday evening, Ron will step aside and allow his string band class to demonstrate their talents as musicians, and, coincidentally, his, as a teacher.

The music program begins at 10 AM on Saturday and Sunday and continues until 6 PM. There will be over thirty musical, storytelling, and dancing performances during the two-day festival. 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.