Happy Valley Jamboree

The Happy Valley Jamboree is a free music festival that celebrates the rural heritage of the Blue Ridge Mountains through performances, workshops, competition, and wholesome family activities. Attendees are encouraged to bring chairs and pop-up shelters, and shade sails are allowed in the stage area. Friday night begins with a variety of homegrown entertainment including cake walks, an open mic, and a joke contest with prizes being awarded for the best and the worst jokes. Storyteller Rob McHale will tell the true story behind the song, “Hang Down Your Head Tom Dooley,” made famous worldwide by the Kingston Trio. Saturday activities will begin at 10 am with a cow calling competition, followed by Alexander County old-time musicians Chad Ritchie and Friends. Dan and Christie Foster of Austin, Texas, will perform their unique blend of classic tunes with a southwestern flair and they will be followed by a ballad swap, dedicated to the memory of Caldwell County song catcher and recipient of the North Carolina Folk Heritage Award, Bobby McMillon. Other events include a showcase of participants in the Junior Appalachian Musicians (JAM) program as well as one of the most-loved events of the Happy Valley Fiddlers Conventions, the Children’s Parade, featuring a string band, giant puppets, and smaller puppets and musical shakers made in the children’s activities tent. A flat-foot dance workshop will be directed by acclaimed traditional dancer, Rodney Sutton, an adjunct professor in East Tennessee State University’s “Bluegrass, Old-Time and Country Music” program. Fiddlers Conventions, popular for more than one hundred years, were built around separate competitions on a variety of string instruments. With a nod to that model, the Jamboree will have a Convention Memorial Contest on Saturday night beginning at 6:00 PM, where all instrumentalists, singers, and dancers will compete against each other in a single category. Since part of the Jamboree’s mission is to celebrate our region’s rich and diverse musical heritage, contestants are encouraged to perform old-time, bluegrass, piedmont blues, ragtime, and early country music. Contestants may register onsite beginning Friday night. Winners who place first, second, and third will receive prizes of $150, $75, and $50, respectively. Sunday activities will begin with a community gospel sing-along at 10:00 AM. Concert performances will take place from 12:00 to 4:00 PM, starting with entertainment by William Ritter and Sarah Ogletree, whose beautiful harmonies and command of traditional mountain music endeared them to the jamboree audience last year. Multi-instrumentalist Branson Raines is a newcomer to the Happy Valley stage, taking time from his regular duties at Asheville’s long-running Shindig on the Green. Local favorites, Strictly Clean and Decent, will perform a set of up-tempo bluegrass music and the jamboree will close with Natalia Zoe Weinstein and John Cloyd Miller. Performing under the name Zoe and Cloyd, they recently charmed Caldwell County audiences with their performance on the Chapel of Rest concert series and they have just returned from a tour of Ireland. Their duo has been described in Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine as “a musical collaboration that demands to be heard.” The Happy Valley Jamboree will take place on August 29-31. Located at the Jones Family Farm alongside the Yadkin River, 3590 NC-268, Lenoir, NC, primitive camping is available for $10 per night or $25 for the weekend; campers, motorhomes, tents, and cars are welcome and campers may set up as early as Thursday. Designated quiet areas will be made available for those with children, as well as for those who prefer to hear music in the daylight hours only. The inviting Yadkin River presents many opportunities for family fun including fishing, kayaking, tubing and swimming with parental supervision. Food vendor, Anna’s Sweet Treats, will be on site Saturday and Sunday. For more information, follow the Happy Valley Jamboree page on Facebook or visit happyvalleyfiddlers.org.

Event Links

Website: https://go.evvnt.com/3202636-0

Read More

View Less