The Gatlinburg Folk Festival
(Page 2 of 2)
July/August 1970
By R. Maurer
A large group of craftmakers came from Murray, Kentucky. One woman brought her art work, mainly prints, which she said represented her various moods. Her hand was a certain translator of those moods as it ranged over the canvas with great expressiveness.
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Somehow the festival was the same way, with a mixture of informality and deep creative currents. The humor of the mountain culture was coupled with its poverty; the great accent on the family unit (represented by the Berger Folk, whose smallest child sucked his thumb as the rest sang), coupled with the isolation of the mountain culture.
The most important parts of the festival, however, were the workshops and the informal meetings among musicians who swapped stories, lyrics and picking techniques. Not being a musician myself, I couldn't get into this scene as well as the others, but friends said these exchanges were why they had come in the first place.
"Of course," joked a guitarist who played for Paul Simon, "he may have had a tape recorder in his lapel to rip off my music. "
But then, this mountain culture has withstood a lot of ripping off by musicologists, song writers and the lot. The Gatlinburg folk festival not only shows its endurance, but also demonstrates that the culture is really in the spirit of the people: Old and young. Long hair and short.
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