Sheila Kay Adams
Bluff Mountain Festival in Hot Springs will be June 11
These ingredients are sure to please: bluegrass and old-time music, an artists’ market, a silent auction of beautiful regionally-made items, tantalizingly good food prepared by local nonprofit organizations, and a gorgeous setting in the mountains. You’ll find all these at Madison County Arts Council’s Bluff Mountain Festival, which will take place from 10 A.M. to 6 P.M. on Saturday, June 11, at the Hot Spring Resort & Spa in nearby Hot Springs. Bring your blankets and lawn chairs and sit in the shade of elegant magnolias in front of the festival stage and enjoy the afternoon.
This will mark the 21st edition of the Bluff Mountain Festival, an event originally established to help preserve Bluff Mountain.
The festival, which has grown to be a major fundraiser for the Madison County Arts Council, will feature regional and national performers (who all donate their time and talents). This year, the festival is showcasing artists who have helped the event flourish over the past two decades.
The lineup of entertainment includes, among others, NEA Heritage Award-winner Sheila Kay Adams, folklorist/musician Paul Brown, ballad singer Betty Smith, master fiddler Roger Howell, The Green Grass Cloggers, balladeer Joe Penland, The Stoney Creek Boys, The Midnight Plowboys, and the Madison County Ballad Singers.
The festival will also celebrate the 100-year anniversary of Cecil Sharp’s recordings of the music indigenous to the Southern Appalachian Mountains by featuring the ballad singing tradition for which the region is so well known. Sharp wrote that he found “singing as natural as talking” among the Appalachian people. This will be your opportunity to hear how true that is.
Artist vendor booths are a recent addition to the Bluff Mountain Festival. In keeping with the fundraising theme, many of the artists will be donating a piece of their work and a portion of their sales to the popular silent auction.
For more information, visit madisoncountyarts.com or call 828.649.1301.
