VOL. 12  NO. 5

	In This Issue
	Status of Arts Education in Kentucky Schools
	On the National Front
	Arts Council News
	Farewell to Combs Search Committee Seeks Arts Council Director Parent Partners in the Arts Community Conversations
	Around Kentucky
	Arts Calendar Katrina Benefit Concert Cities Without Limits Blue Apple Players
	Craft Marketing News
	Focus on Folklife
	Arts in Education
	Resources and Reports
	Quotable Quote
	Hot Dates

The Blue Moon is published bi-monthly by the Kentucky Arts Council, a state agency in the Commerce Cabinet. Please send comments, questions and information to the Blue Moon, Kentucky Arts Council, 500 Mero Street, 21st Floor, Frankfort, KY 40601-1987 or call 502-564-3757, toll free 1-888-833-2787.
E-mail: kyarts@ky.gov

Jean Ritchie will perform Friday night at the Kentucky Folklife Festival.

It’s Festival Time!
The Kentucky Folklife Festival, September 15-17, 2005

The extraordinary variety of folk artists who call Kentucky “home” is certainly cause for celebration. During its seventh year, the Kentucky Folklife Festival will again provide thousands of visitors with unforgettable cultural encounters. Whether it is a riverboat captain’s exhilarating story, a salsa lesson with Latino dancers, or an evening listening to Jean Ritchie sing on the Old Capitol Lawn, the interactions and sensory experiences of the Festival are indeed memory-makers. Both artists and visitors report that their appreciation and understanding of their own culture is enhanced by encounters with others at the Festival.

A recent email from concrete production specialist and old-time musician Simon Stanfield illustrates such an experience. Simon lives in Iowa and chanced upon the Festival while working as a consultant on a bridge repair near Frankfort. His account follows:

I was supervising a high-performance concrete job on a series of state highway bridges in Shelby County in September of 1999, I think. The test cylinders weren't making strength in the lab in the required time. I was representing the cement company and all fingers were pointed in my direction. The contractor stopped work Friday afternoon until we could find out what was wrong. I was stalled in place until Monday morning.

Fortunately, I had driven and my wife was with me. We went into Frankfort on Friday afternoon so she could look at a couple of the Antique shops in town. I was dozing in the driver's seat parked in front of one of the shops when Kathi came out and asked if I had heard the fiddle music. Well, I'm slightly deaf and wear hearing aids. If there was fiddle music in the air I would not only have heard it, but smelled it and tasted it. (I am an Old Time Music interpreter of some forty years). I said I hadn't heard a thing and she insisted there was fiddle music coming from the next block over. We rounded the corner and made a right-hand turn onto Broadway (with the tracks down the middle of the street?) and there it was! Well, I couldn't get parked and out of the vehicle fast enough to see what was going on.

Volunteers at the main entrance provided literature and told us about the festival. What could we do but stick around and look, listen and eat? I never expected to be spending the weekend with Hylo Brown, Homer Ledford, Eddie Pennington and Don Everly as well as so many wonderful musicians I didn't know (but do now). We were sitting down front as Jean Ritchie opened the evening concert with "The L & N Don't Stop Here Any More," and just as she reached the second chorus, here came a heavy freight right down the street and stopped even with the stage to see what was going on. She stopped singing as all the cars telescoped into one another crashing to a halt. The crowd cheered and the train started up again, but I have never heard a train before or since do it so quietly. There wasn't one bellow, thump or crash as it slowly (and very softly)rolled out of town lending a dramatic effect to Jean's plaintive ballad.

I fixed the problem with the concrete Monday morning after spending one of the best weekends ever in Frankfort.

If you have a cherished memory of something you experienced at the Kentucky Folklife Festival, please share! Email mark.brown@ky.gov.

Captain Steve Gaines demonstrates line-throwing skills at a Kentucky Historical Society Brown Bag History program.

More Than Music: A Heritage Driving Tour

More than Music: A Heritage Driving Tour of Kentucky’s Route 23 is a cultural heritage tourism initiative of the Kentucky Folklife Program. The driving tour will provide Kentucky visitors and travelers with a booklet and compact discs that describe the cultural heritage of the Highway 23 Country Music corridor. The project is modeled after a successful series of cultural driving tours produced by the State of Washington.

The tour is based on more than 60 interviews and information gained through research and folklife surveys. Interviewees who will appear on the CD include Loretta Lynn. Ralph Stanley, Patty Loveless, and Crystal Gayle. In addition to the well-known country music artists, the visitor will hear stories from local artists and craftsmen—including Minnie Adkins and members of David Appalachian Craft. There are interviews with regional authors like Ken Slone and Linda Scott DeRosier, as well as workers of traditional jobs such as coal mining and railroad working. The goal of the project is to help the visitor experience the rich culture of the area by not only providing them with this entertaining and educational information, but encouraging them to spend time in the region exploring many of the historic and cultural sites. The packaged project will include 2 audio CDs of the actual tour, narrated by Ricky Skaggs, one audio compilation of musicians referenced from the driving tour, and one guide book, complete with photos, maps, and additional contextual information.

Advance orders for purchasing the Heritage Driving Tour will be available at the 2005. Kentucky Folklife Festival, September 15, 16, and 17. The Festival will feature artists from Highway 23 such as chairmaker Terry Ratliff, gospel singers the Tri-City Messengers, Carcassonne Community Center dancers, fiddler Roger Cooper, and many more. Saturday Night’s concert features Rebecca Lynn Howard and Ricky Skaggs with Kentucky Thunder.

For more festival information, visit http://folklife.ky.gov.

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