About the Festival:

The festival began as a Fraley family reunion in the early 1970s but soon grew to encompass an extensive extended musical family. The festival attracts performers and music fans from across the United States to share music and swap stories. The annual event attracts champion fiddlers and top players, who share billing with those just learning. And some of the most important music making takes place away from the stage—at parking lot and campground jam sessions that go on day and night.

The festival is now in it’s 4th decade. Annadeene Fraley passed away in 1996, and JP in 2011, but the unique musical gathering they founded is still going strong, reflecting their—and many others’—love of traditional music and desire to keep the sounds of the mountains alive for future generations.

The festival has been held the first weekend after Labor Day since returning to Carter Caves in 1979. Here musicians gather from across the country to share in the concerts and workshops and to jam in the parking lot, the front porch of the lodge, all around the huge campground, and in the cabin area. What started forty years ago as a family event has grown to include a great many folks who may not be kin to the Fraleys but certainly consider themselves part of the family, proving that traditional music ties people together as nothing else can.