Florida Folk Festival

infobox music festival
music_festival_name = Florida Folk Festival
location = flagicon|USA Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park, White Spring, Florida
years_active = 1953-present
founders = Florida Federation of Music Clubs, Stephen Foster Memorial Commission
dates = currently late May
genre = Folk, Country, Blues, Gospel
website = [http://www.floridastateparks.org/folkfest Official web page]

The Florida Folk Festival is an annual festival of music, food, and traditional arts to highlight and celebrate Florida's many folk cultures and traditions held in White Springs, Florida. First presented in 1953 at the Stephen Foster Foster Memorial (today, the Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park), it has grown into one of the nation's oldest continuous folk festivals. Sarah Gertrude Knott, founder of the National Folk Festival, was the festival's first director. Two years later, Florida native Thelma Boltin directed and hosted the festival. By the 1980s, she shared duties with Florida state folklorist Peggy Bulger, today the director of the American Folklife Center.

Initiated by the Florida Federation of Music Clubs and the Stephen Foster Memorial Commission, the festival began as a four-day concert on one stage. In 1979, the Florida Folklife Program assumed control of the festival while the management of the memorial was transferred to the Florida Park Service.

By the 1980s, the festival had evolved to more than five stages, complete with folklife demonstration areas, food booths, and activity areas. In 2002, the management of the festival was transferred to the Florida Park Service. Meanwhile, the Florida Folklife Program continued to showcase Florida’s folk culture at each festival with the Folklife Stage, as well as through year-round educational and public programs, fieldwork, and publications.

Over the years, hundreds of performers, both professional and amateur – including singers, musicians, storytellers, actors, dancers, and even puppeteers – have played the Florida Folk Festival. Performers have included national artists such as Doc Watson, Bill Monroe, Stanley Brothers, Jean Ritchie, Suzy Bogguss, Arlo Guthrie, and Rosanne Cash. Many Florida singers and musicians have also headlined including Gamble Rogers, Will McLean, Jeanie Fitchen, Bobby Hicks, Don Grooms, John Anderson, Billy Dean, Dale Crider, Ida Goodson and Mary McClain.

The festival was first held in early May, coinciding with May Day. But after the festival became popular in the 1970s with college youth -- and using a fortuitous flood as a catalyst -- the festival was moved for several years to September (presumably because potentially rowdy college students would be in school.) But since the 1980s, the festival has been held in May, only now on Memorial Day weekend. One exception was in 2007 when the Bugaboo scrub fire prevented the festival -- which was then moved to November for one year. In 2008, it was back to Memorial Day weekend.

External links

* [http://www.floridastateparks.org/folkfest/ Official web page of the Florida Folk Festival]
* [http://www.floridamemory.com/Collections/folklife/festival-recordings.cfm MP3 files of the Florida Folk Festival, made available for public use by the State Archives of Florida]
* [http://www.floridamemory.com/Collections/folklife/festival.cfm History of the Florida Folk Festival by the State Archives of Florida]