Russell Moore and IIIrd Tyme Out to headline 41st annual Dock Boggs and Kate Peters Sturgill Festival Sept. 12

Russell Moore and IIIrd Tyme Out is the featured act at this year’s Dock Boggs and Kate Peters Sturgill Festival, one of the region’s most time-honored music traditions.

The band was named International Bluegrass Music Association’s “Vocal Group of the Year” for seven consecutive years. The band has received 50 industry awards since 1991.

Wolfe Brothers String Band, Jimmy and Ada McCown, T.V. Barnett and his Roan Mountain Moonshiners, Whitetop Mountain Band, UVa-Wise Chancellor Emeritus “Papa Joe” Smiddy, and the Mountain Empire Community College Mountain Music School students also will perform.

All events are held at the Appalachian Traditions Village in Norton. Appalachian Traditions, Inc., sponsors the festival.

Gates open at 10:30 a.m., and the festival begins at noon. Admission is $10. Students with valid college IDs are admitted free and children 12 and under are admitted for $2. Traditional mountain food will be available for purchase.

The festival honors Moran Lee “Dock” Boggs, a Norton native who recorded traditional mountain songs, including his unique style of banjo plucking in a 1920 recording session in New York. Boggs, who died in 1971, received more fame when folk musician Mike Seeger came to Norton to record the retired coal miner’s music in the 1960s. Boggs is also credited with influencing musician Bob Dylan and others. Seeger brought Boggs’ music to the national stage once again in 1997 when he released some of the Norton native’s recordings.

Kate Peters Sturgill, a native ballad singer and songwriter, is honored for her lifelong work with traditional mountain music. She is noted for helping A.P. Carter collect traditional mountain music. Sturgill and her band, “The Lonesome Pine Trailers,” performed on Norton radio station WNVA.

The event has drawn large crowds since its debut in 1969 on the campus of The University of Virginia’s College at Wise as a class project by Jack Wright, a student at what was then Clinch Valley College.

The festival is co-sponsored by The University of Virginia’s College at Wise and is supported by the Birthplace of Country Music Alliance, the Virginia Commission for the Arts, the Crooked Road: Virginia’s Heritage Music Trail, the Smithsonian Center for Folk Life and Cultural Heritage, Wise County Board of Supervisors, City of Norton, Wise County Office of Tourism and Marketing and the Virginia Tourism Commission.

Appalachian Traditions, Inc. is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to the preservation, promotion and perpetuation of traditional Appalachian culture.

For more information, contact Appalachian Traditions, Inc., at 276-328-8740 or 276-431-3338.

Posted August 24 2009