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The Black Bottom Acoustic Blues and Field Holler Festival honoring Sylvester Weaver
4 — 08 @ 2.00 - 11.00
This year marks the 100th Anniversary of the first blues song to solidify Country Blues, recorded by Louisville native Sylvester Weaver. Jack Dappa Blues Heritage Preservation Foundation will partner with the SEEK Museum and local residences to launch the annual Black Bottom Acoustic
The festival’s mission is to raise Cultural & Ethnic awareness of Black Traditional Music, Traditional Art, Folklore, Oral Histories, and the Black Experience in America. Specifically, re-introducing and encouraging residents of a historically black community that began before the Civil War when some formerly enslaved people whom Richard Bibb had freed, surrounding areas, and university students to learn, engage, and participate in Blues music and field hollers.
The festival and artist’s performance occurs in the SEEK (Struggle for Emancipation and Equality in Kentucky) Museum Row Black Bottom section of Russellville, KY, where acoustic blues and field hollers solidify the stories archived in the structures hosting the performance. The SEEK Museum is a conglomeration of four historic buildings in two of Russellville’s National Register Districts.
Friday August 4th there will be Narrative stages that raise awareness of the Jonesville Project conducted by Jonesville Community Scholars, A Sylvester Weaver Panel and a Black Music Panel, culminating with a performance and house band.
Saturday August 5th there will be a introduction to blues workshop, presentations by community leaders, the music performances.
The festival is part of the August 8th committee’s festivities, honoring August 8th.
August 8. August 8, 1863, Andrew Johnson, Tennessee Military Governor, who would later become the 17th president of the United States, freed enslaved people, some of which were his illegitimate children. This date became known as Emancipation Day.
https://www.wkyufm.org/arts-culture/2021-08-11/the-african-american-folklorist-august-8th-emancipation-day
https://www.blackinappalachia.org/8th-of-august