To see the Written History collected thus far: Click here.
To add a piece of history or to clarify something posted,
please email me here: email Ky.
Introduction
Welcome to the Kerrville Folk Festival Oral History Project.
When I start looking through the lists of Kerrville festivals, my mind dates everything in terms of relationships, healing, death, prosperity and losses. FOr me, I had no other particular schedule that I followed for many years execept that in May I would return to Kerrville, Texas for the Festival. The history of the Kerrville Folk Festival has been told in part by Rod Kennedy in his book, Music From The Heart. It has also been somewhat documented by Dyanne Fry Cortez' book Hot Jams and Cold Showers and Lee Green's CD of stories, See Those Rocks.... I am documenting the history of the Kerrville Folk Festival (and related festivals) in regards to its most unique aspect:
The Volunteer Staff !
These volunteers are the most renowned non-permanent volunteer staff of any festival anywhere. This chronicle this will serve a dual purpose of being instructional for anyone who wants to start up a venture such as the Kerrville Folk Festival and it will be a memory book for the staff to enjoy.
What I hope to document
How and when crews were started
Who the crew leaders and staff coordinators were over the years
How staff policies evolved
Who played in the staff concerts every year (an institution since 1982)
Besides these, I would like to annotate some of the bigger projects that involved the volunteer staff, such as:
building the stages
the staff kitchen
Although perhaps of a more incidental nature, I would like to chronicle:
the various songs that were written concerning staff
the deaths in the family we've had over the years
the history of when camps started getting there names