Folk Music's Spiritual Home

Folk Music's Spiritual Home

Below a hillside profusion of tents lies a field full of cars and RVs broiling in the Texas sun. Just as hot is the music coming from a well-worn guitar. The guitarist—a man with a gray ponytail and tie-dyed shirt—sits on the hood of a maroon Ford. A younger guy, looking like an executive on holiday, studies the virtuoso, who finishes picking, hands over the guitar, and says, “Your turn.”

People from all walks of life find communion in music when they enter the Quiet Valley Ranch, nine miles from Kerrville, Texas, (pop. 20,425) for the Kerrville Folk Festival. For 18 days beginning the Thursday before Memorial Day, 30,000 people—musical legends, amateurs, fans, and families—descend on the ranch for a family reunion of sorts, where long-time attendees (Kerrverts) greet newcomers (Kerrgins) with “Welcome home.”

Kerrville is the spiritual home of American folk music, the place where songwriters bare their hearts and souls in stories set to music. “There’s more heart here,” says Matt Meighan, a Boulder, Colo., singer-songwriter who found love at Kerrville in 2000 when he met his bride-to-be Nancy Chafin of Houston, Texas.

Since its founding in 1972 as a two-day event that drew 2,800 people, the festival has hosted a Who’s Who of talent: Asleep at the Wheel, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Judy Collins, Tish Hinojosa, Robert Earl Keen Jr., Michael Martin Murphey, and Willie Nelson. The careers of Lyle Lovett and Nanci Griffith were launched during a competition for aspiring singer-songwriters who send in tapes or CDs for a chance to perform.

But the festival is as much about sharing songs as building careers. Every afternoon a small crowd gathers at the “Ballad Tree” to sit on hard plank benches and listen to original songs from musicians whose names are drawn from a hat. One afternoon, it was the turn of Jenni Jamison and Ed Priest of Abilene, Texas. They didn’t know a friend had put their names in the hat, and Priest was without his guitar. In seconds, someone thrust a guitar in his hand.

Just a hoot and holler from the campground, nightly performances are held on the Main Stage, practically the only place in this primitive setting where modern technology is evident. A world-class sound system carries music up the hillside where people sit in lawn chairs and on blankets, and beyond to the marketplace where vendors sell everything from Texas barbecue to handmade moccasins. After the show, the performers make their way to the campgrounds where they trade tunes with amateurs and mingle with fans around campfires until dawn.

“Everyone should camp out at least once to experience the campfires,” says Laura Smith of Temple, Texas. She and her husband, Mike, have attended the festival since 1978. Today, they “rough it” in an RV park and reminisce about the old days of curtained outhouses, cold showers, and camping in the rain.

In recent years, the outhouses have been upgraded and hot water heaters have been installed. With only three full-time staff, the festival wouldn’t happen without volunteers handling the improvements, operations, maintenance, and security. About 1,000 volunteers come from Kerrville and distant parts of the globe to work the festival or to spend working weekends, Producer Dalis Allen says.

Kerrville doesn’t change much, except for one thing, says Dave Gay, a sociology professor from Orlando, Fla. “There’s a new generation of musicians and fans, a lot of them the kids of Kerrverts,” he says. “That’s cool. I hope Kerrville goes on forever.”

Music lover Judy Braddock of Denver, Colo., now understands why a friend insisted she attend Kerrville. “It’s such a comfortable feeling,” she says, “like putting on an old pair of jeans.”

Leanna Skarnulis is a freelance writer in Austin, Texas.

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