Storytelling Festival Saturday at Hagood Mill

The Pickens County Museum of Art & History invites you to a special, and free, day of milling, stories, tall tales and lots of memories at the Hagood Mill Historic Site & Folklife Center. The Mill will be operating, rain or shine, on Saturday, October 20 from 10:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m.

As part of the Museum’s “Music in the Mountains” series, the celebration of tradition will continue on this day at the “Eleventh Annual Hagood Mill Storytelling Festival.”

The hills around the old mill will echo with the whispers, howls ‘n hollers of some of the Southeast’s best storytellers sharing bits about all sorts of folks, funnies, cultures and places.

Returning to again host what has become one of Hagood Mill’s favorite annual events is storyteller, musician and radio personality, John T. Fowler. From the rolling hills of upstate South Carolina with family ties to the western North Carolina mountains, John Fowler’s storytelling is a blast of old-time energy of yesteryear introducing traditional yarns and folktales from the Carolina region. Those Appalachian family ties run deep in John, which in turn creates his friendly and energetic personality. He also is an old-time mountain banjo and harmonica master, and plays several other traditional instruments, occasionally blending them into his programs. John’s stories and old-time songs, geared for audiences young and old, are stepping stones of history and southern culture. John is also a researcher, collector, preservationist and writer as well as the host of an old time radio show on NC public radio station WNCW 88.7 FM. For more on John, please visit www.hairytoeproductions.com  

This year’s festival features three of the finest storytellers on the national stage, agreeing to join us to grace the stages, porches and shade trees at the mill. Joining John Fowler will be, from Union Mills, NC, the tale-spinnin’ naturalist, Doug Elliott; Asheville’s incomparable Connie Regan-Blake; and ol’ time banjo balladeer Sheila Kay Adams of Mars Hill, NC. Pickens County’s own Judy Seeley will also join us for the day, bringing her special brand of down-home warmth to the day.

Throw in a spattering of old time musicians along with the usual wonders presented every month by the Hagood Mill’s exceptional collection of volunteer artisans and living historians and you have a day that everyone in your family will enjoy.

Hailing from Union Mills, NC, Doug Elliott has performed and presented programs at festivals, museums, botanical gardens, nature centers and schools from Canada to the Caribbean.

Whether he's singing about catfish, pontificating on possums, extolling the virtues of dandelions, telling wild snake tales or wailing out a jivey harmonica tune -- either on a backwoods trail or in a concert hall -- Doug Elliott will take you on an unforgettable, multifaceted cultural tour of North America's back country. Doug has been a featured storyteller at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough TN. He has lectured and performed at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto and conducted workshops for the Smithsonian Institution.

Doug was named harmonica champion at Fiddler's Grove Festival in Union Grove NC; has authored four books, many articles in regional and national magazines and has recorded a number of award-winning albums of stories and songs. Elliott's passion for the natural world developed in early childhood roaming the woods and waters around his home. His dad used to say, "That boy knows what's under every rock between here and town.”  http://www.dougelliott.com/

Connie Regan-Blake is one of America’s most celebrated storytellers. She has captivated the hearts and imaginations of people around the globe with her powerful performances and workshops. Entertaining audiences in 46 states and 14 countries, she brings the wisdom, humor and drama of stories to main stage concert halls, libraries and into the corporate world.

Both as a solo artist and a member of the acclaimed Folktellers duo, Connie has been featured on seven award-winning recordings – five audio and two videos produced by PBS. New Age Magazine, School Library Journal, and Southern Living have praised her work. She has been a guest on NPR’s All Things Considered, ABC Good Morning America and CNN.

When Connie takes the stage she generates a brightness and warmth, drawing in listeners with her engaging humor and Southern charm. Her stories range from hilarious traditional Appalachian Mountain tales to poignant true-life drama. A consummate professional, Connie’s rare talent can transform a convention hall into a wondrous landscape and turn a packed theater into an intimate circle of friends. As a founding board member of the National Storytelling Association (formerly NAPPS), and a frequent host and featured performer at the National Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee, Connie helped ignite and shape the American storytelling revival.

Connie resides with her husband, two dogs and a frisky cat in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Asheville, North Carolina. http://www.storywindow.com/

Few people embody such a depth of family and regional tradition, or represent it to the rest of the world with so much authority and affection, as Madison County's Sheila Kay Adams.

Adams is the seventh-generation bearer of her family's two-hundred-year-old ballad-singing tradition, and is the mother and teacher of the eighth generation. Her own teachers were her great-aunt Dellie Norton, cousin Cass Wallin, and other kinfolks in the Wallin, Chandler, Norton, Ramsey, and Ray families of Sodom, North Carolina, who have so long been admired by ballad singers and collectors.

After teaching public schools for seventeen years, Adams now devotes her attention full-time to music and storytelling. One of the best-known living ballad singers in North Carolina, as well as a fine oldtime banjo player, she has recorded and performed prolifically as a solo act, as well as with her late husband Jim Taylor and other musical partners.

Adams' talent has even caught the attention of Hollywood.

She made a musical appearance in the 1992 film Last of the Mohicans, and was a technical advisor and singing coach for the movie Songcatcher. As a storyteller, Adams also presents her family's heritage to a world audience.

Her tales of life in Madison County are full of history and humor. Most recently she is the acclaimed author of two books, Come Go Home With Me, a collection of short stories drawn from life in Madison County, and My Old True Love, a novel of love and family in Civil War-era Madison County. Life Magazine called her book of short stories "pure mountain magic."

And, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution says My Old True Love is "as passionate and eventful as an Irish ballad." Sheila Kay Adams won the 1997 North Carolina Society of Historians' Clark Cox Historical Fiction Award, and received the North Carolina Folklore Society's Brown-Hudson Award for outstanding contributions to the folklore of her home state. http://www.blueridgeheritage.com/traditional-artist-directory/sheila-kay-adams

Judy Seeley loves telling stories. Through voice and gesture, she creates memorable characters for folktales, personal stories, and humorous tales. Judy hails from Illinois, spent nine years in Georgia, ten years in Pennsylvania and now lives in Easley, SC.  She collected stories along the way and joyously shares them at schools, libraries, civic organizations, and clubs. Judy’s stories challenge audiences of all ages and backgrounds to recognize their common values, foibles, and joys.

Join in the fun from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. for this FREE day of tall tales, whoppers, folklore and good ol’ stories along with the monthly dose of milling, music and memories. The water-powered 1845 gristmill, one of the finest examples of nineteenth century technology in the Upstate, operates just as it has for the last century-and-a-half and will be running throughout the day. In the old mill, fresh stone-ground corn meal, grits and wheat flour will be available, as well as Hagood Mill cookbooks and a variety of other mill related items. The Hagood Mill, as usual, will host a variety of folklife and traditional arts demonstrations each month, including blacksmithing, bowl-digging, flintknapping, chair-caning, moonshining, quilting, spinning, knitting, weaving, woodcarving, open-hearth cooking, metal-smithing, pioneer toys and games and more! .

There promises to be lots to do and lots of fun! So, head on out, grab a plate of southern vittles or snacks prepared by our newest food vendors from GateHouse Restaurant and enjoy a day at the Mill. Show your support for the Mill and the Pickens County Museum by joining them at this monthly Third Saturday event. The Hagood Mill operates, rain or shine, the third Saturday of every month and is located just 3 miles north of Pickens or 5 ½ miles south of Cherokee Foothills Scenic Hwy 11 off SC Hwy 178 at 138 Hagood Mill Road. Hagood Mill is open Wednesday through Saturday from 10:00 until 4:00, to tour the buildings and grounds and to visit the Mill Site Gift Shop.

“Music in the Mountains 2012” is sponsored by a private benefactor. The Pickens County Museum of Art & History is funded in part by Pickens County, members and friends of the museum and a grant from the South Carolina Arts Commission, which receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts. We would also like to thank GateHouse Restaurant for their generous gift of feeding our mill site volunteers.

For additional information please contact the Hagood Mill Historic Site & Folklife Center at (864) 898-2936 or the Pickens County Museum at (864) 898-5963.