Loose Leaf Notes

-The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on September 23, 2021 and online with a full gallery of photos HERE.

Downtown Floyd was alive with activity on Sunday for the Americana Music and Art Festival at the Warren G. Lineberry Park and Outer Space, highlighting Floyd talent both on stage and at vendor booths.

“I call it Floyd’s best kept secret,” said festival founder/organizer Alan Graf about the Americana music scene in Floyd.

“The idea is to showcase another side of Floyd that a lot of people may not know about.

Everyone knows about Floyd, the Crooked Road, the Bluegrass and Old Time music scene, but a lot don’t know about the Americana scene,” he explained, adding that “Americana” is a mix of roots music that reflects who America is in its diversity.

It was the second festival focused exclusively on local music. The inaugural festival took place in 2019, and 2020’s festival was cancelled due to Covid-19.

The Floyd Mystic Witches, a costumed dance troupe that raises money for local charities, opened the show with two fun-loving song and dance numbers, closing with an invitation for attendees to come up to the stage and dance.

Families, children, dogs, dancing and picnics were all part of the festival scene.

The weather was ideal with only one five-minute shower to briefly contend with as a roster of musicians and bands performed on two stages from noon to 6 p.m.

New this year was the addition of artisan vending. Potter Betse Dunham said sales were good and that most of her customers were out-of-towners.

Graf, a musician who moved to Floyd to learn to play bluegrass and old-time, played in several bands throughout the day.  He expressed his appreciation for all the festival sponsors, volunteers and staff and in particular Susan Gramling, who organized the artisan vending.

_____Colleen Redman

More Photos and Videos: Ash Devine performs an original song about dealing with the pandemic.

The Mystic Witches opened with a rendition of the Beatles Drive My Car, changing the words to “Baby, you can ride my broom. Climb on the back, there’s room…” Their 2021 fundraiser calendar was available for sale at the festival and can be purchased at the New Mountain Mercantile.

A tiny dancer shows off his moves.

At his family’s Sky Flower Studio jewelry booth, Marcus Carr finishes a Floyd-centric painting he started at the beginning of the day. His daughter Leilani is pictured vending her jewelry.

Chuck Peters won a festival T-shirt for having come from the furthest away: Washington state. Peters, a board member of Springhouse Community School was in town to work with the school.