On Saturday, August 5th, there will be an introduction to blues workshop, community leaders' presentations, and music performances.

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 Blues and Field Holler Festival honoring Sylvester Weaver.

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.

On Saturday, August 5th, there will be an introduction to blues workshop, community leaders' presentations, and 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

Jonesville Narrative Stage number 1 - 2 PM
Wathetta Buford
Alice Waddell
Maxine Ray

Demonstration and narrative stage number 2- 3:30 PM 
Dean Terrance Brown - Black opera and Pcal
Brent Bjorkman - Music Legacy Project 
Erika Brady - John Edmonds
Possible Black Spirituals
Alvin Youngblood Hart 

Sylvester Weaver Narrative Stage 5- PM 
Michael Jones
Keith Clements
Margie Marshall
Mark "Big  Poppa" Stampley

Sylvester Weaver Performance Number 3 - 6:30 - PM 
Mark "Big  Poppa" Stampley & Margie Marshall

Last performance of the night - - 8:pm 
A Different Sound