This Week in Texas Music History, an esteemed folk festival sets down roots in the Hill Country.
This Week in Texas Music History is brought to you by Brane Audio!
By Jason Mellard from the Center for Texas Music History at Texas State University.
On May 23, 1974, the Kerrville Folk Festival found its new and enduring home at Quiet Valley Ranch. For over a half century, the event has nurtured writing, musicianship, and community among singer-songwriters and their audiences from around the world.
The festival began two years earlier when the Texas Commission on the Arts and Humanities invited Rod Kennedy to produce concerts in the Hill Country. Kennedy’s background as owner of the Austin folk club the Chequered Flag, organizer of the city’s earliest music festivals, and occasional race car driver gave Kennedy a compelling resume. He recruited Chequered Flag compatriots Allen Wayne Damron, Carolyn Hester, and Peter Yarrow to help make the new event a participatory space for learning and doing rather than passive listening, leading to Kerrville’s signature New Folk Competition for songwriters.
The first two annual festivals were held at Kerrville Municipal Auditorium, but due to its rapid growth, the festival moved to Quiet Valley Ranch in 1974 – a sixty-acre plot nine miles south of Kerrville.
The first festival at the ranch extended its lineup and schedule to four nights with performances by Willis Alan Ramsey, Townes Van Zandt, Bill and Bobbie Hearne, Flaco Jimenez, and Asleep at the Wheel. Austin’s KUT recorded much of the event for national broadcast.
Every year, the festival attracts artists of great acclaim, yet it still operates under a “no star” system, ensuring that every artist is treated equally. This made Kerrville key for nurturing the early careers of Steve Earle, Nanci Griffith, Tish Hinojosa, Lyle Lovett, James McMurtry, and many more. Today, the Kerrville Folk Festival is perhaps the longest continuously running music festival in the United States, a guiding light for the nation’s songwriters.
Sources:
Michael Corcoran, “Austin’s Promoter Rod Kennedy.” Substack.com, 2022. https://michaelcorcoran.substack.com/p/austins-promoter-rod-kennedy
David Johnson. It Can Be This Way Always: Images from the Kerrville Folk Festival. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2021.
Rod Kennedy. Music from the Heart: The Fifty-Year Chronicle of His Life in Music (With a Few Sidetrips). Austin: Eakin Press, 1998.
