Classic rock legends The Marshall Tucker Band and Haywood County bluegrass sensation Balsam Range will headline the 116th Canton Labor Day gathering, which will take place Sept. 1-2 at Sorrells Street Park in downtown. 

For me, the Labor Day holiday usually includes being with friends and family, barbecuing, consuming too many hard seltzers, playing in the water and lots of talking, but this year I will be in a tent, on the mountaintop, at a meditation retreat all weekend. 

In 1894, congress voted to approve Labor Day as a national holiday. The vote took place just days after the deadly Pullman Strike, in which workers of the Pullman Palace Car Company in Chicago went on strike to protest wage cuts and the firing of union representatives, placing workers’ rights front and center in the public’s view.

Some of the Labor Day events we’ve come to know and love have been canceled this year due to the pandemic and/or the recent flooding in parts of Haywood County. However, there are still plenty of ways to get out and enjoy the holiday weekend.

Canton’s elected leaders want to ensure that the public knows the last remaining element of the Town of Canton’s 114th annual Labor Day festival — Monday’s parade — has indeed been cancelled. 

The Coronavirus Pandemic may have left plans for Canton’s historic Labor Day festival up in the air, but a new idea launched by town officials Aug. 13 means things are looking up. 

Bob Savelson • Guest columnist

Thinking about Labor Day, it has been a national holiday since 1894. Consistent with the nation’s ambivalent feelings about whether organized labor should truly be part of its social fabric, the statute was signed by President Grover Cleveland — who earlier that year had dispatched federal troops to break a strike called to support Pullman car employees protesting wage cuts. 

Just weeks after a violent “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville last August, complaints arising from the display of Confederate imagery in the Town of Canton’s 111th annual Labor Day parade prompted an alderman to propose regulating the display of controversial speech in town-sponsored events. 

An iconic mandolin and fiddle player, Sam Bush has rewritten the game of bluegrass, especially when it comes to live performance within the genres of string, acoustic and rock-n-roll music.

Among his many accolades and awards was his 2001 “Album of the Year” Grammy as part of the “O Brother, Where Art Thou” film soundtrack. With his early days as a member of the groundbreaking New Grass Revival, to his current role fronting the endless touring juggernaut that is the Sam Bush Band, he continues to be an open book — in inspiration and in conversation.

Leading this year’s International Bluegrass Music Association awards with eight nominations, Haywood County group Balsam Range is atop the mountain of bluegrass.