Presented by the Town of Sylva, the 26th annual Greening Up the Mountains festival will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.  Saturday, April 27, in downtown Sylva. 

The 50th annual Smoky Mountain Folk Festival will be held on Aug. 30-31 at the Lake Junaluska Conference & Retreat Center. Both nights will include a rich variety of the region’s finest fiddlers, banjo players, string bands, ballad singers, buck dancers and square dance teams as well as the marvelous sounds of dulcimer, harmonica, Jew’s harp, bagpipes, spoons, saws, and folk ensembles.

Attendees of the 2nd Annual Mountain Music Jamboree will not only enjoy delicious BBQ and traditional mountain music — they will help the Haywood County Fairgrounds stay alive.

The festival will benefit the struggling venue, which has lost all funding from the Haywood County government. “This is something that people really need to support with these budget cuts,” said Roy Kirkpatrick, administrative assistant for the Haywood fairgrounds board.

The Jamboree will kick off with a BBQ dinner at 4 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 14, for $7. Lively music follows at 6 p.m. with performances by Paul’s Creek String Band, Water Bluegrass, Buncombe Turnpike, Gray Wolf and The Unexpected.

“We think it’s really going to be an exciting evening of top quality bluegrass music,” said Sam Smith with the Haywood County Fairgrounds.

One featured band is Paul’s Creek Band, whose guitarist Carol Rifkin was featured in the BBC documentary “Down Home, Appalachia to Nashville,” the movie “Songcatcher,” and more. Rifkin has been a member of the Green Grass Clogger for more than 30 years and appeared with the group in two Emmy Award-winning shows. Rifkin is also a founding member of the Lake Eden Arts Festival and a journalist who hosts WNCW’s “This Old Porch.”

Banjo player Troy Harrison plays two and three finger bluegrass plus old timey claw hammer, Jamie Soesbee is an award-winning bass player who genre jumps with ease, and Tim Gardner is an award-winning fiddler and multi-instrumentalist from Brevard.

Also at the jamboree, well-known Southern Appalachian Cloggers and the up and coming junior Fines Creek Flatfooters will wow the crowd with dances all night long.

Master of ceremonies will be WPTL DJ Cliff Hannah and Randy Johnston will take care of sound.

Admission tickets may be purchased at the door for $12 or purchased in advance for $10 at Strains of Music, Joey’s Pancake House, Duvall’s Restaurant, and Ammons’ Drive-In Restaurant, and the Haywood Café.

For more information, contact Roy Kirkpatrick at 828.627.6396 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. www.haywoodcountyfairgrounds.org.