44th Annual
Hall of Fame Uncle Pen Days Festival
September 19 – 22, 2018
Tom T. Hall and Miss Dixie. courtesy photo Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver. photo by Cindy Steele
~ by Mark Blackwell
Traditions are good things. They come in all types and sizes. Everybody has some personal traditions— things they do in particular ways on particular days. Then there are the big traditions like national holidays, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, and the Fourth of July. Communities have traditions as well.
Brown County can claim several; the Spring Blossom Parade, the Back Roads Studio Tour, and Tuesday Night Jams at the town square. One of my favorites is the one started by Bill Monroe forty-four years ago.
It’ s the annual Hall of Fame and Uncle Pen Days festival. Mr. Bill established his Bluegrass Hall of Fame and Museum as a tangible reminder of and tribute to the musicians who helped develop and disseminate the music that he originated. This year is special in that there are two nominees, Tom T. Hall and his wife, Miss Dixie.
Tome T. Hall has been involved with Country / Bluegrass music since he was a teenager. He has had his own band, been a radio announcer but he is best known for being a top-notch songwriter.
He wrote“ Harper Valley PTA,” a number one hit for Jeannie Riley back in 1968. And then went on to write the songs,“ A Week in the County Jail,”“( Old Dogs, Children and) Watermelon Wine,”“ The Year Clayton Delaney Died,” and many, many more. And it is for his ability to write great narrative songs that he is known as The Storyteller. He has won a Grammy Award and a Country Music Association Award. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2008 and this year he will be in the Bluegrass Hall of Fame and Museum.
You can visit the Hall of Fame and Museum as a ticketholding attendee of this year’ s festival. But free admission to the museum is not the only extra you get with a ticket— there are also workshops on various instruments and performance techniques that go on throughout the four days of the festival.
Another benefit of the festival is that you can get up close and personal with some of the greatest musicians in Bluegrass music like Bobby Osborne, David Davis, Michael Cleveland, Doyle Lawson, and The Grascals up at the shelter on top of the hill. I always enjoy getting to say“ Howdy” and
50 Our Brown County • Sept./ Oct. 2018