Smithville's Old Time Fiddler's Jamboree and Crafts Festival next weekend!

It’s Jamboree season once again in DeKalb County! 

This time of year Smithville,  our county seat, invites everyone in for the Fiddler’s Jamboree and Crafts Festival. This is the 44th year for the event, the biggest thing that happens in these parts. It draws tens of thousands from all over the world for two days of fun and food.

Young cloggers take the stage to dance to some good old time music

at the The Smithville Fiddler's Jamboree and Crafts Festival.

This year's event will be held next Friday and Saturday, July 3rd and 4th, in and around the town square in Smithville, in DeKalb County.
The main stage, where competions are held, sits on the courthouse steps.

Some of the  Jamboree's best music can be heard offstage, though, where musicians gather in the shade for impromptu jams on old time favorites. If you're up for a stroll, there's plenty to see in the many booths which line the square and streets surrounding it. Some celebrate traditional Southern crafts, some more modern renditions of varied arts.

The Jamboree was our first introduction to the area way back in 1977. We’ve been here that long. A third of a century.

Over those years I developed a real fondness for and understanding of  the music the Jamboree celebrates: old time bluegrass and mountain music still popular throughout the South. All acoustic: guitar, banjo, mandolin, upright bass, dobro, dulcimer, and the fiddle of course. 

I now know many of the old time standards contestants play during the various events. Can even strum a few myself on the guitar. One of the joys of country living is to sitting on the front porch in the evening, watching the hills and hollows slip into darkness, strumming some chords on the guitar.

There was a time when that was the only regular entertainment folks in these parts could enjoy, after a long hard day’s work. The Jamboree helps keep those traditions alive. If you're ever in these parts the weekend nearest the Fourth of July it’s worth the trip to Smithville. And if you don’t know what clogging is, well, y’all come.

Off The Beaten Path

As a writer, I’ve worked with a group of local artists to promote their activities and annual fall tour, the Off The Beaten Path Studio Tour held the last full weekend of October in and around DeKalb County.Aptly named, it also describes the lifestyles they and we have chosen here in rural Tennessee. To some, our deep woods, hills and hollows, creeks and dirt roads may sound idyllic. It’s a way of life, like any other with its own challenge and rewards.

There’s something we all draw from these surroundings, an abiding peace away from the chaos which too often defines modern life. Sure, it can intrude this far, but there’s the landscape, and buckets of stars at nigh,t to re-orient our personal compass.

We chose to be here, accepted the good and bad of rural life. And though we all aspire to the financial rewards success in our respective arts may bring, there’s a success we already enjoy in choosing our way and making a life on our terms. That’s the draw and reward for those bold enough to wander “off the beaten path.”