Raw States
Wayne C. Henderson Music Festival & Guitar Competition
Mouth of Wilson, VA · Music
- When
- June 19, 2027
- Where
- Grayson Highlands State Park · Mouth of Wilson · VA
- Cost
- Not confirmed
- Status
- Approximate: based on past editions, not announced yet
Grayson Highlands State Park hosts a one day old time and bluegrass festival each June built around a guitar building and flatpicking competition named for luthier Wayne C. Henderson, a National Heritage Award recipient from nearby Rugby. Now past its thirtieth year, it draws pickers and makers from across Appalachia. Proceeds fund music scholarships for young players in the region.
The history within reach
- Grayson Highlands Fall Festivalsame spot
Grayson Highlands State Park hosts a weekend of Appalachian mountain traditions each September, with sorghum molasses making, apple butter stirred in copper kettles, and live old-time and bluegrass music.
Grayson Highlands State Park hosts a one day old time and bluegrass festival each June built around a guitar building and flatpicking competition named for luthier Wayne C.
Above five thousand feet the trees give out and Virginia turns into open grassland, kept that way by a herd of small wild ponies introduced in the 1970s to graze the balds rather than pay for mowing.
The Whitetop Mountain Sorghum Molasses Festival at the Mount Rogers Fire Hall celebrates the old Appalachian tradition of pressing sorghum cane into molasses, with old time and bluegrass music, apple butter, and craft vendors.
The name and the first version came out of Knoxville, but the drink America knows was reformulated at the Tip Corporation in Marion in 1958, where Bill Bridgforth built the citrus recipe that Pepsi bought outright six years later.