MOUNTAIN CITY, Tenn., (WJHL) – Mountain City honored its rich musical history at its 11th annual Long Journey Home festival.

The festival features a variety of local buskers playing traditional folk and country music, as well as food trucks and an art gallery.

“We had the idea that we wanted to tell the story of Johnson County’s musical heritage through art,” said Christie Dunn, the executive director of the Johnson County Centre for the Arts. “Around our mural unveilings grew performance, and finally, even our arts centre here in Mountain City.”

John McCutcheon has been a long-time performer at the festival. He said that he knew Mountain City was the right place for him once he set foot on the street.

“The first thing I noticed were the murals of traditional musicians,” he said. “People I knew, because I’m nerdy enough to know what these guys looked like. There’s one on the side of the hardware store, on the side of the supermarket and the side of the art center that they were starting. And I thought, these are my people.”

Dunne said that Johnson County was one of the places where folk music originated.

“Johnson County has a very rich heritage of folk singers,” she said. “Tom Ashley was a very, very influential artist in early country music. He played clawhammer banjo in a very unique style. He tuned his banjo in what he called ‘Lassie,’ and his banjo style is known throughout the world. In fact, he was so appreciated that Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead came and spent a week learning from Tom Ashley.”

This year’s festival celebrated the 100th anniversary of the 1925 Fiddler’s Convention. McCutcheon produced an anniversary record for the group featuring several folk artists, including the Old Crow Medicine Show and Tim O’Brien.

McCutcheon said the 1925 Fiddler’s Convention was one of the first folk festivals.

“Nobody had ever done this in early country music,” he said. “The music business then, being just as creative as they are now, said, let’s record a whole bunch of fiddle players. And they were only known by the radio performances and by their records. So this was totally new territory. This is two years before the Bristol sessions, where everything changed and vocal music became the dominant kind of music. So this was the apex of the popularity of the fiddle in early country music.”

Dunne said that folk music has a sanctity in the Johnson County region.

“Sacred is the word that comes to my mind a lot,” she said. “And people laugh at me for saying that the music is sacred, but the music truly is sacred. A lot of the songs that are still sung here in the mountains are songs that traveled here with, some of the earliest settlers from Scotland and Ireland. And, those songs were, you know, the people held on to those songs because that’s all they had.”

Dunne added that this festival is dedicated to honoring the roots of folk music.

“It’s a niche festival,” she said. “It’s not glamourous. People really appreciate the traditional ways and, it’s very authentic. And I think we want to keep it that way. It’s just really nice to see people celebrate the the heritage that is unique to Johnson County.”

The festival takes place from Friday to Sunday in Mountain City.