With the exception of the years 1943–1947, the American Folk Song Festival was held annually until failing health forced Thomas to retire in 1972. From 1934 to 1949, thanks to a benefactor's gift of land and a windowless log cabin, the festival took place at a site eighteen miles south of Ashland. Beginning in 1950, the festival was held in Thomas' yard in Ashland, moving to a state park in Prestonsburg in 1964, and to the Carter Caves State Park in 1966. The festival followed an unwavering script for many years, intended to show "authentic sequences in America's musical history" (Thomas 1940, pg. 262). Volna Fraley or, later, his nephew, would signal the start of the performances by blowing a fox horn that had belonged to "Devil Anse" Hatfield (patriarch of the legendary feuding family of the Kentucky-West Virginia border). Next, a man, woman, and two children would arrive at the stage by covered wagon to be greeted by a woman dressed as a Cherokee Indian, as a representation of the Anglo-American settlement of the Appalachian Mountains. Traditions carried over from the British Isles would then be demonstrated by a dozen children performing an old English country dance accompanied by a piper. A woman in the role of "Narrator" (often played by Thomas herself), attended by "Ladies-in-Waiting" dressed in long black Elizabethan gowns, would read a historical prologue connecting Appalachian customs and music to Elizabethan England. The prologue would conclude with a description of the wedding of a young pioneer couple named Ephraim and Drusilla; the ensuing musical performances were set in the narrative context of their wedding reception, or "Infare".University of Louisville's Institutional Institutional Repository. Accessed April 11, 2022.
