Acoustic Blues and Field Holler Festival honoring Sylvester Weaver will be held Friday, Aug. 4, beginning at 2 p.m._ and Saturday, Aug. 5, ending at 10:45 p.m.
This will be in conjunction with the 8th of August Emancipation independence Festival, which will be held continuously the next two days in East Russellville.
The concert will be at the SEEK Museum at the corner of Sixth and Morgan streets, where the statue honoring Alice Allison Dunnigan is in the front yard.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the first blues song to solidify Country Blues, recorded by Louisville native Sylvester Weaver. Jack Dappa Blues Heritage Preservation Foundation will partner with the SEEK Museum and local residences to launch what is expected to be the annual Black Bottom Acoustic Blues and Field Holler Festival honoring Sylvester Weaver.
The festival's mission is to raise cultural and ethnic awareness of Black Traditional Music, Traditional Art, Folklore, Oral Histories, and the Black Experience in America, encouraging residents of a historically black community, surrounding areas, and university students to learn, engage, and participate in Blues music and field hollers. This will be done while enjoying down home Blues performances by local, regional, and southern musicians.
The festival and artist's performance will be held in the SEEK (Struggle for Emancipation and Equality in Kentucky) Museum Row Black Bottom section of Russellville, where acoustic blues and field hollers solidify the stories archived in the structures hosting the performance.
The SEEK Museum is a conglomeration of four historic buildings in two of Russellville's National Register Districts.
Featured Performance by Alvin Youngblood Hart