An Introduction to the Delaware Valley Bluegrass Festival Recordings

The Delaware Valley Bluegrass Festival (originally known as the Delaware Bluegrass Festival) began on Labor Day Weekend in 1972 in Bear, Delaware. Founded by Ralph Stanley and Bill Monroe, along with Carl Goldstein, Mike Hudak, and Sheldon Sandler from the newly established Brandywine Friends of Old Time Music, it was to be the first bluegrass festival in the northeastern United States. The festival remained in Bear until 1990, when it moved to the Salem County Fairgrounds near Woodstown, New Jersey. Early on, the festival's producers began incorporating old-time, country, and other roots music artists, establishing the festival as one of the most significant and distinctive folk music events in the nation.

The current exhibit provides a curated introduction to the Delaware Valley Bluegrass Festival Recordings (1972-2018), held by the Archives of Appalachia at East Tennessee State University, with special attention given to the festival's first decade.

The exhibit features portions of digitized recordings, provided by the Archives of Appalachia for the purposes of research and education. Any commercial uses of the materials or any uses that exceed the limits of fair use and other relevant statutory exceptions require the permission of the Archives of Appalachia and the copyright holder(s). It is the user's obligation to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions when publishing or otherwise distributing materials. The Archives of Appalachia makes every effort to adhere to all known copyright and rights of privacy, publicity, or trademark of these materials. If you are a rights holder of material on this site and believe that inclusion of this material violates your rights, please contact archives@etsu.edu.