Tuesday, January 29, 2008

End of the road for Fox Family festival

With all the new festival launches this year and every year, we tend to overlook the attrition of older festivals. Here's an example. The Fox Family Bluegrass Festival, which has been a force in traditional music in upstate New York for 18 years, is coming to an end. Since 1990, the festival has brought the best in bluegrass to Old Forge in the central Adirondacks.

In an "obituary" at the festival website, the Fox family siblings (who now perform together as 3 Fox Drive) broke the news to friends of the festival, ending with this acknowledgment to long-time attendees:

"Finally, thank you to all the festival-goers. You have not only become a part of the family, you have helped to define the term. Your support, camaraderie, and love for bluegrass music have not gone unnoticed. We can never thank you enough for hanging in there with us even when it was pouring down rain, or the power went out, or the high for the day was 35 degrees! Each and every year, you came back with smiles on your faces, ready for anything and sat in your chairs on that hill to soak in the sounds of some of the best music that the Adirondack Mountains will ever hear. There will never be a festival quite like this one. It's not something that can be recreated. We thank you, we love you and we'll miss you this August."

I never got a chance to attend the festival but heard great things about it from people I've met at Grey Fox. Sorry to see it go. Best wishes for 3 Fox Drive.

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