Smokies Dulcimer Convention

by Vicki Runnion

Originally published in Guild of American Luthiers Quarterly, 5, #3, 1977



My good friends at the Folk Life Center of the Smokies, in Cosby, Tennessee, got together with some folks (now new friends from the Guild of American Luthiers and the publishers of Dulcimer Players News, and co-sponsored what I hope was the first of many annual dulcimer conventions there.

The beautiful wooded Folk Life Center land n Cosby was the site for a weekend (June 10-12) full of music and other delights. Players, builders and lovers of both the plucked mountain dulcimer and the hammered dulcimer came from near and far (Florida, New York, Michigan, Ohio, Colorado, etc.) to celebrate the dulcimer. Performer Bonnie Carol won the understanding laughter of the audience late Saturday evening, with a song (composed by friends of hers) that poked gentle fun at people who still manage to hold on to the view of the dulcimer as merely an uncomplicated traditional instrument capable of only the simplest style of playing. Had any of these people been with us this weekend, I’m sure they myth would have been exploded.