Presented 2002 October
FOOTMAD Fall Festival
Fayette County Park / 4H Camp

Dave Peyton is a columnist for The Charleston Daily Mail and plays Autoharp with The 1937 Flood.

Presented 2023 October
FOOTMAD Fall Festival
Fayette County Park / 4H Camp

Bobby has spent the better part of his life studying regional, national and international styles of and techniques and he has the marvelous ability to synthesize what he has learned to bring it all to life! You’ll hear echoes of his musical heroes in his playing, but his music is his own. He is the fourth consecutive generation of Taylors to play the fiddle. His father, Lincoln, carved his first fiddle with a penknife. When he was a young boy just beginning to learn his craft he learned to play Doc Roberts’ version of Brickyard Joe from a broken LP he painstakingly glued together well enough that it would play, so he could study Roberts’ technique. Bobby’s mentors have included Clark Kessinger and Mike Humphreys. He was influenced by Doc Roberts, the Skillet Lickers and Sam Jarvis. Over the years, he has played with the Morris Brothers Band, the Kanawha Tradition and other bands. He can be heard on his solo album, "Kanawha Tradition."

Although initially reluctant to enter fiddle contests, Booby has won almost every one he has entered. In 1977 he wound up his contest playing career by winning the WV State Open Fiddle Championship at the Mountain State Forest Festival. The in 1979, Bobby was named coordinator of music competitions for the WV Division of Culture & History. He began to write the rules and guidelines for competitors and judges in fiddle contests. Soon he was recognized for his ability to select competent judges, handle complaints diplomatically, maintain high standards and conduct contests ethically. He is now a nationally recognized authority on conducting fiddle competitions and advises many festivals on how to run successful events.

Bobby Taylor is often called on to judge one of the most largest and oldest fiddle competitions in the US, the Old Time Fiddlers Convention in Galax, VA. His methods have transformed many competitions from mere celebrations of local favorites to true measures of technique and style.

Appalachian String Band Festival originator, Will Carter, credits Bobby as the person largely responsible for the event’s national stature. “As wonderful as his music is, his outstanding and unequaled contribution has been his management of the heart and soul of the Appalachian String Band Festival at Clifftop. That event is the fiddle contest. He has the respect of the best players in the old-time community, and because of that he is able to recruit the best judges. Everyone respects the decisions because of this.”

Bobby thank you for the lifetime of talent and passion you have invested in traditional music. You have impacted the local, national and international music community with your scholarship, excellent musicianship, your generosity and integrity. We’re proud you are one of us and proud to honor you as a FOOTbridge award winner.

Presented 2004-09-25
FOOTMAD Fall Festival
Fayette County Park / 4H Camp

Kenney Parker is a co-founder and director of The Stonewall Jackson Jubilee, held for the past 31 Labor Day Weekends at Jackson’s Mill, WV. FOOTMAD is conferring the 3rd Annual FOOTBridge award on him for protecting, defending, and promoting old time music and its makers at the Jubilee. Join us for a tribute concert by his many friends and admirers at 6 p.m. Saturday, in the dance hall.

Presented 2025 September
FOOTMAD Fall Festival
Fayette County Park / 4H Camp

We do not honor Frank & Jane George with this award as much as they honor us with their presence and acceptance here tonight, for they truly live the FOOTMAD mission statement of preserving, promoting and presenting old-time traditional music and dance.

Jane George wears many hats. Born Jane Taylor in rural Roane County in 1922, and mother to four fine sons, she is a fervent supporter of West Virginia's folk heritage and has devoted her adult life to teaching and promoting the traditional arts. This has not been as easy task for there were no programs; Jane was instrumental in creating them and then tireless in teaching and promoting traditional heritage arts through the Parks and Recreation Commission, Mountaineer Day Camp. Jane turned her job into a revival of folk traditions.

She is a founding member of the committee that started the Mountain State Arts & Crafts Fair. She traveled up the hills and hollows to collect baskets from legendary basket maker, Claude Linville for the Fair. This interest led her for the Parks and Recreation track into the WV Department of Commerce where she could be more directly involved in the folk culture and enlist other organization in the effort to preserve the Appalachian heritage. But it is as a 4-H leader that she became intimately involved with the groups of children who are a true legacy and testament to her inspiration and her. tireless teaching.

Frank has always been a musician….At the tender age of five, his teacher is quoted as saying to Frank’s mother, “You’re going to have trouble out of this one.” Born in Bluefield, W.Va., in 1928, fiddler Frank George has taken Appalachian music around the world.

An authority on the history of West Virginia traditional music, Frank is particularly interested in the Irish and Scottish roots of mountain culture. In addition to the fiddle, he plays the Scottish bagpipes, the pennywhistle, the fife, the mountain and the hammered dulcimer, and the old-time banjo.

Although he turned down an opportunity to play the 1982 World’s Fair because he wasn’t in the mood,” Frank George is a versatile musician who has performed very widely. From Princeton University to the bars of Princeton, WV, he has made his music and taken it to nearly a dozen European countries and across America.

His knowledge of Appalachian and Anglo-Irish music is extensive and he prefers the instruments native to that music. The fiddle tunes that Frank plays are for the most pat traditional melodies that would have been recognized 100 years ago by fiddlers in Appalachia of the British Isles. Frank likes to play the different styles of music at the speed at which they were intended to be played as an accompaniment for the dances: Jigs, reels, hornpipes, waltzes and slow airs.

Presented 2006 September
FOOTMAD Fall Festival
Fayette County Park / 4H Camp

When considering the preservation of traditional music and dance, the Augusta Heritage Center comes immediately to mind, followed by the name of the person long and lovingly associated with this institution, Margo Blevin.

Augusta was the historic name of West Virginia in its period of earliest settlement. In 1973, "Augusta Heritage Arts Workshops" was the name given to a summer program that was set up to help preserve the Appalachian heritage and traditions. Augusta Heritage Center is best known for intensive week-long workshops that attract more than 2,000 participants annually. Thousands more attend our public concerts, dances, and festivals. Participants take more than 300 classes ranging from (though not a comprehensive list) traditional music (Appalachian, Cajun-zydeco, guitar, vocals, blues, bluegrass, Irish, swing) and dance (clogging, Irish step dancing, salsa, swing, Cajun, zydeco) to crafts (white oak basketry, instrument repair, stonemasonry) to folklore (herbs, woodslore, history of swing).

The Augusta Heritage Center reached a crisis in 1980 when it went bankrupt due to lack of federal funding. Luckily, Davis & Elkins College understood the program's cultural value and agreed to sponsor the institution until it could become self-sufficient. It was then that Margo Blevin was hired — a position she held until 2006. "My first year, there I was, sink or swim. I had never even taken a class at Augusta. I had just helped as a volunteer with the craft fair," Blevin recalled. “I educated myself very quickly, but it was a big, big learning curve. So I pulled together a staff. I did all the publicity and posters. I did the one-page fold-out listing all the classes, very similar to what had been done the year before, except I added a couple of classes. I wanted to add a few things that I thought people might like that hadn't been done before."

Thanks to Margo Blevin’s leadership, Augusta has not only become a crown jewel in the rugged Mountaineer State, but the rest of America as well; Augusta's sensibilities extend far beyond West Virginia's state lines.

Presented 2007 Sep 14, 15, 16
FOOTMAD Fall Festival
Fayette County Park / 4H Camp

Rich & Charlotte are the originators of two festivals that they hosted on their farm in Centerpoint, WV. In June the Firefly Festival was an event for families and friends to share songs, play music, tell stories and display unique talents at the Saturday night talent show. A shared sense of community was created around the love of traditional Appalachian folk ways by a couple from New York by way of Puerto Rico.

In July many dancers would gather in WV to prepare for Dance Week at Augusta in Elkins. Rich, being a talented carpenter, built a dance hall in his hay field beyond the house and dancers came there from by the hundreds from across the country and some from across the sea. Camping in the filed, cooking and eating communally, volunteering as bands and callers, they danced and danced long into the night. When the musicians could no longer play singing squares were formed. A dip in the farm pond cooled you down before bed or woke you up the next day. The weekend event concluded with volunteers staying to put the farm “back to rights.”

Many participants have gone on to become dance leaders and music teachers in their communities. The lessons learned about working together and valuing our traditions continue one because Rich & Charlotte gave unselfishly of their time and talent and graciously opened their home to so many. Rich & Charlotte have definitely guided and supported the traditional music and dance community. Their festivals connected rural WV to people across the country and around the world.

Presented 2008 October 18
WV Culture Center
State Capitol Complex
Charleston, WV
Concert featuring Gandy Dancer

WEST VIRGINIA MUSICIAN TO RECEIVE PRESTIGIOUS FOOTBRIDGE AWARD AT OPENING OF FOOTMAD CONCERT SERIES

Charleston, W.Va. – On Saturday, October 18, Gerry Milnes of the traditional music group Gandydancer will receive the prestigious FOOTbridge Award in honor of his continuous contributions to the traditional music and dance community at the opening of the Kanawha Valley Friends of Old Time Music and Dance (FOOTMAD) concert series.

The FOOTbridge Award, sponsored by FOOTMAD, has been awarded since 2002 to those who dedicate their lives unselfishly to the traditional music and dance community.

About the Artist

Milnes is known by peers and fans of traditional music as a brilliant musician, taking the music style of central West Virginia across the United States and overseas. He was recently recognized by the State of West Virginia with the Governor’s Award for the Arts in the area of Appalachian Folklife.

His skills and natural talent have graced countless concerts and dances since he first moved to West Virginia many years ago. He absorbed much of his music from being mentored by some of the greatest musicians of central West Virginia – particularly Ernie Carpenter and Melvin Wine, who came to call Milnes an adopted family member. He helped bring their music, along with Phoebe Parsons, dulcimer player Walter Miller, and many others to audiences from New York City to California. By coordinating those tours and accompanying their performances, Milnes made it possible for the master musicians to see the respect they receive from coast to coast and their important contribution to old-time music.

Milnes has recorded and produced dozens of albums and CDs of traditional West Virginia music and tales. He has presented over 100 traditional musicians in concert, as well as in low-key “visits,” creating a perfect venue that has resulted in enormous interest in traditional music.

Milnes has also written authoritatively on such diverse subjects as fiddle tunes, the origins of mountain dulcimers, log barns, fences, baskets, African-American banjo traditions, flatfooting, ballads, shape note singing, coon hunting, “john boats,” gravestones, moonshining, outsider art and more. His work has been published in such magazines as Goldenseal, and by highly-respected University presses. His books and articles are admired and respected by academicians and folklorists all over the world.

As if those accomplishments weren’t enough, Milnes – who is also a prize-winning photographer - mastered the art of film-making and produced an enormous and highly-respected body of video documentaries of various aspects of West Virginia’s people, places, and things.

To add to his skills, Milnes has been a sheep farmer and homestead farmer, learning to plant and harvest by “the signs.” He was, and still is, a “seed saver” and collector of rare heirloom seeds. He not only learned about the “old ways” that were traditional to West Virginia; he lived the life from which those traditions emerged.

Milnes has been the Folk Arts Coordinator for the Augusta Heritage Center in Elkins for the past 22 years, but has worked at Augusta since the 1970s. The National Endowment for the Arts has recognized Milnes as a leading scholar and funded his work at Augusta for the past 21 years. He is often chosen as a juror for the Endowment’s grant committees. At Augusta, he documents the traditional folk life and folk culture of West Virginia. With his calm thoroughness, he has managed to capture the essence of West Virginia’s music, lore, people, and material culture.

Presented 2011 September 10
WV Culture Center
State Capitol Complex
Charleston, WV

Michael and Carrie Kline have devoted a significant portion of their lives and careers to preserving the music and stories of Appalachia. Shortly after they met in Massachusetts in 1992, they spent an evening together singing Appalachian songs. They marveled that they each knew all the words. In those moments, they discovered a mutual passion for preserving local music and life ways.

In the nearly 20 years since, their passion has translated into a number of remarkable projects, through which they have documented local music and oral histories. Working as a team and with a variety of agencies, the couple developed an anthology of songs from the Underground Railroad era in the Upper Ohio Valley; gathered and recorded local songs in celebration of Hampshire County, West Virginia’s 250th anniversary; recorded and arranged traditional music and oral testimonials in a series of CDs that portray the history and life ways along the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike; and collected and recorded traditional coal-mining songs. Their writings have been featured numerous times in Goldenseal magazine. The Klines were featured in an article in the November 2010 issue of Wonderful West Virginia magazine.

Presented 2014 January 25
WV Culture Center
State Capitol Complex
Charleston, WV

Presented 2018 February 3
The Woman's Club of Charleston
Charleston WV

Presented 2019 May 23
The Woman's Club of Charleston
Charleston WV