Courtesy New Deal String Band

  From Fred Robbins

Note: Although the Osborne Brothers are listed on the poster, Sonny told me they couldn't make the festival, and their first festival ever was the next Fincastle (1966).   In 2004, regarding my 1966 Fincastle photos, Sonny wrote me... These pictures are just so good, I can't explain to you the memories they bring back. I remember almost every one of them, and especially love the Don Reno picture, and the Benny Martin shot is a classic. Benny loved the fiddle so much and this picture shows that. I don't know if you realize but this was the first festival we played. We couldn't make the 1965 Fincastle show and I guess this is why these pictures are so important. These are historic.   In 2014, Sonny wrote me... Fred, I know what happened with the mis print of that 1965 poster. In 1963 we played Luray VA at a fair or carnival in which Carlton Haney had booked for us. (We were paid $150) After the show we had dinner and he told us about an idea he had for doing a festival where all Bluegrass bands would be there. He asked if we thought it would work. I told him I liked the idea and he could count us in. For several reasons I actually never dreamed he could pull it off, but if he did we wanted to be part of the thing. So time passed and no more was said about it and in 1965 Gordon Cash came to work with us. So when Carlton actually got the thing together he put our name on the poster, along with Gordon Cash, assuming we would be true to our word, which I would have done but we were contracted to be in Texas and could not change it. By the time the 66 festival came around, Dale Sledd had assumed the vacancy left by Mr. Cash. But we certainly made it in 66.

  From Fred Bartenstein

Richard Thompson's "Fincastle festival to be remembered at WOB" in Bluegrass Today   Bill Monroe's contract with Carlton Haney for appearance at the event   Mary Greenman Green's 1973 Muleskinner News article on the event   Pages from the program of the 40th anniversary celebration held in Fincastle          (including Phil Zimmerman's SEBA article reprint)   26-minute DVD prepared for the 40th anniversary celebration in Fincastle*   Blue Ridge PBS TV coverage of the 40th anniversary celebration (Password=brex)   Ron Roach's article on the "Story of Bluegrass" in the Journal of Appalachian Studies   Ted Lehmann's article on the "50 Years after Fincastle, the Story of Bluegrass"           Continues" at No Depression   More Stories   Ralph Berrier's 8/30/15 Roanoke Times article * Video Courtesy Historic Fincastle, Inc.    www.hisfin.org    20 West Main Street, P.O. Box 19, Fincastle, VA 24090    Telephone: 540-473-3077, E-Mail: historicfincastle@hotmail.com

From Tom King

More Fincastle 1965 Recordings   Bluegrass Story - Part 1   Bluegrass Story - Part 2

From Ivor Trueman

Fincastle 1965 Recordings 1   Fincastle 1965 Recordings 2   Fincastle 1965 Recordings 3 Note: some of these recordings may duplicate those of Tom King. Also the Osborne Brothers' recordings are certainly not from 1965 as per Sonny's explanations above.

From Others

First Bluegrass Festival Fincastle VA. 1965   Don Reno Banjo Workshop from Jason Skinner                    Bill Monroe Mandolin Workshop from Dave Houle                       Note from Phil Zimmerman      You may already know this, but the footnote on Page 10 of Bluegrass Time      explains why there's so little video of Fincastle '65. It's a miracle that there's any video record      of it at all, and a real tribute to Carlton's foresight and tenacity that 1) the TV crew was there,      and 2) that there's audio to go with the original silent footage!

 

Photos   Al McCanless   Ron Petronko   Others

      Updated March 10, 2020