Carlton Haney, creator of the first series of multi-day bluegrass festivals, is to be inducted into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame. The ceremony will take place during the final day of the 4th Annual Bluegrass Hall of Fame & Uncle Pen Days Festival, held September 24-27, 2008 at the Bill Monroe Memorial Bluegrass Music Park & Campground in Brown County, Indiana.

Haney, born September 19, 1928, produced the historic first weekend-long bluegrass music festival to be held at Fincastle, Virginia. The first such festival took place during Labor Day weekend, September 3rd to 5th, 1965 at Cantrell’s Horse Farm. It triggered a movement towards the wider production of bluegrass festivals bringing incalculable economic benefits to the industry and creating a larger and more diverse audience for the music.

The citation on the International Bluegrass Music Museum’s Hall Of Honor plaque continues:

“Subsequent annual festivals that he produced regularly included his innovative ‘workshops’ and his emotional narration of ‘the bluegrass story,’ dramatizing the genre’s history with appearances by performers who were part of its rich tradition. Haney’s most memorable and enduring festivals were those in Camp Springs, North Carolina and Berryville, Virginia, during an exciting era when most first generation players were in their prime. He was additionally a promoter of major country music concert tours and from 1969 until 1975 published an important early bluegrass magazine, ‘Muleskinner News.’ Haney began his colorful music career in the 1950s as agent and manager for Bill Monroe and later for Reno & Smiley. During the 1980s he entered private business in his hometown, Reidsville, North Carolina.”

Fred Bartenstein, host of Banks of the Ohio: Music From the Homeplace of Bluegrass and former editor of Muleskinner News magazine, can’t speak highly enough about Haney …..

“Carlton Haney was my primary mentor in bluegrass music. I spent seven summers working very closely with him in producing early bluegrass festivals and country music package shows. His love of bluegrass is pure; his knowledge and insight remarkable; and the innovations he put into action are still reverberating in the bluegrass world today. He is as eccentric and unforgettable as any character in bluegrass history, and totally deserving of recognition in the Bluegrass Hall of Fame.” (more…)

This past weekend, I had the enormous honor and good fortune to perform at the 40th Anniversary Reunion of what has come to be described as the very first multi-day bluegrass festival, which had been promoted by Carlton Haney, and situated on Cantrell’s Horse Farm just north of Fincastle. VA. This reunion festival was only a one day event, and there is hope that it will become an annual one, held just a short distance from the site of the original 1965 festival.

Like the festival that followed in 1966 at Cantrell’s Farm, and subsequent Carlton Haney festivals in Berryville, VA over the next ten years or so, the original Fincastle event was partly a celebration of the music and the artists who played it, and partly a example of the missionary zeal and desire to educate people about the history of bluegrass music - and Bill Monroe’s central role in that story - that Haney took on as his personal crusade. Haney became famous for putting different groups of musicians together on stage, often using them to recreate the lineup of a previous version of The Bluegrass Boys, or to make some other point about the music in addition to entertaining his audiences. (more…)