Carter Family Fold
Venues
The Carter Family Fold is an acoustic music hall in the Poor Valley of southwest Virginia, at the foot of Clinch Mountain in the settlement once known as Maces Spring, just outside Hiltons. It was founded by Janette Carter, daughter of A.P. and Sara Carter of the original Carter Family, to honor her father's dying wish that the family's music be carried on. Janette and her brother Joe began holding Saturday night shows in 1974 in A.P.'s old country store, and in 1976 they built the barn-like Fold next door, a plain hall holding roughly 800 to 1,000 people. The Fold's one firm rule is that the music stays acoustic, making it a weekly stage for old-time string bands and bluegrass acts and a dance floor where children, parents, and grandparents flatfoot side by side. Janette opened every show with a Carter Family song on the autoharp for more than thirty years until her death in 2006, and today her daughter, Rita Forrester, keeps the Fold running alongside A.P.'s restored cabin, the store-turned-museum, and an annual festival each August.
In the newsletter
- No. 28 January 2002