Here's the plan

So, there's actually several motivations for me to begin this silly little excursion into the past, some personal, some at least a touch more universal. Part of the latter is collecting a full history of the folk music scene in the Walnut Valley. I just today found out about two earlier festivals in '67 and '68, because Brent Pierce's website came up as I searched the artists that had performed at the Walnut Valley Folk Festival in 1971, the one I attended, the one that changed and/or saved my life.

According to Brent, he, Stuart Mossman and Sam Ontjes concieved of, found funding for, and produced two festivals in 1967 and 1968. He said, "We called them folk festivals because we didn't know what else to call them". Remarkably, he still has playbills and other items from those concerts which he has graciously offered to let us post on this site.

So, I call on anyone who has memories (or memorabilia) from either of these three concerts, or from the shows at The Black Eye, to post a comment to this blog - so your story, your piece of the history can be added in. Me, I have to start with my first trip to Wichita ...