[bright music] [birds chirping] - Music really is the heartbeat of this area.

[strings twanging] It goes back for generations.

[percussive music] [lively music] [artist vocalizing] - We are in the Appalachian Mountains.

There's a lot of great musicians that have come from this area, all the way up through the Appalachians up into other states.

- This is the part of the country where the banjo from Africa ran head on into the fiddle of the British Isles in Western Europe.

[upbeat music] Even though there was a terrible collision and plenty of evidence of barbarism and almost criminal past in the way that people were treated and treated one another, one of the surprise results of that collision of cultures that happened in this region was a flourishing of American music.

[upbeat music] A kind of a shot heard around the world of American song that would go on to affect things far flung around the globe.

- Just jump in where you can and hang on.

[crowd laughs] And a one and a two.

[lively music] - I grew up doing bluegrass and old-time mountain music, really, and that's what's in this area.

If you're a kid growing up here and wanting to take guitar lessons, that's what you're going to be learning.

- People often say because of the records we've made over the last few decades, you know, what part of the South are you guys from?

And it's like, "Well, South California."

♪ You and me go fishin' in the dark ♪ ♪ Lyin' on our backs ♪ - A lot of kids my age we're learning Beach Boys tunes.

We called ourselves like folk puppies.

We were like teenagers that just loved folk music.

You know, folks like Flatt and Scruggs and the Stanley Brothers.

[energetic music] So much music that's come out of especially this part of the country, it's immigrant's music and it's a beautiful thing.

[gentle music] ♪ The storms are on the ocean ♪ - It's that sort of yearning in the voices and of course the beautiful harmonies that go with it.

♪ May lose it's motion love ♪ ♪ If I prove false to thee ♪ - There's a supportive role in all of the different instrumentations that you tend to hear.

[lively music] The mandolin lifting up the fiddle, the banjo being elevated by whatever the rhythm piece is.

[lively music] So if you don't know about roots music or Americana, just think family reunion with song.

[upbeat music] - We were lucky, though, we had access to that music.

I mean, rather than sitting on a front porch or back porch with your aunts and uncles and cousins playing this stuff, there were clubs around LA that we would go to.

The Ash Grove is a really famous one.

It's long gone, but man, that's where I saw Doc the first time.

[energetic music] - Doc Watson was a legend from Deep Gap, North Carolina, just 20 miles up the road here.

- Doc Watson was a master musician.

There is no question about that.

- You say Eric Clapton and you say Mark Knopfler.

If you don't have Doc Watson in that top three, there's something wrong because he was that good.

He was that good a guitarist.

- When you go back to the very beginnings, that flatpicking guitar was Doc.

That's where so much of the guitar playing of that style came from.

Doc, he was playing the fiddle parts for square dances.

- I still could never play guitar like Doc.

You know, I can fingerpick a little.

I can get in there a little bit with the flatpicking, which I really love.

I've done my 10,000 hours and I'm not getting there.

[laughs] You know?

[energetic music] - Doc Watson grew up in the mountains and was blind from infancy.

- When he would travel places, there were people of course that were very good to take him, but he didn't let that be a barrier at all.

- He was definitely an inspiration to what can be done.

You know, overcoming.

- Before Doc became a famous guitar player, he was a piano tuner.

He would crawl up under the piano and tune these pianos by ear.

Doc wired a building that he had built at the end of his driveway.

And they said, "How do you know what color the wire is?"

He said, "I see with my fingers."

- When I first met Doc Watson, I asked him what kind of music he played.

And he just slapped his knee as he always did, and he said, "I play traditional plus.

I play traditional music plus anything I want to."

♪ Your cheatin' heart ♪ - Traditional music of the Appalachian Region plus anything else I wanna play.

- He was a walking encyclopedia when it came to music, understanding and remembering lyrics.

We'd go to play a show and someone would ask for a particular song, and maybe he hadn't done it in years.

You'd see him just sit and just sit and study and think about that song, and he would bring up all the words to that song after years of not performing it.

- Doc's heavy thumb he had on that bass string came from Earl Travis, and a lot of his other songs that he did that were influenced by Jimmie Rodgers, the Yodeling Brakeman and so forth.

So Doc was very eclectic in what influenced his style.

- He liked all kind of music.

You know, he'd listen to gospel music, he'd listen to blues.

- He knew [snaps fingers].

Right away he knew what was good and what wasn't.

♪ Summertime ♪ ♪ And the livin' is easy ♪ ♪ The catfish are jumpin' ♪ - Doc was a big influence on us.

He had us out to the house.

We did a dozen shows with him around the country.

We got to know his family, especially his daughter Nancy, who was really special to us.

And Doc Watson gave my band its big break.

You know, I probably wouldn't be sitting here if I didn't have a chance encounter with Doc Watson out in front of Boone Drug.

His daughter heard us out there busking on the street corner and said, "Let me go get my dad.

He loves this kind of music."

That led to Doc giving us a job here, right on the spot.

Somebody from the Grand Ole Opry heard us and she booked us that summer to play in Nashville.

20 years later, we're doing good.

All thanks to Doc.

- Doc was playing a lot of folk clubs in the early days, and he would be playing clubs where Bob Dylan or Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, folk artists would be playing.

Peter, Paul and Mary, you know, folks like that.

Doc was just always like your favorite relative.

He felt like family.

- Because of Doc's blindness and the opportunity for me to be with him, one-on-one, in some cases traveling or just going up to his house and taking a walk, and having him hold my elbow and go for an hour walk in the woods, I gained a great appreciation for the visually impaired, because I had that intimate experience with Doc.

He was like a father to me.

- I didn't try to pull him and guide him and turn him into where I wanted to go.

He just knew that when I was taking a step up, his foot would go up because he could feel my body rising.

Doc was a Christian and a very devout Christian, but we would discuss things like life on other planets and the possibility of life-forms around the universe and so forth.

And even though we both acknowledged the existence of a God, we also realized that there, you know, it's a big vast universe.

There's probably things going on there.

And we would talk about things that just meant something to both of us.

- He was so sincere when he sang, he was very religious.

He cared about his family, his community, and he cared about the music.

And he did it all for the love of that music.

His love for music was transcended to us through MerleFest.

- Ladies and gentlemen, the incomparable Doc Watson.

[audience applauding] [audience cheering] [Doc speaking off mic] - Either one of them.

- Where is it?

[applause continues] Good evening, folks.

I would like to thank everyone in this audience for coming out to this benefit memorial.

God bless y'all for coming.

- It all started back in the late '80s.

There was a horticulture professor here at the college by the name of B Townes.

- I began my career here at Wilkes Community College in 1973.

Over time, I developed a master plan to have all types of flower gardens, a rose garden, for instance, a native garden, a Japanese garden, and at the time something I called A Garden for the Blind.

Later we called it A Garden for the Senses.

- B Townes was wanting to have a garden where you could go in and touch and learn about different flowers and plants.

- To raise money for all these gardens, I would go out and speak publicly and ask anybody and everybody to help support it.

And one day, one of the ladies that was helping, Ella Sue White said, "You know, B, you need to meet Bill Young."

- Bill Young actually happened to be a good friend of Doc Watson's.

And he said, "You know, this would make a lot of sense.

Garden of the Senses, Doc's blind.

I'm sure he might come down here and do a benefit, and we could raise some money."

- The request was, Doc, would you come do a concert and let us raise money, and we'll name this garden in your honor.

He chuckled and again, he slapped his knee like he did.

And he said, "Well, I would just love to do that, but if you do it, I want you to name the garden in memory of my son, the late Eddy Merle Watson."

[solemn music] - His first name Eddy came from Eddy Arnold.

Merle came from Merle Travis.

So he was named after two very famous musicians from the '40s and '50s.

- Merle owned a farm in Caldwell County, which is not too far from here, and was on a tractor one night and the tractor turned over.

- I remember that very well.

I got a call from Doc early one morning to tell that, tell me that Merle had died.

All of our friends that were close to Doc, we all immediately were in contact with each other and figured out what we could do to help support Doc and Rosa Lee, and it was very difficult.

- Merle Watson was Doc's eyes and driver and right-hand musician on the road for many years.

And Doc wanted the garden to be in memory of him.

So we said, "Sure, that'd be great."

As a horticulture teacher, I didn't know anything about putting on a concert.

- It was gonna be actually just a one night event, one night with just Doc Watson.

And through a scheduling conflict, we weren't able to work that out.

- So my second meeting with Doc Watson was to tell him that the date wasn't available.

And I just assumed at the time that was it.

It just wasn't going to happen.

And I credit Rosa Lee.

Rosa Lee was his Little Honey he called her.

She kept his personal calendar.

She said, "Now, honey, don't you fret none."

That's the way she talked.

"Just put it off till spring and you can have a festival.

And Doc can invite a lot of his and Merle's friends."

- They said let's pick a time in late April and we'll do a little mini-festival.

And it was called the Eddy Merle Watson Memorial Festival.

- Doc kept going on the road and everybody he would meet he would invite 'em to come to MerleFest.

Before we knew it, I had names written down on pieces of paper of over a hundred musicians.

- It was in the John A Walker Center, up in the auditorium, and all of a sudden that was sold out.

It was booked and there was more people coming, more people wanting to come and buy tickets.

- We started getting letters from overseas.

We started getting phone calls at the switchboard here at the college from all over the country, and we were having to tell people it was sold out.

At that point in time, the news didn't travel very fast like it does today.

It looked like a lot of people were gonna be coming and have to be turned away.

- We took a walk around the campus looking for other spaces to possibly put a stage.

The grounds that we're sitting on now, at the time it was basically a softball field.

The only thing down here was the log cabin.

- And Cliff looked at that cabin, he said that would just be a wonderful backdrop to have a stage.

So in the course of time between the fall and the spring of 1987 and 1988, we went from the idea of a one-man, one-night concert to a multi-day, multi-venue festival with over a hundred artists.

I said, "Well, Doc, we've got all these people coming."

He said, "Oh, don't worry about it.

Ralph Rinzler will take care of all of that."

When I did a little research, Ralph Rinzler is the man with the Smithsonian that found Doc Watson and took him up North to the early festivals in the '60s.

He came in two days before the festival.

He typed out a schedule for two days with a hundred artists and decided who would play with who and what tunes they would do.

[pensive music] We're talking about people like Chet Atkins, Earl Scruggs, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, and the list goes on and on.

The fact that Doc Watson labeled it traditional plus opened the doors to allow us to showcase all types of music.

- These are Irish instruments.

The first one is an Irish bodhran, a hand drum, and Megan's playing an Irish penny whistle.

[enchanting music] - Now, I owe this guitar a lot, I really do.

If it wasn't for this guitar, I might be running the streets practicing law or medicine.

[pensive music] [lively music] ♪ Oh, some folks say he ain't lost, John can't run ♪ ♪ Let me tell you what he done, done ♪ ♪ Left out of here before daylight ♪ ♪ Didn't get home till late that night ♪ ♪ He's long gone, long gone ♪ ♪ What I mean he's long gone ♪ ♪ Too bold and green ♪ - The first workshop in 1988 was more of a showcase.

[upbeat music] We had fifty-some musicians on the stage, and they would talk about their instrument and they would trade licks as they called it, or they would jam together.

- So many really, really cool artists came, because they were good friends of Merle and respected Doc.

- After the first year we said that's it.

We've raised the money, and we built the first iteration of the garden.

You know, that's it.

- They did it that year.

It was successful beyond what they had imagined, and they started getting requests for, you know, when is it gonna be next year?

- I kept getting letters.

Doc kept getting people asking him, "When are you gonna do it again?

When are you gonna do it again?"

In the meantime, Neil Ferguson was putting together this video.

- [Narrator] In the Blue Ridge Mountains, tradition means something.

Tradition reflects our character, pride and beliefs.

The story of Doc and Merle Watson has become a tradition in our land.

A father and son enjoying their own natural music, taking it around the world, and living with their mountains and God.

- He was editing and lip-syncing the audio from a radio track to video that was outside, because if you look closely at the '88 video, you'll see where the camera pulls away when we couldn't lip-sync it.

That video is what put us on the map for the second festival.

- We know some of you've come quite a long distance and we're glad to have you.

I doubt however you came as far as the couple I'm about to introduce: Toshiyuki and Chiaki Suda from Tokyo, Japan.

[audience applauding] Now, they've got Flatt and Scruggs shirts on and they're on their honeymoon.

- My first experience with a fax machine was over here at Golden Needles because they were doing worldwide business, and so we sold videos in 1988/89 to Japan.

- After the first festival, we went ahead and planned for two stages.

After the second festival, it was, you know, you kind of look at where it's at at that point and plan ahead from there.

[upbeat music] - For the first two or three years, it was the Eddy Merle Watson Memorial Festival.

And then one day a lady called in and said, "When is that MerleFest?"

And at that point, the people at the college went to Rosa Lee and Doc and said, "Do you mind if we shorten this to just MerleFest?"

[upbeat music continues] - The pivotal years were probably the years that we got our first big artists like Dolly Parton, some of those true headliners.

And the headliners that we were able to attract in the early years didn't charge.

They came to honor Doc and Merle, and for many years they came to make contributions to the success of MerleFest because of those two men.

♪ Oh God, you gotta go ♪ ♪ Until you can't stand by ♪ ♪ That's why you gotta step it up and go ♪ - Let's everybody pick it.

[upbeat music continues] All right, they're gonna get it now.

- [Emmylou] I know we did some shows with Doc and when Merle was alive.

So I knew Merle.

And it's like you just want to do something for your friends.

That's just what you do and you know, it's what musicians do.

We all wanna be there for each other.

I wish I had been there for the first one.

[Emmylou laughs] - The first time we played here was '92.

♪ When it's as easy as closing your eyes ♪ - It was a much smaller thing back then.

Doc was the hook for us.

It's like Doc's doing a festival.

We loved it.

- [B Townes] 1992 I think was a milestone for us, because North Carolina Public Television had filmed countless hours of stage time and workshops and artist interviews with the understanding that they could do 10 one-hour documentaries.

- [Doc] And it says, "Day Lily.

Fragrant summer flowers."

- [Narrator] Braille markers and plant materials selected for their fragrance and texture truly make this a garden for all the senses.

- Mm-hmm.

Are you sure you didn't put some perfume in it?

- It's really about Merle Watson who was a great friend to all of us, too.

- Merle's one of the best acoustic slide players I ever heard.

Also, he had the biggest heart of anybody I know.

- So it's down, down, down, up.

- [Doc] We try to pick the best to put into the workshops, so that when people go there, they know they're learning something that's authentic.

- The important thing about a festival like this is that it opens a door to a lot of people.

Some people will hear something here that'll send them back to those old records and old books and old videotapes.

♪ Roam here ♪ ♪ A few days longer ♪ - We can talk about the fun days, the good times that we've all had, in the same spirit that we know Merle is smiling down on us, right with us.

[audience applauding] [presenter chattering] - After about the first 10 years, we were off and running.

With Doc's support and the support of the community, it just took off.

[audience cheering and applauding] [upbeat music] - Typically, over the last 8 to 10 years, we will attract anywhere between 70 and 80,000 participants over four days.

- And that includes all the fans, all the volunteers, all the people that make this happen.

- They come from all over the United States, usually close to 50 states and normally 10 to 20 foreign countries every year.

We have 13 stages of music basically all over the campus of Wilkes Community College, some indoor, some outdoor, some smaller venues, some fairly big venues.

[melancholic music] - In the evening, that main stage, Watson Stage is just absolutely beautiful.

And then you got all these other stages where you, I mean, you can set your schedule and go around and see all these different artists.

[lively music] And the variety of music is great.

- Defining what is, quote, "MerleFest music" is no easy chore.

- It's not just traditional music.

It's not just Doc's music.

You never know what you're gonna find.

You'll have one stage where somebody's doing Irish dance music and somebody's doing Doc Watson songs like a hundred yards away.

[upbeat music] - Bluegrass, progressive bluegrass, southern gospel.

♪ I'll fly away, oh, glory ♪ - [Cliff] There's always gospel music, there's blues.

[upbeat music] - Country.

[upbeat music] For certain events, you swear it's rock and roll.

♪ Gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove ♪ - [Artist] The people all over the world.

- We are also known for collaborations.

When they get here, sometimes artists will connect with another artist and they're collaborating, and sometimes it's even a surprise to us.

[upbeat music] - You're gonna hear things you've never heard before when you come to MerleFest.

[pensive music] - And they go back talking about it, oh, I heard this, man.

I bought four of their CDs.

I hear that a lot.

I bought their CDs, and I listen to 'em when I go home, and I play it for other people.

[upbeat music] - [Gary] You'll see the superstars of music, but the really neat thing you'll see are artists that are up and coming.

♪ A Georgia peach from Savannah Beach to say ♪ - So I just got done playing the Americana Stage.

And this is my very first MerleFest ever and it was amazing.

My music, I call it southern soul because it's a mixture of country, gospel, and R&B.

- Y'all give him a good hand.

[audience applauding] - We've got a young guy, Presley Barker, a Wilkes County kid who is a tremendous talent.

[upbeat music] ♪ He wear no shoe shine ♪ ♪ He got toe jam football ♪ - I was really early influenced by the music of Doc Watson in a guitar sense.

I heard a song of his that he made famous called "Black Mountain Rag" play on the radio when I was about, I don't know, maybe a little younger than seven.

♪ I can tell you is you got to be free ♪ ♪ Come together ♪ I begged my parents for guitar lessons.

I finally got 'em when I was seven.

♪ Over me ♪ Let me hear you say, yeah.

I've put out two country singles in the past two years.

I've got "Time Machine" and "Middle of Somewhere".

♪ In the middle of somewhere ♪ ♪ Nothing but miles of country air ♪ ♪ I was taking her hand and falling way too fast ♪ Releasing those at that time, I had a really lot of positive encouragement from the fans, and it seemed like they liked that.

And to see somebody enjoy my music and loving the songs that I've even wrote is just amazing to me.

It seems like to me what an artist's dream is to have people that genuinely enjoy your music and love listening to it, and they're supporting you all the time is really, really a great feeling to me.

- The fans are deep, deep, deep music fans.

[lively music] It's always a privilege to play for people that really care.

[upbeat music] - My first MerleFest was here to see Elvis Costello.

It was my first time being at Wilkes Community College and I think my first time in Wilkesboro.

And I just kind of fell in love with it like everybody did and I've tried to come back every year since.

- We love to be out at our tailgate just outside the college, because you can get some impromptu music going out here, which is also fabulous.

[upbeat music] - One of the first MerleFests I could remember coming to as a fan, you're walking through the parking lot and every small little jam session that you walked past was a different version of "Man of Constant Sorrow".

[upbeat music] Because it was around that time that the "O Brother" movie had come out.

But largely, the MerleFest offerings have stayed consistent, all spawning from the phrase that Doc had coined there with the traditional plus music.

[upbeat music] [lively music] - I love the music here, Tony Rice,- - Oh yeah.

- just an amazing guitar player.

And then the fun of having folks like John Prine, both of whom we all miss.

One of my favorites was Hootie and the Blowfish.

So Darius Rucker doesn't play with Hootie and the Blowfish anymore, but he played here.

I feel like it was a Thursday night in pouring rain, pouring rain.

- When MerleFest started, we had some friends that came to the first few, and it's really been part of the culture.

It embodies who we are as mountain folk, bluegrass and country, but also rock and soul and blues and all sorts of music.

It just really makes us who we are.

- There's been a lot of people that have kind of grown up at MerleFest.

Alison Krauss came here as a very young lady many years ago.

Avett Brothers are a good example.

Chris Thile, a lot of those artists came when they were very young.

- Zac Brown, he used to come here to MerleFest as a young kid, and it was part of what inspired him to go on into a career in music.

- We're seeing a lot of tradition where families come every year and the kids have grown up.

Their parents brought them to some of the earlier festivals.

Now they've had children and they're bringing their kids back.

[upbeat music] - We're camping at the Creekside Campground.

This is 34 years, right?

Is that 34?

- I think that's right.

- We have five kids.

- Hey, look at you.

[child laughing] - [Dan] We're on the river right here or creek.

Is it a creek or a river?

- Well, when it floods, it's definitely a river.

It has covered this entire area in the past.

- And then what's the name of this tent?

The Big Agnes.

- The Big Agnes.

I've been to every single MerleFest.

We like that our kids have gotten to grow up with all the kinds of music, and they've grown up and learned to play bluegrass here and that's been really fun.

They were invited to play, so it was kind of a full circle for us that here they grew up listening to this music and then they were invited to play here.

- Doc was a very humble man.

He always took time for folks in the audience.

- He would stop and we would introduce him.

He would shake our hands.

He would write an X or Doc on the back of their T-shirts, 'cause all the kids have T-shirts that he signed and things like that.

And he never was too busy to be able to pay attention to them and ask them what their favorite songs were and things like that.

- [Sibling] We're gonna go to, what, the playground?

- The playground.

- [Sibling] Yeah.

- So this has been around for a while.

I had to patch it.

- Doc Watson made it very clear that he wanted this to be a family festival.

[upbeat music] - No alcohol and over time, we now are tobacco-free.

- The kids, we used to just, could let 'em run, you know, in there.

They had their whole little team, their tribe.

- When I was doing bluegrass festivals back in the late '70s and early '80s, I saw the good, bad, and the ugly.

Typically, the ones that worked the best were more family-friendly, no alcohol involved.

- My family comes every year.

It's a family tradition.

We've been listening to music and exploring the different sellers, the arts and crafts.

- There's a lady over there who makes yarn.

She said she traveled a thousand miles to be here and sell her yarn.

- This is my first time at MerleFest, and I didn't know I was gonna buy a hat, but I couldn't resist.

[Dan laughs] - We drive like seven hours to be here.

- I make jewelry for 27 years.

We travel for South America, Central America, and we have stuff from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador.

- We set up campsites for people.

If you're camping at one of the many campgrounds in the area, you just show up.

Your tent with a cot and a carpet and everything you need is already there, whether it's raining or not.

- This is my 21st year doing MerleFest.

This sand that's in here has been packed real good with a mechanical tamp, and then it stays in a big block.

Then we start carving into the block and keep going until it looks like something.

[craftsmen chattering] The ones in the past years have stayed for a month to two months.

We can't preserve it, it's temporary.

It's just like people, we are temporary.

We're here for a short while and you know, the sand is a short while and then it's gone.

And besides, if they could keep it and make it permanent, then they wouldn't invite me back.

- We do festivals all over the United States, and this is one of the most organized festivals we've ever seen.

We love that.

- When people come it seems like, you know, it just flows smoothly.

Behind the scenes, people are on walkie talkies and on cell phones and making calls.

And we've got this issue that's popped up or this little crisis.

It's like a beehive behind the curtain with people working to make sure that it seems effortless on the outside to the patrons coming in.

[upbeat music] [bus whooshing by] - Early on, we had plenty of parking here.

We had the facilities, but as the festival grew, B came and said we need help.

We are gonna have to park people away from the campus.

So somewhere around 1992, we started shuttling people into the college.

We unloaded the participants out at the front of the grounds, and immediately our Boy Scouts in uniform will pass out programs to each person that walked up.

Our shuttling is free.

We don't charge anybody that comes in.

You think about a total of 80,000 people, we're transporting half of that crowd or more multiple times.

It's our mission to keep them happy.

Somebody will say, "Oh my goodness, I forgot my prescriptions."

And I'll say, "Well, that's not a problem."

And they said, "We are on the way into MerleFest.

How are we gonna get to a pharmacy?"

I said, "If you'll just stay on this bus, I'll take you."

[upbeat music] - MerleFest is a fundraiser, that's first and foremost.

Its purpose is a fundraiser for Wilkes Community College, and it's grown beyond its original purpose as just a fundraiser for the gardens to include some-50 civic and college clubs and organizations as individual fundraisers, during the festival, leading up to, and after the festival.

- A lot of the civic organizations in this town, this is their major fundraiser for their whole year.

They come up here and cook.

Or like the Boy Scout troops, they run the shuttle service back and forth.

- And it's free, but they take donations and that's how they fund their programs for the year for these kids.

- The economic impact to this community is just massive.

You know?

- Our scouting troops, which there are seven which relates to about 300 young men, they exist primarily because of MerleFest.

- The locals prepare the food, and they can make money.

Boy Scouts, the college.

- It's the biggest fundraiser for our club and probably a lot of others.

- We started coming to MerleFest with Boy Scout Troop 333.

We started the second year cooking food, and we've been cooking barbecue chicken ever since.

This area here was about four or five feet lower then, and we had flooding.

And one of the things that the Scouts did, the mud was everywhere and we hauled in hay and put it in the pathways, so people can walk and that sort of thing.

My son that's here somewhere cooking chicken and helping us, we celebrated his first birthday here at MerleFest.

- Hey, how you doing?

We appreciate you being here.

Kiwanis cheese steak, Terrific Kids.

That's how we fund Terrific Kids and all 13 of our elementary schools.

We have been coming to MerleFest.

Hey Smitty, I think we've been coming like 30-plus years.

- Yes.

- We've been blessed.

Yeah, it's worth it.

It's a lot of work for four days, 'cause it goes on all year.

You know, the preparation.

We're working in the schools in Eastern Wilkes County helping with clothes, hygiene products.

We help people, homeless people.

We help whoever calls and needs our help, basically.

- The whole community is here to take care of it.

I mean, the Boy Scouts running people around.

I mean, the way the community embraces the festival.

It's just a beautiful thing.

- The spirit of volunteerism from the inception has been incredible.

I mean, we grew from a few hundred volunteers that first festival to now the 4,500 or so every year.

- The truth is, like Allison said, we couldn't do it without all of you all.

It's not just a platitude, it's not just being nice.

We quite literally could not do it without the thousands of volunteers who come here and make it happen.

It's well over a million dollars that those 4,500 volunteers giving us 46,000 hours of volunteer time are saving the festival and ultimately saving the college.

- I am a volunteer, and I've been a volunteer here for, I think Allison and I figured out the other day, about 20 years.

We have a host of people that have been here for a long time, so they know the community, not just the college.

- There's a campground, and it's called SewerFest.

And people come back year after year and that's where they want to camp, and it's actually at a sewage treatment place.

[laughs] - A friend of mine said, "Hey, we're gonna go camp at this sewer.

Would you like to come?"

I'm like, "I'm in."

After I said "I'm in," she's like, "Well, it's also at MerleFest."

So I'm like totally in, totally in.

- Have a wonderful day.

- If we have credentials or if you see somebody like that, they'll stop.

They'll listen to you and they'll try to resolve the problem for you the best they can.

It's the most friendly environment.

- We are pretty unique as a festival and as a community in that what this breeds is a constant group of people who come back to give back.

I have been working at this festival for 18 years with Robert Doyle, who's in charge of artist transportation.

So many of us come and work at this festival because of our tie to Robert, because it's a family environment literally and figuratively.

And because of Robert's ties to Doc and Rosa Lee and the Watson family.

[audience applauding] - My love for Doc Watson is the driving force behind this.

There is no other reason for me to do this other than my love for Doc Watson.

I take no money for this.

I receive no stipend or anything else.

It's what I do.

All of the golf carts, all the vans, all the radios come under my domain.

And if that doesn't sound like a lot, if you think about the infrastructure for a music festival, that is it.

We make it run, we make it run smoothly.

And the reason why we do that is because we take so much pride in what we do.

- My children are here volunteering now.

- The people running this show do a really good job.

They take care of the customers, and we try to help them in that.

[passengers chattering] - Wilkes County is like a lot of rural America.

We're still struggling some economically.

We're trying to pick ourselves back up.

- One of the big hardware stores started in this area.

Chicken processing, hosiery, some of those industries either died out or moved to other locations.

[cars whooshing by] - We look at our students and see most of them are first-generation college students.

Many of them are coming from homes where they've had economic challenges.

Over the last 32 years, MerleFest has contributed over $17.7 million back to Wilkes Community College.

- MerleFest is nearing an important milestone where we will soon reach a fundraising level of over $20 million for our local community.

So we're really proud of that.

I think it's probably pretty rare to find a fundraiser/music festival that has been around as long as we have doing so much good for their community.

Again, all that we do goes back into Wilkes Community College and our broader community here in Western North Carolina.

- It is a fundraiser, and we have to kind of keep that at the forefront of our minds.

The more successful MerleFest is, the better we're able to serve the students here at Wilkes Community College.

[gentle music] - People forget how important those colleges and what they do are, particularly in a rural community like we live in.

We provide an opportunity for people to come here, learn a trade or to better themselves and put themselves in a position to possibly go on for a four-year degree.

- We want the college to be as impactful as possible to help those folks or climb out of poverty and get into jobs where they are earning a living wage that can support a family.

That really at its core is the mission of the community colleges, getting more people with their credentials they need to support their workforce and to give themselves the skillset they need to go out and earn a living wage.

- Currently, our students, medical assistant and human services both participate in the festival.

Our medical assistant students work in a beverage booth.

- And we're volunteering for the college selling drinks and snacks.

- If you've never been to Wilkes County, come visit, you'll love it.

- Our human services students this year, we are happy to be back at our healthy snacks grab-and-go tent, which offers quick, healthier options.

- The college grew as MerleFest grew and vice versa.

- You can look at the improvements at this college, the Garden for the Senses, the automotive department, the diesel mechanics, all of that has been enabled because of MerleFest.

[gentle music] - It ripples out to Boone and Statesville and Winston.

The motels are full and the campgrounds of course in a hundred mile radius.

- It brings a lot of favorable attention to Wilkes Community College and Wilkes County and this region.

- Growing up in Wilkes County was amazing.

Small town, safety, everybody knew each other.

It was a village mentality.

Everybody knows everybody and everybody helped out as necessary.

I wanna raise my family in the same environment that I was raised in.

I'm excited that my children are gonna go to great schools.

I'm excited that my children will probably go to Wilkes Community College.

- We try to do a lot to connect with young people.

On Thursdays of MerleFest, we take artists into 17 public schools.

For a lot of these kids, this might be one of their first times they've ever been really exposed to a professional artist.

- We also opened up MerleFest on Friday for the schools to come here.

- We'll have over 3000 students who get to come over here for free and participate in the festival from Wilkes, Ashe, and Alleghany Counties.

- We keep all these students involved, all the young people involved, so that down the road they can do what we have done to keep future generations educated and keep this festival going.

- I see kids playing music because of MerleFest.

[crowd chattering] - It was one MerleFest in all these years.

So we were here the first MerleFest and our oldest son Shay was here as well, but he was in my tummy.

So Shay Martin Lovette takes after his dad, really musical, a great singer-songwriter.

- He's playing on the main stage today at 11:30.

- He's playing on the Watson Stage, which is pretty much like- - Where he used to see his heroes, you know?

- Like the Ryman here in Wilkesboro, North Carolina.

[audience applauding] - This next song is a very special song to me.

Probably one of my favorite songs in the whole world.

This is a song my brother Chad Lovette wrote.

He passed away in 2016.

We played this song at his celebration of life service.

The name of the song is "Heat Lightning".

When we were thinking about what we wanted to play at that service, we wanted to play a song that really did Chad justice and we couldn't think of anything better than his own song.

[pensive music] ♪ Maybe I was born from that fire ♪ ♪ Maybe it was just heat lightning ♪ - As I look back on it, over 33 years, when Ralph told me the festival would truly take over with a life of its own, I think it has.

It's got good leadership.

It has good support.

And MerleFest lives and breathes as its own entity.

- I see this festival being around for decades to come and expanding on what we can do to support and help our students and the broader community.

And also keeping pace with the ever-changing music industry as far as the acts that we bring and the diversity we bring here to MerleFest.

I'm working hard to just maintain and uphold those values and traditions that so many people before me worked hard to establish.

[crowd chattering] - Doc would be very pleased.

He loved this music.

He loves the fact that Cliff Miller and Mitch Greenhill, and Charles Welch and Jeff Little, and T Michael Coleman and Bob Hill, all these guys are still around and they're still here and they're still doing these things, and they're keeping his memory alive through their music.

And that's the part that I think Doc would be pleased about.

♪ Heat lightening ♪ - My name is Jude Warren.

I started playing when I was four and I'm 11 now.

[upbeat music] ♪ [upbeat music continues] ♪ [upbeat music continues] ♪ [upbeat music continues] ♪ [upbeat music continues] ♪ [crowd cheering and applauding] [upbeat music] ♪ [upbeat music continues] ♪ [upbeat music continues] ♪ [upbeat music continues] ♪ [upbeat music continues] ♪ [upbeat music continues] ♪ [upbeat music continues] ♪ [upbeat music continues] ♪ [upbeat music continues] ♪