Slim Harrison Family Hoedown

For over 40 years, Slim Harrison has performed at schools and festivals, hoedowns & throwdowns all over North America and overseas. He is a Master Artist with the Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning through the Arts and full-time Artist in Residence with the Maryland State Arts Council. Slim has had the privilege of performing with Pete Seeger, Jean Ritchie, Bud & Ola Belle Reed, John Jackson, Patsy Montana, Blind Rev. Pearly Brown, Albert Hash, Ella Jenkins and numerous others at festivals, hoedowns, house concerts & street corners. He is the founder of the Barnstormers, Piney Mountain String Band and the Sunnyland Skiffle Band and has called dances or played with countless bands including the Corndodgers, Fiddlestyx, Jolly Joe’s Jugband, Double Decker Stringband, Sassafras Jugband, the Heartbeats, Sunshine Skiffle Band, Fennig’s All Stars & even Ralph Stanley’s Clinch Mountain Boys. Slim is at home on the Main Stage or back porch, leading a march with Cesar Chavez or calling a dance with a children’s jugband. He builds banjos & dulcimers in his workshop at Sugartree Farm & leads workshops with children making everything from whammy-diddles to stomper-doodles. He has called numerous dances in his barn, for a wedding dance at a festival in Estonia and even for the 1980 U.S. Olympic team. Considered a “self-taught” multi-instrumentalist, storyteller & dance caller, Slim says, “I learned a little bit from everybody I met as I traveled around this great country!” He performs on fiddle & fiddlesticks, banjo, autoharp, mountain & hammered dulcimer, 6 & 12 string guitar, resophonic guitar, harmonica, mouthbow, jaws harp, jug, skiffleboards, washtub bass and his one-of-a-kind “Kazoozafone”. His greatest joy is sharing the music & dances of America with children & adults.

When not hosting the Family Hoedowns, Slim can also be found roving throughout the Festival grounds over the course of the weekend.