“It’s always a beautiful day,” says Dr. Tommy Jordan, reminiscing on his years of involvement with the Athens Folk Music and Dance Society’s annual North Georgia Folk Festival. Throughout its 28 years of existence, the event has been fine-tuned to provide a perfect showcase of North Georgia’s folk heritage.

Jordan, by day the Associate Director of the Center for Remote Sensing and Mapping Science at UGA, contributes banjo, guitar and vocals to local Americana and bluegrass band String Theory. He is also the secretary of the Folk Music and Dance Society, and for the past five years, he’s been the director of the Folk Festival.

“I was in the Athens Folk Music and Dance society for many years, and [was] a musician in the contra dances,” Jordan says. “When the chairman of the Folk Festival committee [position] came open, they asked me, and so I said, ‘Sure, how hard could it be?’”

Having survived for more than 20 years, the festival needed little in the way of renovation. Still, Jordan sought to make every improvement he could.

“We kind of looked at it and figured out what we liked and what we didn’t like, and what could be improved and kind of revamped it a little bit,” he says. “Not a lot, but just enough, hopefully… and it’s been working pretty good.”

Jordan has grown the festival each year by including both traditional and modern folk music and art. This year the number of artists, vendors and demonstrators will increase from eight or 10 to 30.

"I have always believed that folk music [is] a continuum," he says. "My definition of it is not a limited definition… I mean, because I don’t see boundaries. I try not to, anyway."

The lineup for this year's festival would seem to support Jordan's idea. Along with Caroline Aiken, an Atlanta-based blues guitarist who has shared the stage with The Indigo Girls and Bonnie Raitt, the schedule features Cajun-traditionalist act Hair of the Dog, the powerful primitive hymns of Elder Kenneth Taylor, the Irish sounds of The Border Collies and the rootsy grooves of exciting local post-folk outfit The Corduroy Road, among others.

The festival is not only an opportunity for people to be exposed to a wide variety of folk music, dance and art—it’s also a chance to really learn. This year’s festival even includes a folk music workshop.

The Georgia Crackers, winners of the 2012 Georgia String Band Contest, sustain the traditions of 1920s string bands with the old-time ballads of artists such as Fiddlin' John Carson and The Skillet Lickers. They will share their knowledge of Georgia’s traditional folk music at 3:30 p.m. at the fire ring. The band will lead a discussion about early folk bands and the evolution of the music.

The North Georgia Folk Festival also demonstrates the goals of the organization putting it on.

“[The folk festival] does everything for our Folk Music and Dance Society,” Jordan says, “It brings people together to volunteer; it brings people together to enjoy each other and enjoy the music. It’s a social occasion. It’s a great music [and] art demonstration.”

Jordan says the mission is simple.

“If we can kind of extend our love of folk music, in all its many variations, to people—get ‘em involved in the dances, get ‘em involved in the music—then that’s good for me.”

2012 North Georgia Folk Festival Music Schedule

11:30 a.m.: The Bob Hay Band
12:30 p.m.: Borderhop Five
1:30 p.m.: Mary Lomax and Bonnie Loggins
2:00 p.m.: Elder Kenneth Taylor
3:00 p.m.: The Corduroy Road
3:30 p.m.: History of Georgia Music Workshop with The Georgia Crackers
4:00 p.m.: Caroline Aiken
5:00 p.m.: BlueBilly Grit
6:00 p.m.: The Border Collies
7:00 p.m.: The Georgia Crackers
8:00 p.m.: Hair of the Dog