Getting there

Locator map

April 20-21 at Camp Bethel, Fincastle

Friday

• 7:30 p.m. — Concert featuring Joseph Helfrich, Sheila Kay Adams, Andy Offut Irwin and Donald Davis

Saturday

• 10 a.m. — Sheila Kay Adams, Andy Offut Irwin
• 11:15 a.m. — Joseph Helfrich, Donald Davis
• 12:15 p.m. — Lunch break
• 12:45 p.m. — Celtibillies
• 2 p.m. — Andy Offut Irwin
• 3:15 p.m. — Donald Davis
• 4:30 p.m. — Sheila Kay Adams
• 5:45 p.m. — Joseph Helfrich
• 6:45 p.m. — Dinner break
• 7:30 p.m. — Concert featuring Andy Offut Irwin, Sheila Kay Adams, Joseph Helfrich, Celtibillies and Donald Davis

Tickets

• Weekend: Adults $25, children $12
• Friday only: Adults $10, children $5
• Saturday all day: Adults $18, children $9
• Saturday night only: Adults $12, children $6
• Family of five, all weekend: $70

Logistics

• Food is available for purchase. People are also allowed to bring food. No alcohol.
• Camping sites are available, including limited RV spots and cabins. Call (540) 992-2940 for more information or to make camping reservations.

Andy Offut Irwin thinks that “Sounds of the Mountains” is a great name for a storytelling festival.

“That means I can make whatever sound I want, as long as I’m in the mountains,” he said.

Did we mention Irwin is a comedian, too?

The Georgia-born entertainer makes singing sounds, weird mouth sounds and whistling sounds. Once, he performed with the Kandinsky Trio at Roanoke College and claimed that this newspaper billed him as “professional wrestler” instead of “professional whistler.”

That’s a good story.

Telling stories is what Irwin does best, and that is why he is one of the main performers at the “Sounds of the Mountains Music and Story Festival” at Camp Bethel in Botetourt County on April 20-21.

Prominent Southern storytellers Donald Davis and Sheila Kay Adams will wax rhapsodic about childhood adventures, true stories and tall tales. Musical acts Celtibillies and Joseph Helfrich will supply their own sounds in the form of Appalachian and folk music.

“ ‘Sounds of the Mountains’ tends to convey more images of music than storytelling,” admits Alan Hoal, one of the festival’s founders, “but we wanted a name that captured the image of stories and music and the Appalachian Mountains. Stories are sounds of the mountains, just like music is the sounds of the mountains.”

Storytelling is as much a part of mountain culture as balsams and banjos. Davis, a renowned storyteller who grew up in the western North Carolina town of Waynesville, said that while many cultures boast storytelling legacies, mountain folk are especially gifted with tale-telling.

“Stories are about identity,” Davis said. “Their primary concern is not about fortune and fame but about who you are. Identity is strong in the mountains. The Scots and the Welsh are identity-maintainers, not fortune seekers. We’re happy with what we have as long as you don’t bother us.”

For Davis, “stories are visual. If it works, you’re not listening to it, you’re watching it. There’s no point in going to a movie because you’ve already seen it. If it’s not visual, you’ll put people to sleep.”

There’s no danger of that with Irwin, who grew up in Covington, Ga., and started as a stand-up comedian. He worked with improvisational troupes and has been a camp counselor, political satirist, janitor, garbage man and tadpole catcher, according to his self-penned biography.

His theatrical style is different from Davis’ or Adams’, a novelist who incorporates mountain ballads into her stories, but all fulfill Davis’ requirement that the stories paint visual pictures.

Storytelling festivals are not readings. There’s no author behind a lectern reading passages from lengthy works. The tellers perform their stories as much as tell them. The gatherings are as lively as camp meetings and as funny as old-time medicine shows. They are also proliferating.

Davis will perform at storytelling festivals 42 weekends this year, including the grandpappy of them all, the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tenn., which was started by the town’s former mayor after he heard country comedian Jerry Clower on the radio in 1973. The festival attracts 10,000 people every October.

The national festival inspired Hoal and his wife, Carol, to start a festival at Camp Bethel, which Alan Hoal had attended during his boyhood in the early 1960s. The camp turns 80 this year and played host to its first story and music festival in 2002. Had there been any proceeds that first year, they would have benefited the camp, which is operated by the Church of the Brethren.

The festival has grown from an audience of about 60 friends of the camp to more than 350 last year. So far, this year’s early ticket sales have dwarfed previous years. Hoal said that the festival’s marketing is mostly “word of mouth,” which seems fitting for a storytelling festival.

Davis, the North Carolina storyteller who attends more festivals than about anybody, said that story festivals are growing in popularity because they fulfill a need in today’s wireless society.

“There’s a frustration from being pushed to be virtual instead of real,” he said. “We’ve lost the integrity of the imagination because of all that fakey Internet stuff. People are attracted to stories because they make us do something real with our imaginations.”