Kerrville Folk Festival

Rod Kennedy and Nancylee Davis founded the Kerrville Folk Festival in 1972, and it has run every year since at Quiet Valley Ranch near Kerrville, Texas. The festival draws around 30,000 people across nearly three weeks each spring, with its emphasis on songwriting — including a New Folk Competition that selects finalists from hundreds of entries to perform original songs, with winners earning a main stage set. In a region that resists easy categorization, half American South and half Southwest, the festival has become what its community calls a mecca for the craft.