Every autumn, Murfreesboro remembers a mule driver who picked his way into history. For almost half a century, that remembering has taken the shape of a festival — one man's improbable gift to a hometown, born on a courthouse lawn and raised into a national showcase of old-time music. This year the celebration returns under a new name, Roots Rendezvous, presented by Uncle Dave Macon Days, for its 48th running at Hop Springs Beer Park from Friday, September 11, through Sunday, September 13, 2026.
The man at the center of it all was David Harrison Macon — Uncle Dave, "the Dixie Dewdrop" — a banjo-picking original member of the Grand Ole Opry known for songs like "Keep My Skillet Good and Greasy" and "Cripple Creek." He called Rutherford County home, living on a farm near the Kittrell community on the old Woodbury Pike, where he guided mule-drawn delivery wagons along the same stretch of road that now leads to Hop Springs. When he died in 1952, Roy Acuff, Ernest Tubb and Bill Monroe served as pallbearers at his funeral.
It was that outsized legacy a local pharmacist named Jesse Messick set out to honor in the late 1970s. Messick owned Rexall Drugs on the Murfreesboro square, and he enlisted monetary support from fellow downtown business owners to get his dream off the ground. He canvassed Main Street businesses for $25 donations, jotting their pledges in the margins of press releases — "C.B. Leatherman – YES, Ruby's (Dress Shop) – YES, Flower Center – YES," his handwritten notes read — and collected in-kind gifts like boxes of pencils and rolls of stamps.
The first festival was a modest thing: a banjo-picking contest staged on the front steps of the historic Rutherford County Courthouse in 1978 as "Dave Macon Day." Messick, in a moment that has become part of the festival's folklore, forgot to pick up the courthouse key, so the contest unfolded on the east lawn instead — and it has been held outdoors ever since. Uncle Dave's grandson Ramsey Macon emceed the afternoon, and a local jeweler, Herschel Mullins, entertained the small crowd with a rendition of "Birmingham Jail" on his harmonica. By the following year, the second annual edition was reportedly extending an invitation to President Jimmy Carter, and the festival's motorless opening parade began as the "Gas-Saving and Motorless Parade," a conservation-minded creation born of the 1970s energy crisis.
What began as a one-day neighborhood contest grew into one of the Southeast's fastest-growing old-time music gatherings. In 1986, Congress designated Uncle Dave Macon Days the site of National Championships in old-time dance — clogging and buckdancing — and the festival's clawhammer-style Old-Time Banjo competition became its own national championship.
Volunteer leader Gloria Shacklett Christy has been involved since the early years, eventually serving as the festival's president. She credits the all-volunteer spirit — "There are no big I's and little U's," as veteran publicist Patsy Weiler said — with volunteers like Billy Henson, Ken Frizzell and John Balch working for 30 or more years.
Hop Springs Beer Park, set along John Bragg Highway in the Kittrell community, sits close to the ground where Uncle Dave once guided his mule-drawn wagons and near Coleman Cemetery, the legend's final resting place. The festival weaves in local partners like 'Boro Art Crawl and Oaklands Mansion.
This year's edition, the 48th, runs a full three-day weekend. Friday evening opens with the MTSU String Band alongside the Cripple Creek Cloggers, the Howlin' Brothers, and the Joey Fletcher Band. Saturday brings the return of the national championship contests — spanning Old-Time and Bluegrass Banjo, Traditional Fiddle, Old-Time Singing, Dobro, Mandolin, Flat-Pick Guitar, Beginning Musician, and the Shade Tree Pickin' Band — along with a full slate of performers from Leroy Troy and Noelle Goodin to Jackson Harris, the Jake Leg Stompers, and the Monroeville Band. Sunday closes with Lisa Law's Gospel Showcase, Delyn Christian and the John Prine Tribute Band, and the Hop Springs De Jam Band. Around the stages, festivalgoers will find the Matilda Macon Artisan Village of handcrafted wares, educational programming, wagon rides pulled by mules, a farm animal petting zoo, craft beer, and food.
Beyond the three days of hoedowning, the organization's mission carries on year-round, preserving roots music and expanding opportunities for students, families, and communities to experience traditional music firsthand.
Nearly fifty years ago, a pharmacist with a banjo picker's memory in his heart asked his fellow merchants to chip in twenty-five dollars. Today the resulting festival is a homecoming that stretches across generations — a place where the music Uncle Dave carried from barns and front porches still rings out, just a couple of miles from the farm where the Dixie Dewdrop once led his mules down the old Woodbury Pike.