Tennessee Folklife Award Recipient to perform at Louie Bluie

Louie Bluie Music & Arts Festival is Saturday, September 20, at Cove Lake State Park

CARYVILLE, TN (SPECIAL TO WLAF)- When Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee announced the winners of the 2025 Governor’s Arts Awards, it was already a fact that James (Sparky) Rucker (top photo) and his wife, Rhonda, will be performing at the Louie Bluie Music & Arts Festival on September 20, 2025. Mr. Rucker is a 2025 recipient of the Governor’s Arts Folklife Heritage award.

The biennial awards, considered among Tennessee’s highest artistic honors, have lauded some of the state’s most prolific artists and cultural institutions since 1971. 

Rucker’s lifetime achievements recognition is well deserved. While the festival has brought to the Festival’s stages such eminent musicians such as Grammy award winners Dom Flemmons and Amythyst Kiah, Kentucky Folklife Heritage recipient Tee Dee Young, and internationally famous, upright-fretless bassist Ralphe Armstrong (Louie Bluie’s son), the husband-wife performer duo of Sparky & Rhonda has performed at the festival every year since its inception in 2007.

Rucker knew and was an admirer of Howard (Louie Bluie) Armstrong. He credited Armstrong with many influences, once saying, “Learning guitar licks and stories from Rev. Pearly Brown, Brownie McGee and Howard “Louie Bluie” Armstrong was priceless.”

For half a century Rucker’s mission has been to share and preserve the culture of African American and Appalachian folk music and stories. He has released over 15 albums throughout his career featuring these stories and songs so that they can be enjoyed for generations to come and that they aren’t lost to history. This preservation work is essential to preserving the music of Appalachia with the next generation, and his hard work and dedication, his commitment to education, community building, and social justice makes this transfer of knowledge possible.

On top of being an educator and community builder, Sparky and Rhonda have graced stages across the United States including that of the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, The International Storytelling Festival, the Chicago Cultural Center, and the National Folk Festival at Wolf Trap. His music was also featured in the National Geographic Society’s 1994 video titled “Storytelling in North America”. He has also had two songs produced by the Public Broadcasting System.

He is the recipient of numerous awards and accolades for his lifetime achievements, most recently the Black Appalachian Storytellers Fellowship from South Arts in 2022 and the UT Knoxville’s 2024 Alumni Professional Achievement Award.

The Louie Bluie Music and Arts Festival is proud and honored to have such a nationally acclaimed musician, storyteller, and cultural educator perform, now for the 18th year in a row. (WLAF NEWS PUBLISHED-08/13/2025-6AM)