The power of storytelling: What the country could learn from a small-town festival

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Josh Goforth, a storyteller and acoustic musician in his 40s, stood at the microphone beneath the Courthouse Tent in Jonesborough, Tennessee. He had decided to start his set with a song, and since the tent was just yards from the railroad tracks, he chose a bluegrass standard called “I’m Bound to Ride.” It follows a railroad worker as he travels from town to town, pining intermittently for the girl he left back home.

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