My grandfather "Buck" Finney on the top right! Thanks to my aunt Maryanne for all the genealogy help in researching my family! As an adopted kid it's been a long road! I come from a long line of performers in Appalachia Cool documentary with videos of him dancing in comments. . . J. W. “Buck” Finney (1924–1996) grew up in Big Cove in Haywood County, North Carolina. His father was a logger, factory worker, and banjo player, and both of his parents were dancers. Finney recalled house dances as a child, and by the age of four or five, he had acquired name “Buck.” He later danced at the Canton Armory, where Sam Queen called out the dance figures from the floor. These included “Lady Round the Lady, Gent Don’t Go,” “Bird in the Cage,” “Georgia Rang-tang,” and “Open the Garden Gate.” Finney went on to perform with Queen’s Soco Gap Square Dancers, as well as other local dance teams, including the Haywood Mountaineers, the Southern Appalachian Cloggers, and the Rough Creek Cloggers. In 1966, he performed, along with Fiddlin’ Arthur Smith, in the Tex Ritter film, The Girl from Tobacco Row, and his dancing can also be seen in Full of Life A-Dancin,’ a 1978 documentary film about the Southern Appalachian Cloggers. Finney referred to his dancing as “flatfooting,” though he also performs a high-stepping signature step of his own creation that he calls “The Chicken.” #flatfooting #squaredancing #haywoodcounty #northcarolina #appalachia #buckfinney #texritter #travelingperformer #geneology
