Fiddlers, dancers and harmony singers will take the field at the annual Topanga Banjo/Fiddle Contest and Folk Festival.

They’ll be a-pickin’ an’ a-singin’ an’ a-dancin’ on Sunday on the El Camino College track in Torrance.

That’s when the banjo and guitar players, country fiddlers, folk dancers and harmony singers will take over the field for the annual Topanga Banjo/Fiddle Contest and Folk Festival.

“The music is a good mixture of bluegrass and traditional folk music going back to the Civil War, mountain music that started in the Kentucky hills,” said Mike Shelhart, a Torrance guitar and mandolin player and festival veteran who hopes his music will earn him a prize on Sunday.

The songs are about trains, steel drivin’ men like John Henry, loves that are sweet and loves that are bitter. There are even some about forbidden things country boys discover for the first time behind the barn--tobacco and hooch among them.

“Most of these songs were passed down through families and played by ear,” said Shelhart, who calls his musical hobby a release from the high-tech strains of his job managing a company that tests new computers before they are marketed.

“It’s an art form,” he said, adding that his family tree may have something to do with his love for America’s musical roots. He said his family came over on the Mayflower and Davy Crockett is an ancestor.

While the spotlight Sunday will be on the 100 instrumentalists and singers vying for prizes of cash and merchandise, the festival is billed as a family party for people who love the intricate harmonies and lilting vocals of mountain music.

“People pack a lunch, come out, sit down and enjoy the music and just kick back,” said Shelhart. His wife, Michelle, likes to sing, and their 10-year-old son, Chad, is an adept fiddler who will also be in the contest. “It’s a family activity,” he said.

And some musicians say they get the most fun out of simply getting together with each other and making music--jamming, as they call it.

“This is not just a contest, but it’s people getting together and jamming,” said guitar player and harmony singer Dave Jenett of West Los Angeles. “This gives people who are not basically instrumentalists a chance to sing and dance a little bit. I look forward to it.”

Said Shelhart: “People wander all over the place, playing in little packs. You can’t hear, there’s so much noise.”

With its goal to preserve and promote America’s folk heritage, the festival will have a special folk dance area, where old-time square dances and Scottish country and clog dances will be performed. Dance demonstrations also will be given on the main stage between musical contests.

More than 30 artisans will set up booths at the festival to display and sell weaving, wood carving, needle crafts, pottery, paintings and other creations.

The celebration has wandered a bit since it began in 1961 in rustic Topanga Canyon as a banjo and fiddle contest with 31 musicians.

Changing zoning regulations and rising costs of staging the event caused it to move to UC Santa Barbara, to UCLA, to Santa Monica College and, in 1986, to El Camino. Over the years, the nonprofit festival has raised money for a variety of causes, including college libraries, musical archives and non-commercial radio stations.

Winning musicians on Sunday will share a total of $1,500 in cash prizes and another $1,500 in merchandise awards, including T-shirts, banjo and guitar strings and gift certificates from local music stores.

The contest includes categories for instruments, singers and bands. Merchandise awards will also go to the oldest and the youngest contestants--who in past festivals have ranged in age from 4 to 98.

Dave Pelletier, a Carson banjo player who will compete Sunday with the five-member Upstairs String Band, said people practice for days getting ready for the contest.

“It’s lots of hours, but it’s a labor of love,” said Pelletier, a self-confessed rowdy on stage. “It’s as great as a drunk having a job as a wine taster.”

Jenett, a prize-winner twice, says going to the festival is “like a little kid going to a party. The music is upbeat and I like to please the crowd.”

-- Gerald Faris

What: Topanga Banjo/Fiddle Contest, Dance and Folk Arts Festival.

When: Sunday, 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Where: El Camino College Track Field, Redondo Beach and Crenshaw boulevards, Torrance.

Admission: $5, adults; $3, El Camino students; $2, seniors and children 12 to 17; free, under 12 with adult.

Information: (818) 594-1742.