Here we go, our first full-blown Bluegrass Festival. I’ve heard bluegrass groups at various festivals and summer concert series through our travels. Most recent was while we were in Kingston this summer. That is when I vowed that we are going to seek out more of this bluegrass/mountain style music and really check it out. Here we are in Westcliffe, Colorado dry camping in an open field under clear (most of the time) skies soaking up sunshine and bluegrass.
Skip to Sunday, performances are coming to a close. We went all in. Across the 3 ½ day festival we spend 24 hours in lawn chairs under a huge tent listening to the likes of Hillbilly Fever, Uncle Shuffelo and this Haint Hollow Hootenanny, Blue Canyon Boys and Southwest Bluegrass All Stars plus lots more. Many of the groups, and/or their individual members, are well known in this genre and I’m certainly impressed with the picking and strumming everywhere not to mention the amazing washboard playing in the Uncle Shuffelo group!
Kent and I are obviously not qualified to objectively judge what we have been listening to but we have picked out some standouts, in our opinions. For me it is The Red Mountain Boys. They are a bit non-traditional I’d say. They played original music, both lyrics and instrumental which seem to incorporate a fun interplay of all the string parts with breakouts of genre-defining finger-defying picking, especially on the mandolin. My favorite song is Dear John. I get the distinct impression they were all high on their last set…lots of ‘I know something you don’t’ grins exchanged and pretty loose demeanor by all.
I think Kent’s vote would be the group DAYTON; heavily influenced by their Elvis Lookalike banjo player. He is phenomenal on banjo, guitar, fiddle and mandolin. The rest of the guys carry their weight. I agree with Kent, they are probably the most enjoyable traditional bluegrass group. They brought some original work by their talented songwriters as well.
Under the of heading of unbelievable, the Baker Family, three kids and their mom. They consider themselves Ozark Bluegrass. That must mean bluegrass on speed. In their opening set the 19-year-old balanced on the string bass standing on edge while he played it. I guess he was squeezing ALL the music out of it.
There are food trucks of course, the way many folks do event foods now-a-days. We have been repeat customers at the tator twist fry-funnel cake truck!
It has been a fun, few days. We’ll do this or something like it again sometime/somewhere. If you are looking for a venue to put your toe in the bluegrass water, this Festival in Westcliffe is a great place to do it. The festival is well run: easy, close camping, free parking for day trippers, reasonable food and water and you can even bring in your own if you want, a beer and wine tent, lots of pleasant volunteers around and attended by many enthusiastic, music loving, well-behaved attendees. On top of that, it is a long running fund raiser for Wet Valley Colorado children’s health and wellness organizations. Check it out.