Archive for August, 2006
08-02-2006
RockyGrass
The last weekend in July Planet Bluegrass held their annual RockyGrass festival. I have attended this festival every year except one since 1998. Sometimes I go for the whole weekend, although recently I have attended one or two days. This year, my musical enjoyment was limited to Sunday.
RockyGrass is one of my favorite events of the year. The festival is held in Lyons, a sleepy little town about 20 miles north of Boulder tucked up against the foothills. If you’ve gone up to Estes Park, chances are you’ve driven through it. Lyons is quite a pretty little town with an artsy vibe that is enhanced by Planet Bluegrass, which hosts not only RockyGrass, but the Folks Festival and Festival of the Mabon on the Planet Grounds just outside the main strip of town.
The Planet Grounds are quite beautiful. There is a nice stage at one end. On one side of the grounds, the North St. Vrain river runs, providing a perfect place to wade or swim and cool off when needed. There are a variety of clothing and crafts vendors, and every year the same food vendors come back to provide good eats. I usually like the veggie dumplings from the Asian cafe, and the ice cream provided by the Lyons soda place.
My husband and I drove up to Lyons early, getting there about 10:20, just after the crowd was let in the festival grounds. He dropped me off with the taping gear, and I went in to say set up the gear and say hi to some old friends like Rob, Jerry, John, Mark, Brian and others. Many of these tapers are at the Planet every year.
After getting the gear set up, I went to the backstage area to sit and relax a little. The first set of the day was a gospel set from Blue Highway, followed by an interesting Celtic-tinged set from Boulder’s Abigail Washburn. Washburn was accompanied by a fiddle and a cello, the latter adding a deep rich texture to her melodies.
The first “star” of the day was Darrell Scott, one of the best songwriters in Nashville. Scott’s songs are quite famous, even if he isn’t. The Dixie Chicks covered his “Long Time Gone” and turned it into a hit, while one of the best “happy” songs ever, “Great Day to Be Alive,” was a hit for Travis Tritt. Scott played a lot of newer material, including some covers from an upcoming covers collection of some of Scott’s favorite songwriters, like Dylan. One of the most interesting of these was a very uptempo version of Joni Mitchell’s “Urge for Going.” While it was solid, there was something a little off about it. “Urge” I think works best in the slow, mournful style Joni wrote it in, as the song is a paen to summer, sung by someone sitting by her window in the fall looking at the newly bare trees. Scott, accompanied by several world-class musicians, including e-Town host and Hot Rize member Nick Forster, pushed the tempo a little towards the happy side of the spectrum. Scott’s set ended with “Great Day to be Alive,” a fitting song to hear played on a beautiful, if too hot, cloudless day at the Planet.
After a crazy set from the Wilders, the first of the three closers came on. Listening to Tim O’Brien sing is always a treat. In fact, as I listened to him play mandolin on “Land’s End,” a song of his popularized by Boulder’s String Cheese Incident, I realized that to me, O’Brien is the best of his generation in bluegrass and folk music. He has one of the most beautiful voices I’ve heard, and he is adept on so many instruments, whether it is guitar, fiddle, mandolin or bouzouki. What truly sets O’Brien apart from someone like Sam Bush, who is also a fearsomely adept player, is his songwriting. O’Brien writes timeless melodies that effortlessly weave together a tapestry of his influences, from old Irish fiddle songs to the Appalachian sounds of his childhood West Virginia home to the blues and rock of current American pop music. Whether singing a dirge about a ship at sea like “Fiddler’s Green” or the funk-tinged gospel of “Moses,” O’Brien’s voice soars over complex instrumental arrangements that manage to sound both young and old at the same time. O’Brien is also unafraid to speak out on his political beliefs, singing a song called “Republican Blues” whose hilarity came through even if you are a Republican (though I’m not.) The song brought many in the crowd to their feet. O’Brien ended his set with a super-charged version of “Tombstone Blues,” a version of which can be found on his CD of Dylan songs “Red on Blonde.”
Following O’Brien, who represents the 70s and 80s generation, we were privileged to hear a true legend, the 82-year old Earl Scruggs. Scruggs, along with Bill Monroe and Lester Flatt, was one of the earliest to popularize bluegrass. His invention of the three-fingered roll revolutionized banjo and made it a mandatory part of most bluegrass music in the 50s and 60s. In addition, unlike his contemporaries Flatt and Monroe, Scruggs was unafraid to tackle contemporary folk and rock in his playing; he was one of the first to bring rock-style tunes from the likes of Dylan to the bluegrass audience. Scruggs is also justly famous for two compositions, “The Ballad of Jed Clampett,” which was used as the theme to the TV show Beverly Hillbillies, and “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” the latter of which was the theme in the 60s movie “Bonnie and Clyde.” Scruggs has slowed a little, and you could tell his old fingers weren’t quite as nimble as they used to be, but when his band started the famous “Earl’s Breakdown” and Scruggs started doing his tuning key trick, none of it mattered. Scruggs was content to let his band take center stage for much of his set, providing seamless backup. Sam Bush joined in for much of the set. As the last notes of “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” faded and Scruggs left the stage, the audience stood and enthusiastically cheered, paying homage to someone who virtually invented the music we were listening to that day.
As it has often in recent years, RockyGrass ended with a set from the Sam Bush Bluegrass Band. Sam only plays this all-bluegrass set at RockyGrass. Bush’s near 2-hour set included several tunes from his latest CD, “Laps in Seven,” including a great “Riding that Bluegrass Train.” Bush also played many old favorites, like “Howling at the Moon.” When Bush first picked up the fiddle and started a long solo that wended into John Hartford’s “With a Vamp in the Middle,” you could almost sense Hartford’s spirit smiling down in approval.
Bush loves to do a “cluster pluck” on his encores, and this year was no different, as he brought out Tim O’Brien, Bryan Sutton (flatpicker extraordinaire), Jeff Austin, Rob Ickes, Casey Driessen, and others for a 2-song encore that included a funk-tinged song whose name I can’t remember and “Nine Pound Hammer” to end the show. On the latter, Bush acted as orchestra master, directing everyone on when to step up and solo.
RockyGrass 2006 was a wonderful experience, and as always going to the Planet is a treat. I’ll hopefully see some of you up there in two weeks for Folks!
Posted by Candace in Music | No Comments »