Early morning. We wake to a horrible smell. You see, our campsite was on the grounds of the Wilkesboro waste water treatement facility (ie. the large intestine of the town itself); and specifically, it was at the very location where the treated water was expelled through a big pipe into the (Yadkin?) river - that's the big yellow thing at the bottom of the staircase. Our two tents flanked the stairway to the anus of Wilkesboro.
Sometimes it got a little stinky. The shirts they sold at the main building all said "Sewerfest '05", with pictures of little outhouses, skunks, etc.. Ha.
But, Bud Light can get you through tough times:
So, back to the festival; and first up, Del McCoury.
They shared two microphones (though the bass was mic'd, separately) and took turns walking up to one or the other to do their solos, and harmonies - basically they force a 1940's-style stage technology on themselves. It works well, and it's fun to watch them work the mics, using distance to control their individual volumes within the mix. Most bands had individual mics for each player, or mic'd the instruments directly; a few used the same common-mic approach, but none seemed to get as much use out of it as these guys. Plus, they're really good - lots of energy, great songs, etc.. And while I didn't see all the bands at Merlefest, of the bands I saw, these guys stuck closest to the traditional bluegrass sound and style. Definitely one of my favorites from the whole four days.
Then, Ricky Scaggs came out. He was very good, too; played mostly traditional stuff, with a couple of newish things that got some mainstream country radio play (or so I'm told). He can sure pick the hell out of a mandolin. Didn't get any pictures of him.
Then, the Bluegrass Boys. That's a bluegrass supergroup made up of people who all played with Bill Monroe at one time or another.
I can't remember all their names, but that's Earl Scruggs second-to-left, breaking a string after walking out and playing for less than 5 seconds, then Sharon Gilchrist on bass (not a Bluegrass Boy, she was just filling in), forget the mandolin guy's name, Peter Rowan, Del McCoury, two guys I don't remember, Richard Greene and then Jim Shumate.
Here's Earl Scruggs and Jim Shumate doing Turkey In The Straw:
Then, the Chieftans came out, all fifty of them, and did a set of traditional Irish music. There's not much distance between Irish folk music and bluegrass, and they did their best to highlight that. There were dancers, guest singers (Alison Moorer and Ricky Scaggs each came out for a song), and guest musicians: Jerry Douglas (far left) and Bela Fleck (far right) sat in.
Very nice stuff. The guy in the back in the white shirt looks a lot like Paul McCartney. The short guy in the middle made some pretty witty between-song chatter.
Then, back to the campsite, to listen to Sam Bush's show on the radio.
The full series:
Excellent job on Merlefest. Thanks. Maybe you could save up and get a better-smellin’ campsite next time! :)
thanks.
one more day to go, though!
I can’t remember all their names, but that’s Earl Scruggs second-to-left, breaking a string after walking out and playing for less than 5 seconds, then Sharon Gilchrist on bass (not a Bluegrass Boy, she was just filling in), forget the mandolin guy’s name, Peter Rowan, Del McCoury, two guys I don’t remember, Richard Greene and then Jim Shumate.
Mandolin guy = Roland White. He is Clarence White’s brother and played with Bill Monroe in the early 70’s. Went on to form the Nashville Bluegrass Band in the 80’s.
ah, thank ya.
he’s listed on the program, but just the name, no instrument.
also on the program for this set: Tony Ellis, Bobby Hicks and Blake Williams. Tater Tate was supposed to be the bassist, but didn’t make it.
Cleek — Don’t know how much you know about Clarence and Roland (and Eric) White, but they played a major role in not only Bluegrass, but in Country/Folk-Rock history. The Whites’ real last name is LeBlanc, and they are French-Canadian. They started playing Bluegrass as children, eventually moved to the US (California), and appeared on the Andy Griffith Show as “The Country Boys”, but performed and recorded professionally as “The Kentucky Colonels”. Clarence was the flat-out meanest and most innnovative flat-picker of his day, and has influenced all flat-pickers since. A small, silent type, his Martin guitar had a crack across the front that subsequent players have purposefully cracked the fronts of their guitars in an attempt to imitate Clarence’s rich, deep tone (Tony Rice owns Clarence’s actual guitar now). At a point in the late 1960’s, Clarence was offered the 6-string slot in the Byrds, and Roland went off to play traditional Bluegrass with Bill Monroe. This was something of a rift between the two brothers. Clarence grew his hair long, tuned-in, turned-on, dropped-out, and strapped on a Telecaster that he and Byrd’s drummer Michael Clarke (a machinist before joining the Byrds) modified with a B-string bender controlled by pushing down on the neck of the guitar against the pull of the strap. The result was a steel guitar sound from a conventional guitar. Listen to Clarence’s work on “Eight Miles High”, “Chestnut Mare”, “Jamaica Say You Will”, etc., etc, etc. (I love his plaintive nasal vocals, too.) Clarence became one of the most well-loved members of the early-1970’s LA Country/Folk-Rock scene. By 1973, Clarence and Roland were playing together again as “The White Brothers”, having mended their fences. During that tour, in summer 1973, while Clarence and Roland were putting their instruments in the car after a gig at a bar in Palmdale, California, a suspected drunk driver hit Clarence and killed him. Roland had grabbed ahold of Clarence in an attempt to pull him out of the way, and his shoulder was dislocated in the process. The driver was never caught. At a small gathering after Clarence’s funeral held in the desert at Joshua Tree National Monument attended by Gram Parsons, Chris Hillman, and other close friends , a pact was made among them that if anything ever happened to any of the surviving circle, the others would take the body to Joshua Tree and cremate it. Clarence’s death profoundly affected Parson’s who really poured it on, and died about a month after Clarence of an overdose at the Joshua Tree Inn. Gram’s body was cremated in the desert, but that is another story.
Roland went on to play in Country Gazette for a number of years, and is now with the Nashville Bluegrass Band.
interesting.
now that you mention Clarence White and the Byrds… let me take alook at my CD collection…
yep, there he is on that Muleskinner CD, along with two guys I saw a lot of at Merlefest, but didn’t recognize: Richard Greene and Peter Rowan. wow. what a small world :)
i had no idea that guy was Clarence white’s brother.
wow :) thanks!
..and now that i think about it, I did see Peter Rowan do Muleskinner Blues during one of his sets.
it’s all coming together now…:)
Mendotajohn knows his stuff. If you want any of those records go see Sierra Records. I recommend the book “Desperados: The Roots Of Country Rock”.
Thanks for those photos – I was very interested to see Sharon filling in on bass. Although not a Bluegrass Boy, she was (briefly) a Dixie Chick, more recently a member of the now disbanded trio Mary and Mars, and is currently in the Rowan-Rice Quartet, and the five-woman Old Time band, Uncle Earl.
Details of her career are on my web page:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/farawayhills/sharon_gilchrist.html
thanks for the info.
hope i ID’d her correctly on the various bands she played with. :)
from a distance, she does look like the bass player from Uncle Earl, especially when they’re both standing behind a bass.
I’m sorry you got a smell from the river. I was in the big army tent at the junction of the river and the creek and did not smell anything. I think you gave me a beer when I arrived, so thanks for the beer.
wow, small world. :)
i think Dan gave you that beer (he’s the big guy, i’m the skinny one). but you guys gave my wife and her friend a couple of bloody marys a couple days later, so we owe you one.
cheers
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