Edgar Loudermilk's Alaska Fishing & Bluegrass Experience

Longtime standout bass man with a series of top bands Edgar Loudermilk will be offering a Fish and Bluegrass tour to Alaska in August. Sponsored by Edgar Loudermilk Productions and King Salmon Lodge, this four night three day experience will include daily fishing with a guide, instrumental instruction offered by top bluegrass artists, and a concert from the staff. This Alaska experience is limited to a maximum of forty participants. If you love fishing, the great outdoors, and bluegrass music take a careful look at this package will be held in August of this year.

Edgar Loudermilk

Edgar Loudermilk has played with some of the top bluegrass bands in the country including Rhonda Vincent & the Rage and IIIrd Tyme Out. He recently has formed a new band, after a couple of years touring with David Adkins as a duo. The Edgar Loudermilk band, featuring well-known guitarist Jeff Autry, with Glenn Crain on Dobro, and Jeff's son Zack Autry on mandolin is currently booking dates. 

King Salmon Lodge

Located southwest of Alaska's largest city, Anchorage, King Salmon Lodge is a luxury getaway and conference center dedicated to providing fishing and conference facilities in a rough looking, but luxurious setting for those seeking an ideal Alaska experience. To get an idea of how others have experienced the accomodations and activities at King Salmon Lodge, take a look at the Trip Advisor ratings. Used to serving as a center for meetings and small conferences, Salmon Lodge should be an ideal site for an intriguing combination of bluegrass workshops, and jamming combined with fishing and a trip to one of the country's premier bear viewing sites at Brooks Fall in Katmai National Park.

Bears at Brooks Falls

King Salmon Lodge

The Staff

The musical staff for this adventure, all sportsmen themselves, constitute a near ideal selection for fine teaching, excellent performance, and good company. Not only will participants be able to learn to play their instruments better, they'll find that good fellowship comes naturally to all these pickers. The trip should be a blast. For extensive profiles of all four players, look here. 

Jeff Autry

Jeff Autry has played with top bands and worked as a session musician for more than two decades. Stints with the Texas Rangers on an extended world tour, Ricky Skaggs, the Traveling McCourys, and many guest slots as a featured singer and flat picker attest to his recognition and skills.

Alan Bibey

Ever since his 1982 appearance at the World's Fair in Knoxville, Alan Bibey has been recognized as one of the most thoughtful, skilled, and innovative practitioners of the mandolin in the world. He has fronted fine bands for over two decades. An original member of The New Quicksilver, IIIrd Tyme Out, Blueridge, and Grasstowne he's always in demand for session work and is well known as a fine workshop leader.

Jason Davis

Jason Davis has been a professional banjo player since he was a teenager. While still only twenty-six years old, Jason has had a remarkable professional career. He has worked with Michelle Nixon & Drive, Kenny and Amanda Smith, Grasstowne, and is now a member of Junior Sisk & Rambler's Choice. He has released two solo CD's. Known as one of the finest Scruggs Style banjo players around, he's also an all around good guy.

Edgar Loudermilk

Known widely as a rock solid bass player and singer/songwriter, Edgar Loudermilk is the only known bluegrass musician who's also a taxidermist. He's the ideal person to put together a bluegrass/fishing/photo experience for people who love the outdoors and bluegrass music.

The Great Atlantic Fish & Pick 2016 is scheduled for this August. The cost is currently pegged at $2650 plus airfare for three days accomodations, food, guided fishing, bluegrass instrumental instruction, concerts from the staff, and jamming. This event could stand as a  highlight in your musical and outdoor life. Give Edgar a call to find out more.

Linthead Stomp: The Creation of Country Music in the Piedmont South by Patrick Huber - Book Review

Linthead Stomp: The Creation of Country Music in the Piedmont South by Patrick Huber (University of North Carolina Press, 2008, 440 pages, $35.99/19.99) tells the story of how workers in cotton mills and other industrial settings in the Piedmont were essential to the development of what we know as country and bluegrass music just after World War II. Focusing on the lives of four seminal mill hands during the 1920's and 1930's, Linthead Stomp argues persuasively that without the intermediary insertion of the factory experience, country and bluegrass music could not have developed. The legend says that the music grew and developed on the back porches and parlors of farms in the mountains of Appalachia. This myth has been ably reinforced by the heavy emphasis upon the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers important recordings during the 1927 Bristol sessions held by Ralph Peer of the Victor Recording Company, whose newspaper advertisements invited country musicians to come make recordings, many of which soon became "Hillbilly" hits. This book emphasizes that Peer also made field recordings at sessions in the Piedmont regions of North  Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama in Charlotte, Atlanta, and Birmingham which featured many old-time musicians whose skills had been developed in the environment of the mill villages surrounding textile mills in that region.

In his priceless introduction, Huber develops the ideas surrounding the upwelling of musical expression in which men and women migrating to the industrializing South after post Civil War reconstruction were housed in mill villages, employed in the menial drudgery of factory work, and paid near starvation wages which were still better than what the way they were able to live on their subsistence farms back in the mountains and on marginal farms. These workers were exposed to a range of musical influences previously unavailable to them which included radio, vaudeville, minstrel shows, and African-American Piedmont blues, jazz, and the popular music of Tin Pan Alley. Even in the rigidly segregated society of this time, the songs of Appalachia, many handed down for generations from their English, Scottish, and Irish origins, were able to merge and be influenced by a broad cultural mix. Many of the mills provided educational programs, particularly in home-making skills, athletics, and music, which served to provide recreation for the mill hands, largely in order to forestall labor unrest and discourage organized labor from becoming influential in the South during the post WW I era. The availability of cheap, factory made instruments was also crucial in this development. Using four emergent musicians as representatives of this influence, Huber concentrates on biographical portraits of Fiddlin' John Carson, Charlie Poole, Dave McCarn, and Dorsey Dixon, each of whose contributions were significant while representing different strains that found their voice as country music and its offshoot, bluegrass, developed and dominated.

Fiddlin John Carson (1868 - 1949) was an old-time country fiddler who portrayed himself as a Hillbilly from the north Georgia mountain environment of moonshine liquor was born in Fannin County on the Tennessee border, lived most of his life in and around Atlanta, where he worked in a succession of cotton mills in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He performed in and around Atlanta, at regional and national fiddler's conventions, at political and KKK rallies. His song "Little Mary Phagan" so inflamed protesters that a Jewish manager was wrongfully convicted of murder. Later in his life, he became a strong supporter of Governor Herman Talmadge, often playing at his election rallies. Huber discusses at some length whether Carson was simply a vicious racist or, a more nuanced view, an opportunistic music professional who played where he could make money, i.e. a union rally supporting a black worker and wherever else he and his daughter and touring partner Rosa Lee Carson (Moonshine Kate) could get work.

Fiddlin' John Carson - Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane

Charlie Poole (1892 - 1931) spent most of his short, alcohol soaked life seeking to avoid working in the cotton mills. Born in the northern Piedmont of North Carolina near Eden, Poole lived most of his life in the mill village of Spray, now incorporated into Eden. Poole recorded and traveled with the aptly named North Carolina Ramblers. Sammy Shelor once told me that his grandfather had had a mill, and "where there was a mill, there was a still, and where there was a still, Charlie Poole could often be found." Poole taught Shelor's grandfather to play the banjo, and Sammy learned from him. Poole was strongly influenced early ragtime banjo player Fred van Eps who experimented with an early three finger style. Though frequently drunk and often in jail, Poole, as a performer was a disciplined student of music who always performed in a suit and tie with his trio. The revolutionary three finger rolling style made famous by Earl Scruggs (a later refugee from the textile mills) can be directly traced to Poole's work and recordings.

Charlie Poole sings "White House Blues"

Dave McCarn (1905 -  1964) was born in a mill town, lived in them almost all his life, which appears to have been a lifelong effort to escape work of any kind, mostly by escaping into drink. He spent a good deal of time in jail, mostly as a result of wife beating. Though McCarn only made twelve recordings during his life, he is credited with writing what were essentially protest songs about the working conditions in the mills. His best known song "Cotton Mill Colic" has been recorded by Pete Seeger, Mike Seeger, and Joe Glazer as well as the Blue Sky Boys. McCarn wrote catchy, lyrics sung playing a bouncy style, folk guitar.

Dave McCarn - Cotton Mill Colic

Dorsey Dixon (1897 - 1968) came to singing and song writing out of a Pentacostal Free Will Baptist conviction that his songs would provide spiritual relief and lead to the salvation of souls. He was a deeply convinced, practicing believer all his life. Born in the mill village of Darlington, SC he began working at age twelve, and despite poor health exacerbated by the working conditions in the mills, worked in them until his retirement. He recorded about sixty sides with his brother Howard and several with his wife Beatrice. He was, perhaps, as well known as a poet, writing poems of support for people who had suffered great losses. These were often published in newspapers and translated into songs. He also wrote some songs and poems about life in the mills, but was frightened that those songs would be seen by mill management as being critical and of supporting unions, which may have led to much of the depression that plagued his life. His best know song was "Wreck on the Highway" also known as "I Didn't Hear Nobody Pray," which has been widely recorded by the likes of The Louvin Brothrs, Roy Acuff, and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. After a lengthy copyright battle, Dixon subsisted at least partially on the royalties from this song for the rest of his quiet but eventful life. Late in life he was rediscovered during the folk craze and appeared at the Newport Folk Festival. 

The Dixon Brothers - I Didn't Hear Nobody Pray

Patrick Huber

Patrick J. Huber is a professor of History & Political Science at Missouri University of Science & Technology in Rolla, Missouri. He has written widely about old-time and country music during twenties and thirties as well as about the hidden presence of African American musicians in it. He has recently been awarded a Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Award for his essay on African American contributions to the creation of hillbilly music through a grant from ASCAP. In addition to his research in country music prior to World War II, Huber’s research interests include the American South, popular music, working-class culture and race relations.

Linthead Stomp: The Creation of Country Music in the Piedmont South by Patrick Huber (University of North Carolina Press, 2008, 440 pages, $35.99/19.99) provides a comprehensive view of the lives and problems of living in the industrial Piedmont region during the period from 1920 - 1940 with an emphasis on four musicians whose lives as musicians were formed in and dependent upon the mill system that developed as the South became industrialized after Reconstruction. The book is an unusual piece of scholarly research in that it is also exceptionally readable as well as being very well annotated. My reading of this book was much enriched by the availability of the artists' work through audio streaming on Spotify and YouTube searches. The descriptions take on a new life when actually heard within the contexts of the artists' performances. I read the book in hardcover version supplied by Dartmouth College on Inter Library Loan from the Keene (NH) Public Library. 

Musicians Against Childhood Cancer (The MACC) 2015: Preview

July 22 - 25, 2015

Musicians Against Childhood Cancer is a bluegrass festival born of tragedy that has turned into a celebration of a life and a testament to the generosity of bluegrass musicians (who perform without pay here) as they raise funds for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, TN where promoters Darrell and Phyllis Adkins' daughter Mandy was treated for a brain stem cancer. Since 2000, The MACC (as it is affectionately known) has donated $809,690 to St. Jude Hospital and the YMCA. This is the sixteenth year this festival has been held, although Darrell Adkins has been promoting bluegrass in the Columbus area for over thirty years. The festival is located at 1570 Rohr Road in the Hoover YMCA Park in Lockbourne, Ohio, on the southern edge of Columbus.

Mandy Adkins

People come from all over the world to attend The MACC, where they celebrate bluegrass and country music while knowing they contribute to a worthwhile cause in a joyful way.

The Lineup

Each day at the MACC presents a "to die for" lineup for an entire festival in another venue. All this quality brought together in a comfortable and convenient location make for one of the most unusual and satisfying bluegrass festivals that can be found. Performers appearing more than once will only be mentioned or pictured here once.

Wednesday
Adkins & Loudermilk
Dave Adkins

Dave Adkins and Edgar Loudermilk have been experiencing increasing success as they become more accustomed to working together. Recent changes in their band should be interesting to see. The chemistry between these two very different performers is excellent.

Edgar Loudermilk

Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper

The most recognized traditional fiddle player of our time will probably be sitting in with several bands. Look for Mike out in the field jamming, too.

Kenny & Amanda Smith

Amanda Smith, this year's IBMA Female Vocalist of the Year and Kenny Smith, twice Guitar Player of the Year, have added quality and new life to their band with John Meyer, Jacob Burleson, and Kyle Perkins. This is already good band is now much improved.

Russell Moore & IIIrd Tyme Out

Popular everywhere, and a regular at the MACC. Russell Moore's fine voice has held up wonderfully through the years, resulting in multiple awards as Male Vocalist of the Year. 

Blue Highway

Through twenty years with no changes in their lineup, Blue Highway has consistently pioneered with fine songs, great musicianship, and strong singing. 

Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver

One of the greats, a Bluegrass Hall of Fame member, Doyle Lawson will be featured twice today, including the Old Friends segment which highlights three men who've performed together and apart for a total of over a century and a half....a visit to nostalgia for all bluegrass fans.

Daryle Singletary "Acoustic"

Daryle Singletary performed an acoustic set last year at The MACC and earned himself an invitation to come back. He was enthusiastically received and will be eagerly looked forward to this year.

Macc Classic - Old Friends

   J.D. Crowe

        Paul Williams

   

Thursday

Don Rigsby & Midnight Call

Don Rigsby has had one of standout tenor voices in bluegrass for two decades, since his early days with LRB. He appears here with his own band, Midnight Call, as well as with The Band of Ruhks and Longview. 

Steve Dilling & Sideline

An idea for something to do in the off season has become a much admired and busy band. You'll enjoy watching these traditional bluegrassers from North Carolina doing what they love to do...having fun making music. Steve Dilling continues as the best band emcee in the business.  Sideline is making its MACC debut.

Feller & Hill

Feller & Hill first came together as a band at The MACC and continue there as sound men as well with their band. In the past year or so the band has come into its own, delivering well-paced, midwestern sounding bluegrass that strikes a nostalgic and interesting tone. 

Band of Ruhks

Featuring three bluegrass giants (Kenny Smith, Ronnie Bowman, and Don Rigsby), this super band has had difficulty finding traction and a permanent banjo player. It is hoped that with their new CD and more time spent playing together, they'll gel at the MACC. 

Grascals
Adam Haynes

The Grascals have been going through some changes, but they will bring their energy and combination of respect for the old with ear catching new songs to this week with enthusiasm. I've already heard their new tenor singer. 

Kristin Scott Benson

Larry Sparks & The Lonesome Ramblers

Over fifty years in the business and still going strong, many people think Larry Sparks has one of the best voices....ever.

Shenandoah with Marty Raybon

Ground breaking country rock band led by Marty Raybon, a regular at the MACC with his bluegrass band, has been on a reunion tour. This appearance alone would be worth a ticket to the MACC for many fans. With two gold albums and twenty-six songs on the Hot Country charts, seven number one singles, and a Grammy Award in their history, this performance will truly be a treat. Shenandoah is making its MACC debut, although Raybon has been a regular here.

Friday

The Baker Family

The Baker Family is a young, family band making its MACC debut this year. 

Sister Sadie

Sister Sadie was initiated as special project of five well-known musicians (all women) performing first at the Station Inn as a bluegrass band. Consisting of Dale Ann Bradley, Deannie Richardson, Beth Lawrence, Gena Britt, and Tina Adair, the band created a sensation in their debut showcasing in the Convention Hall Ballroom, and are booking themselves into a few select festivals. This band is a real treat and a true super-band. Sister Sadie is making its MACC debut.

Lou Reid & Carolina
Lou Reid

It's always a pleasure to see this fine band. Lou Reid has had a long career in bluegrass, having been a member of The Seldom Scene for longer than any other member except founding member Ben Eldridge as well as being a frequent guest with other bands. His wife Christy will take a few days away from shepherding her daughters' sports activities to bring her sprightly personality to this mix. Enjoy!

Christy Reid

Larry Stephenson Band

Larry with Kenny Ingram

Solid traditional bluegrass from one of the finest true tenor singers in bluegrass. Kenny's a veteran who's played with the best. Larry Stephenson has long set a standard for bluegrass tenors. His fervent gospel singing is always eagerly welcomed, as are his fine murder ballads. 

Joe Mullins & the Radio Ramblers

Scruggs style banjo player with Longview and fronting his own band for nearly a decade, now. IBMA Emerging Artist of the Year in 2012.

Bradley Walker

IBMA Male Vocalist of the Year in 2007, Bradley has a deep, resonant baritone voice equally adept with bluegrass and country songs. Bradley's a real addition to any all-star band.

Lonesome River Band

Sammy Shelor

Few banjo players have such a distinctive sound that others seek to sound like him - Shelor Style...and he's been amply rewarded for it with the Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Bluegass and Banjo. Brandon Rickman is insufficiently regarded as both a singer and the fine guitar player he is. Tenor mandolinist Randy Jones' position will be hard to fill, but young Jesse Smathers should do just fine, and his tenor voice is as good as anyone's in the business. LRB has been a leader for years, and is at the top of its game, Now.

Brandon Rickman

The MACC Nashville Mystery Artist

I'm as much in the dark as you are on this one. I have some thoughts, but Friday nights at The MACC always bring some surprises, and you can expect another good one for Friday night. Anticipation......

The SteelDrivers

Gary Nichols, an Alabama blues guy and singer/songwriter has reinvigorated the band that put the blues back in bluegrass. For the SteelDrivers latest CD, "The Muscle Shoals Recordings," the band journeyed to Nichols' home in Alabama for the vibe of this famous studio.

MACC Classic

Dudley Connell

One of the joys found at The MACC is Darrell Adkins' presentations of "MACC Classics," performances by musical friends of Darrell and the festival who come together on this stage for what are often unforgettable musical moments. This Classic should be one such moment.

Larry Stephenson

Randy Kohrs

Saturday

Macc Children's Band

After several days of rehearsals and opportunities to make music together, The MACC Children's Band gives the opening performance on Saturday. It's always an enjoyable time for the those of the audience who make their way to the stage for this early show. 

Volume Five
Glen Harrell

Veteran singer/fiddler Glen Harrell has led Mississippi-based Volume Five to national prominence. It's a hard working band that makes its MACC debut this year.

Breaking Grass
Cody Farrar

Breaking Grass, another Mississippi band, was received with real enthusiasm last year despite an early appearance on the schedule. They've earned their way back to the MACC and, it's very much to be hoped to greater prominence elsewhere, too.

Larry Cordle & Lonesome Standard Time

As a song writer, Larry Cordle has won IBMA Song of the Year award twice and been nominated for two Grammy awards. His Highway 40 Blues and Murder on Music Row are classics in both bluegrass and country music. He's also a performer of rare and consistent power. With his own band Lonesome Standard Time or in various other combinations....dynamite.

Lost & Found

Lost and Found, fronted by Allen Mills, has been around a long time, and their mellow, nostalgic songs are favorites.

Flatt Lonesome w/Centerville Alternative Strings

2014 IBMA Emerging Artist of the Year will present their own set in the best position they've ever enjoyed at The MACC. They will also perform a couple of songs with the Centerville (Ohio) Alternative Strings, which has played with a different band for the last three years to great acclaim. Look forward to a good show.

Cordle Jackson & Salley

Larry Cordle, Carl Jackson, and Jerry Salley, joined here by Val Storey, have become a regular and much looked forward to feature of Saturday night's grand finale at the MACC. Look for surprise performances with this group from the day's (and often the week's) lineup. You never know what will happen, except there'll be plenty of classic country music. 

The Original Longview
James King

The original Longview featured Dudley Connell, James King, Don Rigsby, Joe Mullins , Glen Duncan, and Marshall Wilborn as a somewhat fluid, super-band that recorded and made select appearances. Aubrey Haney will be substituting for Duncan. Since most of these people are on hand this weekend at The MACC, you can expect a strong reunion performance as well as some of the appearing elsewhere..

MACC Classic

Josh Williams "Tribute to J.D. Crowe"

Josh Williams will host the closing performance of this year's MACC in a tribute to J.D. Crowe, one of the most influential banjo players and band leaders of the second half of the 20th century. There's no indication who will be on the stage for this show, but it will be a fitting closing for a great all-star festival.

J.D. Crowe

The Details

Tickets: You can buy tickets for Musicians Against Childhood Cancer online until July 15, 2015 at a discounted price.  Buy Discount Tickets online here.  After that, you can buy them at the gate or online at the gate price.

Gate Prices

2015 Ticket Prices at the Gate and online:

*3 or 4 Day Tickets $110.00​

*Daily Ticket - $40.00 or *Combination of 2 or 3 day - $40.00 per day

Children 11-15 years old 1/2 price

Children 10 and under are free with a parent

The ticket gate will be open from 8am to 11pm daily

No Refund on Tickets

Todd Sams D-28 Guitar Raffle: Each year Todd Sams makes a D-28 replica of Tony Rice's guitar, which is raffled at the MACC. Tickets are $10.00 each and can be ordered on line. The winner will be drawn on Saturday evening at 7:30. You don't have to be present to win. The winner will be notified. Buy Your Guitar Tickets Here.

Last Year's Winner

Camping at The MACC:  There are 268 sites with electricity and almost unlimited rough camping on the grounds of Hoover Y Park  in several locations at $10.00 a night. Transportation from the more remote areas is provided. There are also 84 30 amp sites available at $25.00 per night. These usually sell out pretty early. To arrange for camping, call (740) 548-4199. For additional camping information Look Here.  For a map of Hoover Y Look Here.

Hotels and Motels: A number of motels and hotels are located within convenient driving distance. You and find a list HERE.

How to Get to Hoover Y Park

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for a personalized map.

Musicians Against Childhood Cancer is one of the best bluegrass festivals in the country, because of its lineup, the cause it supports, and its location. There's always room for more people to come there, so put this one on your list for this year or on your bucket list.