YeeHaw Junction BGF, Fl - Preview

The YeeHaw Junction Bluegrass Festival and Fiddle Championship kicks off the winter bluegrass season in Florida on January 22 at YeeHaw Junction in Kenansville, FL on January 22 and runs through January 25^th. Located here, just of the YeeHaw Junction exit of the Florida Turnpike due west of Vero Beach, adjacent to the world famous Desert Inn, YeeHaw Junction is a festival for bluegrass true believers. The festival site is located in what, only a few days before being mown, was a pasture. Behind lies another fenced off pasture with cattle grazing in it. On cool mornings, you sometimes see the cattle rising out of a low, clinging fog. It’s really quite romantic. Promoter Steve Dittman provides 20 amp electrical hookups powered by a huge diesel generator for an added fee. Most attendees, however, elect to rough camp and use their, mostly quiet, RV generators. The performance area is a large tent and there are a goodly number of high quality vendors who come to this festival. A smaller tent, conveniently located, is home to a series of well-chosen workshops during the four days. As you might expect, there’s lots of jamming at YeeHaw as well as some great music.

Dry Branch Fire Squad

Ron Thomason

Brian Aldridge

Danny Russell

Tom Boyd

Perhaps the highlight of YeeHaw Junction this year will be the appearance of Dry Branch Fire Squad on Saturday. Mixing very traditional bluegrass with an emphasis on raw, almost primitive, gospel songs and bluegrass favorites with Ron Thomason’s patented social commentary and story-telling, DBFS pleases all but the most narrow minded bluegrass fans. Thomason’s humorous riffs on cultural tours sponsored by government agencies, the war on poverty, and growing up in southern Ohio and Kentucky mixed with his love of horses and the songs he’s written about them offer one of the few examples of contemporary humor to be found on the bluegrass circuit. He’s the nearest contemporary example to Will Rogers there is. I suppose it’s fortunate that some of his wit passes harmlessly over the heads of those not possessing a sense of humor or perspective on the world’s situation.

Goldwing Express

Bob Baldridge

Paul David

Shawn David

Stephen Joseph

In marked contrast to DBFS will be the coarse humor and efforts at patriotic and religious manipulation of Goldwing Express. For some reason, we’ll be subjected to this group’s empty and insincere hypocrisy for three consecutive weeks at three different festivals. They have an unprofessional propensity to run over their time and to humiliate sound men from the stage. I’ve discussed this band with several promoters who’ve said they understand my point, but hiring Goldwing draws sufficient customers that they can afford to hire other, more musical and higher quality bands. If their performance is an example of Branson style music, I’d rather stay away from that part of Missouri.

The Bluegrass Brothers
Victor Dowdy

Robert Dowdy

Stephen Dowdy

Donald Dowdy

The Bluegrass Brothers bring high energy, traditional bluegrass in a crowd pleasing package, and have developed a wide ranging fan base as they have spread from purely a local phenomenon to regional, and now emerging national status. Fans feed off their energy, and reward, the band, composed of members of the Dowdy family, with rowdy and rapturous responses. The brothers Victor and Robert with two of Victor’s sons, Donald and Steve, provide rousing traditional bluegrass for their fans. Their schedule, ranging from Maine to California as well as the Rhonda Vincent bluegrass cruise testifies to their emerging national visibility beyond their home stomping grounds of Virginia and North Carolina. Donald Dowdy, who plays both guitar and mandolin lefts handed and upside down, is interesting to watch.

The Larry Gillis Band

Larry Gillis

Evan Rose

Shirley Sime

Last year we saw a revitalized Larry Gillis Band with members of the Rose family in support of Larry’s aggressive and interesting banjo play. This year, he has retained Evan Rose, who has switched from mandolin to playing lead guitar and singing and added the very fine fiddler Shirley Seim to his group. Rafe Waters on the bass is billed as a traditional bluegrass and gospel player. We were pleased to see a new level of maturity in Gillis’s performance last year and expect it to continue with this reconfigured band. Evan Rose, 17, had been featured in his family’s band on mandolin, where he was a young phenom. There’s no reason to doubt he will be equally strong on guitar. Gillis plays banjo with speed and power while singing effectively. He can also Wow a crowd with his claw hammer work.

Nothin' Fancy

Mike Andes

Chris Sexton

Mitchell Davis

Gary Farris

Tony Shorter

Nothin’ Fancy always can be relied on for solid music and an amusing stage show. They work to keep it fresh and seek to add new material each year. Musically, they reflect two elements of their leader Mike Andes. Andes is a talented singer/songwriter whose own songs are delightful. His strong baritone voice has overtones of Charlie Waller in it, and the band provides excellent covers of Country Gentlemen songs, which they freely acknowledge as part of their inspiration. Other members of the band, which continues with its original members in its fifteenth year, an unusually long time for a bluegrass band to stay together, contribute to both the fun and the music. Chris Sexton, a classical violinist turned bluegrass fiddler provides musical wit and first rate fiddling. Mitchell Davis on banjo’s expressive face and expert picking contribute mightily. Tony Shorter and Gary Farris both add strength to this excellent band’s performance.

The Gary Waldrep Band

Gary Waldrep

Mindy Rakestraw

Stan Wildmon

The Gary Waldrep Band from the Sand Hill region of Alabama has gone through some changes since we last saw them. Waldrep is a first class entertainer who always works hard and gives excellent value combining fine musicianship with his deep religious faith. Gary is a first class banjo player in both Scruggs and clawhammer styles. Mindy Rakestraw provides exceptional support at rhythm guitar an vocals, and Stan Wildmon is a good mandolin player. I’m not familiar with the work of Waldrep’s aunt, Donna Townsell, returning to the band to replace Jane Baxter or Kenny Townsell, Donna’s husband, on fiddle. One element to be admired is Gary Waldrep’s willingness to hire several women to play in his band and give them generous opportunities to shine. I look forward to seeing this new iteration of the Gary Waldrep Band.

Al Batten & The Bluegrass Reunion

Al Batten

Johnny Ridge

David Turnage

Al Batten & the Bluegrass Reunion return to Florida after several years absence. While primarily a regional band from North Carolina, this excellent band plumbs the richness of its region and comes up with a strong, energetic and entertaining band. Leader Al Batten, now retired from his long teaching career, is a first rate banjo player and an amusing emcee. He is supported by Johnny Ridge, one of the very strongest traditional fiddle players in bluegrass music. David Turnage, with his bright white head of hair, is strong vocally and on rhythm guitar. Mike Aldridge on mandolin chimes in with strong solos and Phil Patterson is solid on bass. This band will be at YeeHaw Junction for two days.

Bill Anderson

Maggie Anderson

Bill & Maggie Anderson are mainstays at YeeHaw Junction. Originally from New York State, they relocated to Virginia a few years ago to live more deeply in the heart of the music they love. Their melodious and low key presentation highlights their faith and their love of good music. Bill is also a certified Martin guitar warrantee repairman. It ‘s always a good thing to have a first rate technician on the grounds at a bluegrass festival. Moreover, he also makes fine instruments himself.

I’m not familiar with the Moron Brothers, who will be performing on Saturday. Roger Bass & the Hillbillies are familiar to Florida audiences. Palms Bluegrass will perform a gospel set on Sunday. Stage Coach bluegrass, a fairly newly formed band originating in Milledgeville, GA also will perform on Sunday. The Cunninghams are up on Friday, and their fiddler will organize and run the fiddle championship on the weekend. Mike and Mary Robinson will present their always popular Gospel Jam & Sing on Sunday morning and Mike will assist Evan Carl with the emcee work. Workshops have not yet been announced, but they are usually well done and well attended at this festival.

Mike & Mary Robinson's
Bluegrass Gospel Jam & Sing

All told, YeeHaw Junction is always a very solid event. Promoter Steve Dittman knows his business and delivers quite consistently. This festival presents a good balance of national, regional, and local bands, providing an opportunity for those of less renown to gain experience while showcasing crowd-pleasing favorites. I look forward to seeing and meeting you there.

Double Play by Robert B. Parker - Book Review

Robert B. Parker (this link is to a very comprehensive web site. Readers interested in learning more about Parker should spend some time there.) is the author of 36 Spenser novels, as well as two other detective series and several westerns. My best count is that he’s written 64 books. Spenser, his most consistent and popular character has been a continuing presence in detective fiction for 35 years. Parker, who has a Ph.D. from Boston University in English, where he wrote an analysis of crime fiction of the thirties, and worked as an English professor at Northeastern University before leaving academia to write full time. The Spenser character is one of those strong but sensitive tough guys who owe much to the writing of Dashiell Hammet, Raymond Chandler, and Ross MacDonald as well as the literary work of Earnest Hemmingway, with particular reference to the code of honor observed by his strong characters. Central to the Spenser character are his relationships to his lover Susan, a psychoanalyst, and his black friend, Hawk, another man of action who functions on the fringes of society. The novels, although judged uneven by many critics, have been consistently entertaining to me.

In Double Play, Parker takes on different content, but never strays very far from his characteristic style and pace, although the structure of this work is thought provoking. The focus of this novel is Jackie Robinson’s first year in the major leagues. For those of you too young to remember, Robinson was the first black player in major league baseball. The story has several layers in it which provide context and texture to this story. Joseph Burke returns from World War II suffering from grievous physical injuries to be dealt the still more devastating emotional blow of finding, when he recovers enough to leave the hospital, that his wife has left him. Burke drifts through life, eventually becoming the cold and emotionless body guard for a beautiful but wayward New York daughter of a gangster. Soon, after some exciting and interesting gun play, Burke is hired by Branch Rickey to guard Robinson during his first year in the bigs.

There’s a parallel, and apparently autobiographical, series of vignettes following the childhood and adolescence of a boy named Bobby who describes his childhood during the war and subsequent love affair with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Bobby’s brief memoir, used as inter-chapter inserts, serve to contextualize the darker events surrounding Robinson’s dangerous entry into baseball and Burke’s cold and seemingly heartless work as a bodyguard.

As the relationship between Burke and Robinson develops, we hear echoes of the snappy dialogue Parker employs between his ace detective Spenser and Hawk, the dangerous and mysterious man who often serves as Spencer’s friend and backup. Parker claims, in an interview on his web site, to write ten pages a day, never to revise or rewrite. His spare, minimalist prose suggests to me that this claim is untrue; his prodigious output suggests that he’s not fabricating much. Nevertheless, so much is left unsaid in a Parker novel that it suggests much more writing has been done and then carefully, even ruthlessly pared to the bone.

Double Play by Robert B. Parker is an entertaining and thought provoking read that requires only a few hours time. Once I picked this book up, I had to keep reading. Parker’s spare, clean prose goes quickly and enjoyably. The book is available to your local independent bookstore, at the chains, and on line. It is a couple of years old, so should be remaindered at lots of stores. Pick it up next time you see it.

Nature Girl by Carl Hiaasen - Book Review

Carl Hiaasen loves hypocrisy. He also loves Florida, the wild part fast disappearing and damaged, but lovable characters. He uses these loves to effectively skewer the forces that cooperate in despoiling his native state: developers, politicians, religious zealots, and more. He portrays his damaged and needy characters in impossible situations seeking to accomplish unattainable goals, and they always come out on top. Hiaasen is columnist for the Miami Herald as well as a celebrated novelist. His convoluted plots are completely impossible and wildly plausible. His biting and sardonic humor never ceases to please, although even the most dedicated reader of his work should avoid reading the novels in a binge. They’re better when well-spaced and allowed to ripen

In Nature Girl we meet Honey Santana, a beautiful but unbalanced woman who hears music in her head and has difficulty staying focused. Honey has been sufficiently enraged by a telephone huckster named Boyd Shreve to hatch a plot to bring him from Texas to Florida in order to try to both humiliate him and teach him a lesson. Honey has a twelve year old son, Fry, and an ex-husband, Perry Skinner, who both have a firmer grip on reality. Along the way we meet Hiaasen’s usual cast of strange and wonderful characters. Louis Piejack, whose total inner moral rot manifests itself externally, is one of Hiaasen’s classic degenerates. Sammy Tigertail is half Seminole Indian trying to get in touch with his heritage. As the plot thickens and the characters find themselves brought together on a small, secluded island in the Everglades, the plot thickens, becomes increasingly hilarious, and makes cogent and powerful points about the environment, contemporary culture, and human nature.

For many people who get to Florida, the state is two tourist oriented coasts and a mouse dominated city in the center. (Parenthetically, Hiaasen has written a non-fiction piece called Team Rodent: How Disney Devours the World, which I’m eager to get my hands on.) Carl Hiaasen gives readers a state whose beauty is endangered by those who have prospered from qualities the state is losing. Criminal developers, corrupt politicians, avaricious users, and degenerate psychopaths dominate his books. The good guys are often naïve idealists driven to distraction, or often beyond, by the depredations inflicted on their beloved state. Another result of these innocents’ interaction with the world is often that they withdraw into depression, mania, or psychopathy. Happily, the characters’ encounters with evil usually result in their own redemption even though little can be done to save Florida. Those of us who, even though fairly new to Florida, have been lucky enough to get opportunities to experience “old” Florida, which still exists in many places in the central part of the state although, sadly, too few along the coasts, can briefly experience the world Hiaasen yearns to resurrect.

Readers who love Florida for more than the beach and the climate can learn from Hiaasen as well as enjoy his writings. His books can be read in any order, because there are few recurring characters and no ongoing plots. I’m glad I was introduced to his writings, by our son Alex, and will continue to read his books as they come out. I recommend them highly. Nature Girl can be obtained at your local bookseller, chain store, or on-line in hard cover, trade paperback, or mass market. If you haven't read Hiaasen, give him a try.

Claire Lynch in East Hartford January 9 - Preview

Claire Lynch

The Claire Lynch Band will appear at the East Hartford Cultural Community Center in East Hartford, CT on Friday, January 9^th. Doors open at 7:00 PM, and the concert begins at 8:00. Tickets are pegged at $15.00 in advance and $20.00 at the gate, and plenty of seats are still available. The band, a quartet whose bluegrass sound is laced with a delightful variety of musical signatures, is noted for its musicality and its excellence. Roger Moss, Director of Parks and Recreation in East Hartford, CT promotes a series of Americana events as a part of the East Hartford Community Cultural Center winter program of concerts and films. Roger tells me the concert hall seats 298 without a bad seat in the house and featuring outstanding acoustics. Easy parking for the event is available and the hall is just off an interchange of I-84. Directions to the East Hartford Cultural Center can be found here. Tickets can be ordered on line here.

With two feet planted firmly in bluegrass, Claire Lynch’s interests and versatility take her comfortably into country, Americana with a tinge of jazz, swing, and blues in her compositions and her performances. Her career, spanning thirty-five years, includes stints with several bands and working as a house singer/songwriter with Universal-Polygram where her name appears on 160 projects, if I’m counting right. She’s been nominated for a couple of Grammies and was named IBMA Female Vocalist of the Year in 1997. Many of her songs are immediately familiar to bluegrass fans as is her youthful, clear, and expressive voice. Her signature songs include the recent hit “The Day that Lester Died,” “Hills of Alabam’”, and the yearning “Kennesaw Line.” Her version of “Wabash Cannonball” gives the entire band a chance to strut its stuff while always staying true to the great country original made famous by Roy Acuff.

Spending the early part of her life in Kingston, NY, Claire Lynch moved to Alabama at age twelve. She worked with a band, took time off to raise a family, and along the way worked as a song writer and session vocalist. Her songs have been recorded by Patty Loveless, Seldom Scene, Kathy Mattea, and the Whites, while she has appeared on albums with EmmyLou Harris, Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, and others. She achieved prominence with the Front Porch String Band, which, after a time, disbanded as bluegrass bands do, and later founded the Claire Lynch Band with many of the same members. Recently, her kids grown and fledged, she has moved to Nashville for the convenience of being in the center of the music scene. While there have been changes in personnel, the current band is as strong as any she has had.

Jim Hurst

Jim Hurst, a long-time band mate, is one of the monster guitar pickers in music as well as being a fine banjo player. Hurst, while active in music, for many years had to continue providing for himself and his family as a truck driver. When his wife urged him to move to Nashville and take on music full time, they did and he did. Jim Hurst was named IBMA guitar player of the year in 2001 and 2002. His career had been broad and varied with stints in jazz, country, and bluegrass. Hurst is not merely a spectacular guitar player, he’s spectacularly tasteful, too, reflecting his debt to Doc Watson as well as to Tony Rice. Jim is on his second go round with Claire, having taken a period to tour and record with Missy Raines to high critical and popular praise, before they both returned to the Claire Lynch Band. Missy has since left the band again to form Missy Raines and the New Hip.

Jim Hurst

Mark Schatz

To replace Missy Raines, Claire has turned to two time IBMA bass player of the year, Mark Schatz. A graduate of Haverford College in suburban Philadelphia with additional study at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Schatz has had a distinguished career in bluegrass, acoustic, and country music on acoustic and electric bass. He’s played with Bela Fleck as well as the Tony Rice Unit. He played bass with Nickel Creek until they disbanded and has since been touring with the Claire Lynch Band. On stage, Mark is a dynamic figure in his bass play as well as when he steps out from behind his instrument to clog. As musical director of the Footworks Percussive Dance Ensemble, an internationally acclaimed dance group, he has many outlets for his creative urge.

Mark Schatz

Jason Thomas

Jason Thomas, on mandolin, fiddle, and vocals, brings an added versatility to the band. Born in North Bay, Ontario, Jason has been based in Florida as a full-time musician since finishing college in Missouri. In addition to his work with the Claire Lynch Band, Jason plays with several bands in Florida. His play on both mandolin and fiddle adds enormously to the strength and versatility of the band. He’s a quiet yet dynamic presence in this very strong band.

In a telephone interview, Claire spoke expressively and enthusiastically about her band, its personnel, and the joy she takes in performance. All these qualities are clearly evident in this fine band. Friday, January 9^th might be chilly outside, but the concert hall at the East Hartford Cultural Community Center will be warm and filled with joyous song provided by these dynamic performers. Don’t miss it.