| Subject: | [RESOGUIT-L] River City Bluegrass Festival | | Date: | Monday, January 9, 2006 11:46:17 (-0800) | | From: | matt <matt @..........com>
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Some of you requested a report on the River City Bluegrass Festival in
Portland this last weekend. Well, here’s one take on the
situation--Dobros rule! Let me count the ways...
As part of my twelve-step program I’m required to say that I am a banjo
player, and I cut my bluegrass teeth on Earl Scruggs-he’s a bluegrass
genius and an icon. I would love to have seen him play again. But since
he was not able to come, what should I wish for? How about having a
superstar reso player replace Earl, and then show up at the reso workshop
in addition, sitting five feet away so that I can watch every move. Then,
have reso players as members of just about every other band, including two
top-notch bluegrass bands that have fiddle, mando and reso but _no banjo_!
Then, hop from jam to jam toting a brand new reso and realize that there
are dobro pickers in almost every jam, and sometimes more than one (to me
this is a good thing-they are really catching on!). Well, that’s what
happened for two days in River City.
Jerry Douglas put together the “River City Dream Band” comprised of J.D.
himself, J.D. Crowe, Sam Bush, Barry Bales, Dan Tyminski and Stuart
Duncan. It was all very predictable. They blew the roof off the place.
What do you say if _all_ the pieces are exceptional? One of my favorites
was a Bush/Douglas duet on the Cream/NewgrassRevival tune “Sailing Shoes.”
Orville Johnson from Seattle sings the blues as if he was the one that
invented them. He can also play the blues on square-tuning (GBDGBD) dobro
and make it sound like he’s using a more blues-friendly tuning like
DADF#AD or whatever. If you get a chance to see him in concert or attend
his workshops, it’s well worthwhile. So I did. So did about twenty other
reso-heads. David and I sat right up front, about ten feet from Orville,
who jumped right in with a plethora of good advice including some
interesting twists on rhythm & backup, pick-blocking, and practice
routines. Well, about halfway through the hour Jerry Douglas must finally
have realized there were many things he needed to know, so he came to the
workshop. Orville invited him to come up and interrupt the workshop, and
he sat right between Orville and me. They then proceeded to play two
blues tunes-one an instrumental-before Jerry started fielding questions.
There was only one thing wrong with the whole situation. Somebody had
inadvertently scheduled the guitar workshop in the same room, which meant
that when the hour was over we actually had to leave! Very irritating.
The jamming was full-time fun. Like I said, I started with the new Beard
and didn’t even pick up the banjo ‘til late on Sunday afternoon. And
there are getting to be many good players in this region to swap licks
with.
Some of the regional bands with reso featured include Prairie Flyer with
Andre Vashon, and True North ( don’t know the guys name, but a really
tasteful picker).
Maybe I’ll go again next year. And this time I wish for... :)
Matt
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River City Bluegra
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