Your Association has been busy in 2018 and we are wrapping up another busy year. Many of us just returned from IBMA’s World of Bluegrass in Raleigh, we had our Fall Campout in Lodi and our Annual Election and Membership Meeting, Lucy Smith in Chico has produced two concerts, we have booked our 2019 CBA Father’s Day Bluegrass Festival and Patrick Campbell led the team for the California Showcase Band selection and Jim Duber led the Vern’s Stage Selection Team. Our new logo process is on track and the new logo will be introduced in January. Jack Pierce and his team are hard at work on our Great 48 Hour Jam in Bakersfield. Tim Edes is working on A Night at the Grange. Mark Hogan has lots of fiddle news to announce along with new partnerships with the Old Time Fiddle Community. The CBA volunteers have been busy.
Daisy Kerr, Tessa Schwartz and Ida Winfree were selected by IBMA to perform with the Kids on Bluegrass in Raleigh and they represented us well. Daisy also performed at the Red Carpet Ceremony before the Awards Show and presented awards during the show. Your donations to the CBA Youth Program helped these three families travel to Raleigh to represent the CBA and gave our young musicians the opportunity to meet and play with their peers from all over the country.
Also selected to play at IBMA on the Youth Stage were two CBA Bands: The Blue Js (The Gooding Brothers: Josh, Jake and John and Jesse Personeni) and Crying Uncle (The Quale Brothers: Miles and Teo along with Andrew Osborne and John Gooding). Crying Uncle played NINE showcases in Raleigh during the week and wowed attendees everywhere. AJ Lee attended IBMA, nominated for a Momentum Award, and her band, Blue Summit (AJ, Sullivan Tuttle, Jesse Fischman) played the CBA Suite. CBA Youth Program alums Frank Solivan II and Molly Tuttle were on stages everywhere and nominated for big awards with Molly again winning IBMA Guitar Player of the Year. We are all pretty proud of these musicians.
The election for officers for the CBA 2018-2019 year was completed in October with new Directors Patrick Campbell, Steve Ladonga and Kara Kundert installed on the Board joining Bruce Campbell, Jessica Furui, Brandon Godman, Dave Gooding, Mark Hogan, Chuck Hurd, Larry Phegley and Geoff Sargent. Geoff was reelected Board Chair. I was reelected President so my column will continue. The President is the liaison between the Board and the Membership and I always look forward to hearing from you.
All the officers and coordinators were confirmed at the October meeting and the new and big announcements are that Montie Elston has agreed to be 2019 Father’s Day Bluegrass Festival Director, Helen Foley will coordinate the Kids on Bluegrass Program, Bruce Campbell will take over our Raffle Sales and Robin Fischer and Rowan McCallister have agreed to coordinate our Old Time Events. These are large and important jobs and all can use your support. All our officers and coordinators are listed in each Bluegrass Breakdown with their contact information and all look forward to hearing from you.
The Campouts are coordinated by Deb Livermore and she successfully curated the Lodi event. “Chef” Mike Mullin cooked the delicious Saturday night dinner and Deb booked the CBA Youth All Stars to play for the dinner. We were treated to an ovation deserving set organized by Teen Ambassador Ida Winfree with John Gooding, Jack Kinney, Miles Quale and Ben Kopf forming the rest of the band. These young musicians demonstrate why it is so important that our membership support the CBA Youth Program, this “pickup band” could play a main stage anywhere, they were that good.
