After four years of missing this crazy, whacked-out, more or less unbelievable event, I’m headed back to Raleigh this evening. Prior to that I hadn’t missed in ten years.
The past several evenings my wife, Lynn, and I have been watching the new Ken Burns documentary series called The Roosevelt’s, (which is quite excellent, by the way.) Throughout several of the seven episodes, FDR’s Warm Springs, Arkansas, polio treatment center is described in great detail with words, stills and vintage film. The narrator makes the point again and again that perhaps the greatest therapy offered at the sprawling resort-turned-sanitarium was simply bringing together suffers of infantile paralysis from around the U.S. There’s great power, Burns suggests, in creating an environment in which people can see first hand that they’re not alone, that others are equally challenged by this dreaded disease.
The same, I believe, can be said of the International Bluegrass Music Association’s World of Bluegrass. Throughout the several days, the business conference, which morphs into more of a fan-oriented event later in the week, brings together people from all over the world who, until experiencing WOB for the first time, wrongly believe that they and their small local group of bluegrass fanatics are the only victims of the bluegrass bug. Once they walk into the home-base hotel, this year the Marriot in downtown Raleigh, they are, of course, disabused of that notion. Thousands upon thousands of certifiably crazy bluegrass and old-time nuts are concentrated on this tiny spec of land on an otherwise sane planet and, friends, it is a sigh to behold.
From what I’ve been told by Lucy Smith, who’s replaced Larry Kuhn as Grand Master and High Priestess of the CBA’s IBMA operation, we’ll have one of the largest contingencies of Association folks back there in years. Seven of our eleven board members are flying back, as are a bunch of CA youngsters who’ll take part in the WOB Kids Program, a quite long list of California bands who’ve wrangled showcase spots and, of course, all us “civilians” who are going just to enjoy. Oh, and for better or worse, we’re also told the Mold Man will be in Raleigh. (Lucy assures our Chairman Tim Edes that the Strange One will be on an extremely short leash.)
So there you have it. I’ll say no more now because both our President, Darby Brandli, and I are planning to report from WOB-central throughout the week. Oh, and thanks to Louise Keniston, who’ll be in charge of keeping cbaontheweb.org up and running in my absence.