The saying goes something like “better late than never”, and so I hope it works here as well. Please find below Lucy Smith’s report of the CBA suite in Raleigh, NC at the International Bluegrass Music Association convention. I got back from the CBA fall campout Sunday afternoon and meant to post it then, but made the mistake of sitting down and falling asleep…..jamming, camping, and driving back home from Lodi will do that to you. I asked our webmaster to let this run Tuesday and hopefully it will go as planned because this is a must read report.
IBMA RALEIGH 2014:
The Epicenter of World-Class Bluegrass!
It’s been a full 10 days since I returned from a life-changing musical, social, and very personal experience at the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Convention and Wide-Open Bluegrass Festival in Raleigh, North Carolina, and as the new-at-the-helm leader of the California Bluegrass Association’s host team for this event, I wanted to share some of the highlights of this magical week.
First of all, this is the 25th (or so) year of CBA’s involvement at the annual IBMA event. Many thanks to Carl Pagter for recognizing the importance of this international organization, whose main goal is to promote bluegrass music, so many years ago. Carl headed up the California Bluegrass Association’s presence at IBMA for 12 years, followed by Larry Kuhn’s 12 year tenure, while the Convention site moved from Louisville KY, to Owensboro KY, to Nashville TN, and in 2013, to Raleigh NC.
As one of the largest state bluegrass organizations in the country, CBA makes itself known at IBMA by sponsoring Wednesday’s showcase luncheon at the convention this year, at which CBA President Darby Brandli and CBA Chairman of the Board Tim Edes were award presenters; by showcasing California, national, and international bluegrass bands in the CBA suite every evening; by hosting jams in the suite from 2pm to 3am; and by having young musicians from the CA Kids on Bluegrass program perform with the IBMA Kids on Bluegrass led by Kim Fox.
In fact, there is a wonderful article in the International Bluegrass publication (page 18) on the IBMA Kids on Bluegrass which rightly credits Frank Solivan Sr. of CBA for initiating the concept of Kids on Bluegrass programs, now at IBMA and various bluegrass festivals across the country, on line at http://issuu.com/ibma/docs/ib-october_a4/12
In the same issue, you can find the IBMA Award winners for 2014 (Frank Solivan II’s band Dirty Kitchen being one of them!), see wonderful photos of the Raleigh event, AND read the IBMA tribute to our member, Regina Bartlett in an In Remembrance section on page 29. (More on this below.)
For me, this was a watershed year as the manager of the CBA host team for IBMA. My job started 4 months earlier, with communications to IBMA leaders, selecting host team members (8 total), lining up tickets for the event for attending CBA members, procuring a suite and bedrooms at the Marriott Hotel (AKA Bluegrass Central!) for CBA team members, selecting and scheduling what eventually grew to 31 spectacular bluegrass bands to showcase in the CBA Suite, arranging donations from California companies: beer from Sierra Nevada Brewery, wine from Guglielmo Winery, and cheese from Rumiano Cheese Company……well, you get the idea!
So arriving in Raleigh on Sunday, September 28, I felt prepared to hit the ground running. Geoff Sargent and Montie Elston of the CBA Board of Directors were two of the host team members also arriving on Sunday, as were first-timers Tom and Sharon Bailey from Clayton (East Bay), and all were invaluable from beginning to end! Frank Solivan, Kay Wilkes, and Regina Bartlett—all experienced CBA host team members– arrived the next day, Monday. Together, we put together the suite: removing furniture, adding chairs for jamming and audience arrangements, retrieving CBA goods, picking up food items, etc. etc.! By nightfall, we were ready to go out for a great meal together to celebrate Geoff’s birthday at the Oxford Pub on Fayetteville Street in Raleigh, where the Tony Williamson Band was playing. It was a great beginning for a very busy, memorable, and spectacular week!
The Convention started on Tuesday, September 30, and we were so ready! We had a large contingency of CBA members, including 9 our of our 11 Board of Director members, attending IBMA this year, taking advantage of the many seminars on the “business” of bluegrass: Running a festival, seeking out sponsors, hiring bands, leading bluegrass jams, insurance issues, sound issues, marketing, and many more. In addition to the daytime seminar sessions, the city of Raleigh hosted what is called the “Bluegrass Ramble”. Every night, various restaurants and pubs, as well as stages in the convention center, showcased bluegrass bands from all over the world. It’s just unfortunate one cannot be in 2 or 3 places at once!!
If I had to be in one place, however, it was where I DID spend most of my time, every evening: In the CBA Suite on the 3rd floor of the Marriott Hotel! Picture this: A lively bluegrass jam is in progress, taking over the entire suite. At 7:53pm, the jam abruptly stops. Musicians put away instruments, listeners and CBA members rearrange chairs to “audience” mode, folks pour in through the “bar-side” door of the suite. Geoff Sargent clinks a wine glass to get everyone’s attention, and announces the first band of the night, who enter through the OTHER door of the suite, and play a 26-minute set. Just like that: in 7 minutes, we morphed from one of the best jams in town to what I consider THE BEST bluegrass band showcase. The CBA Suite presented 6 to 8 bands each night, and while audience members drifted in and out between bands, there was always a wildly enthusiastic audience response for each band. NO kidding!
I hope you are wondering just who DID play in our suite, because I’m just SO wanting to brag!! So here it goes, in chronological order…..TUESDAY: Larry Stephenson Band, Nu-Blu, Darin & Brooke Aldridge, Frank Solivan and Dirty Kichen, Laurie Lewis & Kathy Kallick singing songs of Vern & Ray, and Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper. WEDNESDAY: Molly Tuttle & John Mailander, Special Consensus, Town Mountain, Donna Ulisse Band, Earl Brothers (IBMA showcase band from CA), Sister Sadie, Danny Paisley & Southern Grass, and Adkins & Loudermilk. THURSDAY: 7:30-10:30 IBMA AWARDS in the Duke Energy Center….but at 11pm in the CBA suite……Sideline, Driven, and Front Country.
OK, stop and take a breath, because there’s more……FRIDAY: Breaking Grass, Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley, Dale Ann Bradley Band with Phil Ledbetter (IBMA Dobro Player of the Year, 2014), Mustered Courage (from Australia), Wayne Taylor & Appaloosa, Helen Highwater, Foghorn String Band, and Flatt Lonesome (IBMA Emerging Artist 2014). And finally, SATURDAY: Brothers Barton (from Bakersfield, CA), Davidson Brothers (from Australia), Lonely Heartstring Band, Rebecca Frazier and Hit & Run, Lorraine Jordan & Carolina Road, and Chris Henry and The Hardcore Grass.
The reason I’m telling you all of this is because these musicians all graced the non-amplified CBA suite stage as unpaid volunteer bands. None of the performers at IBMA are paid for showcasing at most of the IBMA venues. As Nancy Cardwell, IBMA Executive Director explained it, the bulk of the profits from all IBMA events go into a Bluegrass Trust Fund, a charity fund that helps individuals in the bluegrass music community in times of emergency need. So, to all the bands listed here, our heartiest thanks for your generosity and your superb performances!
You should also know that not only does CBA showcase great bluegrass bands, and host “celebrity-studded” jams, we offer drinks and hors d’oeurves to our guests every night until 3:00am, making the CBA HOSPITALITY suite live up to its name! While some of the food items are provided by CBA, a great proportion were donated, as mentioned earlier, by Sierra Nevada Beer (Chico & Mills River, NC), Guglielmo Winery (Morgan Hill), and Rumiano Cheese (Willows). Not only did the Rumianos donate cheese, fiddler Pat Rumiano was on-hand to help prepare food trays and tend bar.
Which brings me to that part about the CBA volunteers that made the CBA suite one of the most talked-about venues at IBMA. The host team of 7 volunteers mentioned above—Geoff Sargent, Montie Elston, Tom & Sharon Bailey, Kay Wilkes, Regina Bartlett, and Frank Solivan– worked incredibly hard, doing whatever was necessary to make the suite’s jams and showcases run smoothly. They were friendly, welcoming, and served as excellent hosts and representatives of CBA. To them, I am extremely grateful!
As many of you have heard, Regina Bartlett from Watsonville, CA passed away in her sleep at IBMA in the early hours of Wednesday morning, October 1. Regina was delighted to be at IBMA! As an experienced host team member, she was in charge of setting up the food trays on that Tuesday night, passing on her experience to the rest of us. And like all of us, she stayed until the suite closed at 3:00am. She and Barbara Rosner, then went out jamming until 4:30-ish am. She had a GREAT night! The doctors blame her death on systemic heart disease related to diabetes. What I’d like to remember about Regina is that she really lived life. She LOVED playing music with friends, loved her friends, loved working with the Kids on Bluegrass program at the Good Old-Fashioned Festival. She was always generous, always friendly, welcoming, and sharing. She set an example for me of how to live. And if I’m very, very lucky, I will go out of this world the way she did—doing what I love with the people I love, right after a wild night of bluegrass jamming!
While Reggie’s persona could not be replaced, many people stepped in to help on all the things Regina would have done, and to them, I am extremely grateful! The list of “spontaneous” CBA helpers who assisted members of the host team include Amy Sullivan, Kali Nowakowski, Rita & John Erwin, Pat Rumiano, Maria Nadauld & friend Sandi, David Brace, Rick Cornish, Laura Quinn, Barbara Rosner, and a host of CBA board members and general members who would just drop by and fill in where needed! Thank you all!
Many of us attended the 2014 IBMA Awards Ceremony at the Duke Energy Center, just a block from the Marriott. It was a perfect ending to the 3-day conference. (Chris Stuart, from SoCal, was one of the two producers of the Awards Show.) On Friday & Saturday, the Wide Open Bluegrass festival began. The entire main street in downtown Raleigh closed down to traffic, and opened up to bluegrass bands on 5 outdoor stages, including the Plaza Stage just in front of the Marriott. Other BIG venues included the Red Hat Amphitheater, an outside venue, and the Convention Center Ballroom Stage inside. The outside venues were open to the public, and the streets were just packed. Raleigh really knows how to throw a party!
So I hope I was able to give you a picture of what the annual IBMA World of Bluegrass in Raleigh, North Carolina, is like. For a great video, please go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef_FdAUFubs . This was put on youTube by Derek Halsey, a visitor to the CBA suite, an admirer of Regina, a journalist for Bluegrass publications, and twice nominated for Bluegrass Journalist. If you watch to the end, you will see his dedication of the video to Regina Bartlett. You might also want to know that Adkins & Loudermilk dedicated a song to her during their Plaza Stage set on Friday. It was lovely to know Regina had so many good friends in the California, the national and international bluegrass “families”, many of whom stopped by the CBA Suite during the week to express their condolences. It just proved to me, once again, that this community of bluegrass players and listeners IS like family. Please be sure to make it to one of those bluegrass “family reunions” before too long, be it a local event, a state-wide CBA event, or the big one in Raleigh next fall.
