Joe the Goat

This is the story of Joe the Goat and how he helped me reevaluate the rhythm of my daily life. The story begins this past summer, the very Saturday morning I was to leave for Grass Valley and our 32nd annual Fathers Day Festival. It so happens that one entire wall of...

Joe the Goat; A Postscript

Time goes by so damned fast. It was seven years ago that Lynn and I drove one Sunday afternoon to Mt. Ranch and picked out two tiny Boar Goat kids from about the two dozen that were available. On the drive back we named them—the smaller, darker one we named Ted after...

John Deere Tractor

Larry Sparks has always been one of my favorite bluegrass singers, and his “John Deere Tractor” album, one of my most played. For twenty years now, that one particular song, about a lonely dirt farmer unlucky in love with only his tractor to count on, has sent chills...

John Prine

The music world lost a great treasure a couple of weeks ago when John Prine succumbed to the effects of the new corona virus. Our bluegrass community is feeling the effects perhaps as much as anybody even though Prine was anything but a bluegrass musician. He was...

Join the CBA’s Feet on the Street Team

Folks, there ain’t no job that looks so easy as marketing. How hard can it be to do some ads? Put a logo on a billboard? Create a pithy campaign with a simple message (“Think different.”)? How do you judge a good marketing person? I know the answer to that one: if you...

Join Us in Bakersfield

In just eight short years the GREAT 48 Jam in Bakersfield has become our largest event after the Fathers Day Festival. The jam starts today, Thursday, and runs through the weekend, and brings equal numbers (in the hundreds) of Southern California and Northern...

July

Dear friends, Here we are, almost in July. If the rest of festival season is as good as Father’s Day Festival was we’ll be in great shape. Of course things have been rearranged a bit this year, with NCBS’s Good Old Fashioned Festival moving to August, but there are...

July Presidents Message

Fathers Day It was another great one! The 38th Annual Father’s Day Festival had perfect weather, a huge attendance including a record number of children, a stellar lineup, preceded by a full and successful Music Camp, a NEW Bluegrass Camp for Kids, new participants on...

July’s Board Meeting

Hello from Whiskey Creek. It’s a mere 96 degrees in Jamestown right now, but we’re promised triple digits starting Wednesday. Willie, the youngest of the lab pack, has taken to lying down in one of our fountains. His look of contentment once he’s in just the right...