As sort of a big tent guy in bluegrass circles, I appreciate the variety of music I get a chance to play with the people that hang around this fine organization. The charter of the California bluegrass association says that they were formed for the preservation of old time, gospel, and bluegrass music, but in their wisdom, they didn’t define it beyond that, which gives those of us with broad powers of interpretation a lot of wiggle room in what compromises each category. One of the things I like about those of us who hang around this fine bunch of people is that we leave room under the umbrella for those whose musical tastes maybe walk along the edges of the basic definitions of what constitutes the three categories.
When I go to Grass Valley for the big Fathers Day fest, I know that I’ll be able to find a little of most everything I like, maybe not on the main stage, or even on Vern’s stage, but it will be somewhere out in the parking lot, or rooted in the middle of some R.V. encampment or hidden behind some bush in the upper level at the end of the road. And wherever it is…I’m gonna find it.
There’s the C and W folks, generally around Jeanie Ramos’s R.V., with Jim Johnston and Vic Yeakle, and maybe Chuck Polling, and all them lovers of Hank and Hank and Hank and Merle. And they’ll be singing them drinking, and heartbreak songs, and those little lessons on how not to live your life, and they’ll be singing them about as good as you ever heard them, and maybe if you’re lucky, Diana Donnelly might come over there and do some Patsy Cline that’s worth the price of your ticket.
And up there in the trees you hear those hypnotic fiddles sawing like a hundred angry bees with those songs from the turn of the century and see that crushed leather hat of Carl Pagter bent over frailing that five string and if you’re feeling adventurous maybe they’ll let you slide into their circle and let you play one of those wonderful songs with 37 verses and one crooked chord that you’ll miss every time it passes.
And how about those jazz guys with the keyboard and the sheet music with the chords sheets that look like Chinese hieroglyphics . I’ll pick a couple with them, just to see if I can, and they’ll put up with me, as long as I don’t play nothing with just three chords.
And usually there a contingent of folk singers with great harmonies and songs they wrote themselves that you can usually figure out the chords and chorus to about the time the songs ends. And if you know every song that Bob Dylan or John Prine sang, you’ll always be welcome.
And then there’s the crazy people, and those are the most fun. Last year I got to jam with them with 10 banjos in one jam. Doing bluegrass versions of pop standards and unbluegrassable rock & roll. Life don’t get much better than that.
And when I’ve had enough of the craziness, There’s the gospel folks over there behind the bathroom, bringing a little of the Glory of God and the gentleness of the spirit into the night air. I always search them out and spend one glorious night singing my heart out in thanksgiving for all this good stuff.
But my favorite place of all is Pat Calhouns R.V. This is Mecca for the big tent people. This jam runs from fiddle tunes, to gospel, to Ralph Stanley bluegrass, to swing and C & W. To old time, and Cowboy music to jazz standards and Beethoven. I’ve even seen I guy pull a trumpet out from under his trenchcoat of on perfect night under a full moon.
I still love them hundred mile an hour three chord mountain masterpeices, but it ain’t enough for me. Thank God and Django. There’s always music playing somewhere that’s just right.
I’ll see you up there in the trees.
