More proof that you can tell the difference between a photographer pro and an amateur like me. Here's a Flicker collection of HSB8 photographer from Don Dowell, who is a regular photographer at Strawberry Festivals. Featured here is festival founder Warren Hellman playing with Whyte Layde, but there are great sets of Emmylou Harris, Three Girls and Their Buddy, Hot Rize, Odetta, Guy Clark, Alison Brown and Joe Craven, The Infamous Stringdusters, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, and many more.
Okay, last post. Here's a few short takes that didn't get in the rest of my coverage:
• I had a bumpy ride keeping track of my possessions, but the generous spirit of festival-goers saved me from any lasting damage. On Friday, as I left the park I realized I was without my iPhone, and couldn't imagine any way that I'd be able to recover it. Big bummer on the replacement cost, though I consoled myself that I'd now upgrade to the 3G version and that my data was backed up in iTunes. Well, by the time I got home there was a message from a friend that someone had found it, called him from my recent call list, and left word that it would be in lost and found tomorrow. Big relief. Read more »
The less frequented Porch Stage featured more nationally known acts as well as its usual staple of popular Bay Area performers. It is probably the place to catch musicians that would qualify as personal "discoveries," if only one weren't drawn to inevitably bigger name favorites in the other four venues.
But each time I visited Porch this year, the acts had attracted a decent-size crowd. Maura O'Connell was grateful that so many came out to see her "with Emmylou (Harris) and Iris (DeMent) on at the same time."
So what were my discoveries? Newly named Americana Music Association emerging artist of the year Mike Farris & The Roseland Rhythm Review (photo) impressed me with his Memphis-style gospel R&B. There's a lot of power in his voice, backup singers and horn section. The message is all Jesus, but the music rocked. Read more »
Del McCoury will tell you that genres don't matter and "It's all just music," but we detected some noticeable trends in the musical styles presented this year at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass.
Most significantly, there was a definite shift in presentation of more straight-ahead rock performers, including neo-punk acts Gogol Bordello (which drew the largest audience I've ever seen at the Star Stage) and Heavy Trash (who I didn't see but whose MySpace page says "smolders with the stench of avant punk trash and nasty garage ooze and grind" and post-Dead jam outfits Tea Leaf Green and Moonalice.
I think the shift toward more rock acts was an intentional move by festival booker Dawn Holliday, in order to increase the appeal of the event to younger San Franciscans. If Warren Hellman's goal is to give a gift of music to the city, then it makes sense to expand the "hardly" part of the formula to embrace acts that will draw a younger set. Read more »
It's not just fans who bumped into old friends at Hardly Strictly. With so many roots artists booked for the festival, impromptu and planned reunions happened all weekend long backstage and onstage.
"With all of us touring so much, you may see old friends only once a year or three. It's so great to meet up with people backstage," said Iris Dement as she called up Jimmie Dale Gilmore for a guest shot. Having played his own set the day before, Gilmore ambled up to the Rooster Stage microphone and said that he and Iris have been friendly for many years but had never performed together.
Guest shots took place all around the grounds. Elvis Costello brought up Jim Lauderdale (who was otherwise not on the schedule) and Emmylou Harris (who was just about everywhere). One of the more intriguing appearances was Laurie Lewis playing bass and singing harmony with Ralph Stanley. "It's great to be a Clinch Mountain Boy for a day," she said.
One of the fun things at a big festival like Hardly Strictly Bluegrass is unexpectedly running into friends and acquaintances. One such meeting for me was when I sat down on a corner of a half empty tarp at the Porch Stage while The John Jorgenson Quintet was playing, then looking over to see that among the three guys on the tarp was none other than Rushad Eggleston, the wild child and cello virtuoso formerly of Crooked Still.
Between songs, Rushad filled me in on his current status. He is living in Oakland CA and playing in a trio Tornado Rider, that is gigging around the Bay Area and hoping to tour on the festival circuit next year. They will also be at Magfest in Live Oak FL later this month.
The band features Rushad on standup cello and vocals, with his old buddy from Monterey CA Scott Manke on drums and Graham Terry on bass. Of his role as a lead singer, Rushad told me, "If Aoife (O'Donovon from Crooked Still) is a mockingbird, then I'm a panther, and a diseased one at that." Read more »
With the festival taking place just a month before the upcoming election, it was not surprising to hear nuggets of political commentary coming from the stage. And given the venue was in politically left San Francisco and that many rock and roots musicians also lean left, it was also not surprising that the overwhelming tilt was pro-Obama.
What may have been surprising was that the most fervent calls came not from outspoken American artists like Steve Earle but from the contingent of British artists on hand — most of whom cannot participate in the election themselves.
Elvis Costello bemoaned that "I only pay taxes to Wall Street, but don't get to vote." Then he mentioned having met California Gov. Arnold Schwartzenegger, telling him, "You can never be President but my boys can." The foreign-born Schwartzenegger is barred by the constitution from running for the highest office in the land, while Costello's three sons by his American wife Diana Krall are natural-born U.S. citizens. Read more »
When Elvis Costello surprised the Star Stage audience with his respectful version of "Friend of the Devil," it represented a tip of his rabbi's hat to the unofficial patron saint of Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, Jerry Garcia. But the late Grateful Dead luminary, whose work at the intersection of traditional roots music and rock and roll set the direction for the music celebrated at the programming at the festival, was not the only revered folk-rock artist referenced in the "spirits" part of Costello's High Whine and Spirits performance—or in the festival as a whole.
Dueting with Emmylou Harris, Costello sang to part of Gram Parsons in the classic "Love Hurts," just one of many benedictions to the memory of the Flying Burrito Brothers and Byrds star who almost single-handedly created the country-rock movement in the late 1960s before his untimely death. Among other things, Harris' central role in this festival assures that status, since Emmylou began her career in music as Parsons' vocal sidekick. Read more »
Being a proud New Yorker it pains me to say this, but there’s no point in denying it: There could never be an event like the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in my city. In fact, I’m not sure there could ever be anything like it in any city but San Francisco — not unless there are a lot of Warren Hellmans out there I don’t know about.
The world could use more billionaires who are as passionate about music as Hellman is. In New York we have a billionaire for a mayor, and he has not been averse to spending his own money to improve the quality of life in the big city (or to grease the wheels for a third term, in defiance of term limits, but that’s another story). But he doesn’t seem to care about music — at least not the way Hellman does.
I’ve heard it said that Hellman decided to produce a festival back at the dawn of the century mostly because he likes playing the banjo and no one would give him a gig. I think the person who told me that was kidding, but I can’t be sure. Anyway, I don’t care why he has chosen to spend so much of his money on a world-class, totally free weekend of bluegrass and other mostly acoustic roots and roots-related music (and to commit to keeping it going even after he’s gone, economic ups and downs be damned). I’m just glad — thrilled might be a better word — that he does it. Read more »
In the middle of Robert Plant and Alison Krauss’s amazing set on the first day of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, I was walking through the crowd and overheard someone, sounding a bit peeved, ask: “Why is this considered bluegrass?”
The answer, of course, is that it isn’t — as the young man in the Led Zeppelin T-shirt a few feet away could have told him. This was, after all, not a bluegrass festival. The words “Hardly Strictly” should have tipped that guy off. And if that didn’t work, the presence of an unusually large number of British rockers should have done the trick.
Anyone who wanted bluegrass and bluegrass alone could have found more than enough of it at the festival — especially all day Sunday on the Banjo Stage, the biggest of the five performance areas, where the performers included Earl Scruggs, Ralph Stanley, Hazel Dickens and Ricky Skaggs, as much bluegrass royalty as anyone could ask for in one place. But as it turned out, this year’s festival was also an excellent place to hear what some of the most talented performers to emerge from England’s rock scene in the sixties and seventies sound like when they search for their inner folkie. Read more »
