Bluegrass Festivals Sprout in June

By Michael Kornfeld

Bluegrass fans will converge on Preston, Connecticut; Wind Gap, Pennsylvania; Telluride, Colorado; and Weston, Vermont in coming weeks. The Strawberry Park Bluegrass Festival is slated for May 31-June 3; the Wind Gap Bluegrass Festival is set for June 7-10; and both the 2007 Telluride Bluegrass Festival and the Jenny Brook Family Bluegrass Festival take place June 21-24.

Now in its 30^th year, the Strawberry Park Bluegrass Festival, to be held at a 160-acre campground in Preston, Conn., May 31-June 3, will feature 16 bluegrass acts over four days, as well as a three-day music camp for children and teens.  Artists scheduled to perform include Dale Ann Bradley, Cadillac Sky, Cherryholmes, Dry Branch Fire Squad (now marking its 30^th anniversary), Amy Gallatin & Stillwater, the Gibson Brothers, The Grascals (who are profiled in a Jan. 30, 2007 article that appears in the Bluegrass & Beyond section), Infamous Stringdusters, The Lovell Sisters, Mountain Heart, Nothin’ Fancy, Steep Canyon Rangers, Chris Thile & the How to Grow a Band featuring Bryan Sutton, April Verch, and seven-time IBMA female vocalist of the year Rhonda Vincent.

Children and teens, ages 8-18, can participate in a Kids Academy featuring instruction in traditional bluegrass mandolin, banjo, fiddle, guitar and bass.  Participation is free for festival attendees who must attend all three days of the academy. 

Festivalgoers also can attend music workshops and swim in the campgrounds’ three large pools.  There also will be non-amplified bluegrass picking and singing during the night at the ‘picker’s lot.’

Discounted advance-purchase festival passes are available through May 27, and camping in the rough is free for those purchasing weekend passes. Individual day visitor passes also may be purchased in advance or at the gate.  For more information, visit www.strawberrypark.net/bluegrass.html. 

The Wind Gap Bluegrass Festival, slated for June 7-10 at Mountain View Park in the eastern Pennsylvania town after which it is named, will feature more than two dozen musical acts, workshops, bluegrass movies, and a free bus to the Martin Guitar Factory on Friday. 

Like Strawberry Park, this festival will also feature a free three-day Kids’ Academy.  Open to K-12 students of all experience levels who are invited to bring their instruments and learn to play bluegrass music.  

Vocalist and mandolin player Rhonda Vincent and banjo player Tony Trischka are among the familiar names on the weekend’s lineup that also includes The Abrams Brothers, Eddie & Martha Adcock, Bill & Maggie Anderson, Junior Barber & Beartracks, The Biscuit Burners, Blue Harvest, The Cabin Fever Band, Carolina Sonshine, Country Gentlemen Reunion, The Doerfels, Gold Heart, Smokey Greene, The Lewis Family, Nothin’ Fancy, Outskirts, Dan Paisley, Marty Raybon, Louie Setzer, Karl Shiflett, Valerie Smith, Stained Glass Window, the U.S. Navy Band and Williams & Clark Expedition. 

Camping at the park is free with a weekend tickets, which are available for $65 through May 31 and $70 at the gate.  One-day tickets also are available.  For more information, visit www.windgapbluegrass.com.

The rugged San Juan Mountains of Colorado’s high country play host to the 2007 Telluride Bluegrass Festival at the beginning of summer, June 21-24.  Interestingly, the opening night headliners will be Counting Crows, a folk-rock-soul band that can hardly be counted as a bluegrass outfit.  Neither can Jackie Greene, Los Lobos, the stellar Scottish singer-songwriter Dougie MacLean with his band, nor popsters Guster.  Most of the other confirmed acts on the festival roster are, however, bluegrass or close to it.  These include The Avett Brothers, Sam Bush, John Cowan Band, Crooked Still, Jerry Douglas Band, Bela Fleck & The Flecktones (along with a special collaboration with jazz great Chick Corea), Greensky Bluegrass (last year’s band contest winners), Emmylou Harris, Sarah Jarosz, Alison Kraus and Union Station, the Brazilian/American fusion of mandolinists Mike Marshall and Hamilton de Holanda, Peter Rowan & Tony Rice Quartet, Andy Statman Trio, Chris Thile & How To Grow a Band, Abigail Washburn with the Sparrow Quartet, Yonder Mountain String Band, and the Telluride House Band with Fleck, Bush, Douglas, Edgar Meyer and Bryan Sutton. 

In addition to music on the main stage at Town Park all day, more intimate daily workshops — including competitions and in-the-round artist performances – will take place on the Elks Park stage in the middle of town.

Four-day festival passes are $175 in advance, while daily passes are $60.  For more on the festival – including the daily artist lineup and short bios, as well as information on tickets, camping, lodging, contests, workshops, family activities and NightGrass, visit www.bluegrass.com/telluride. 

Also slated for June 21-24 is the Jenny Brook Family Bluegrass Festival.  More traditional in nature, this festival takes place at the Weston Recreation Area in the foothills of Vermont’s Green Mountains. 

Performers include Junior Barber & Beartracks, David Davis & The Warrior River Boys, The Gibson Brothers, The Erin Gibson-Laclair Show, Smokey Greene, Buddy Merriam & Backroads, The Lynn Morris Band, Plexigrass, The Right Path Gospel Band, The Seth Sawyer Band, The Sawyer Brothers and Leroy Troy. 

In keeping with the nature of a family festival, there will be workshops for both adults and children, while children also will have an opportunity to perform on Sunday and partake in a variety of activities.

Rough camping is free with a weekend pass ($55 per person at the gate; children 16 & under are free, while 17 & 18 year-olds are half-price).  Daily tickets are also available.  For more information, visit www.jennybrookfestival.com.