Thursday June 12th CBA Father's Day Bluegrass Festival

Okay...so I've decided for the near future I'm not going to include links....everyone can google. Here's some instructions.......select text, right click, scroll down dropdown menu for SEARCH GOOGLE FOR "text"

That business aside....this year's festival was great, better than I expected!

Crooked Still is Aolfe O'Donovan on vocals and rhythm guitar, Brittany Haas on fiddle, Gregory Liszt on banjo, Tristan Clarridge on cello and Corey Dimario on double bass....they were this year's experimental grass component of the festival. Experimental really? Hahaha I guess to the more traditional bluegrass aficionado they were experimental but, the only experimental part I noticed was the fact that there was a cello in it. They did a great job, check out my youtube for footage of them.

Next up on Thursday morning was Chris Jones and Ivan Rosenberg, wow. WOW. Chris Jones...the audience member wouldn't be blamed for having high expectations of an IBMA award winning song writer and someone who's been around bluegrass as long as Ivan has, you pretty much expect them to come to the table with something. Well....come they did. They were fantastic, makes me wish they toured through here more often. They're certainly going to be on my watch list for upcoming shows. That dobro sang and complemented Chris' warm deep voice like cinnamon in apple pie.

Finishing the morning up were the Wilders and they harmonized well together and the mandolin/dobro player wailed up there. Hahaha I thought it was funny that the mandolin player pulled out his toothpick when he changed to the dobro the first time...like mkay time to get to it.... Honky tonk habit was introduced by the lead singer "we don't really have a hit, but if we did, this would be it." I thought their rendition of Big John was great too...too bad I didn't get a video of it.

After the Dinner session Blue Highway came on and the guitar player did some pretty good Ralph Stanley impressions. The mandolin player had a cool and interesting picking style, maybe some great bluegrass father in the sky started that picking style but he chopped at the mandolin and it had a really great sound. They've been together for 14 years (although they don't all look old enough for that). Rob on the dobro won IBMA dobro player of the year 9 years in a row. NINE YEARS IN A ROW! WOW!

The Wilders came up for their second set and I love the fact that they're all completely rockin out, I think that the fact that they all get into it really increases my appreciation of their music.

The Dan Tyminski Band did a great job! They're playing again tomorrow so I'll talk about them then!