May 7, 2015: It's time
for the 17th annual Parkfield Bluegrass Festival in the coastal
foothills of Monterey County. This will be my 14th time here; I
missed the first two, and the 2007 event.
The festival has had some
ups and downs over the years. After five or six years the original
promoters needed a break, so they turned it over to another couple. For whatever reason,
they decided to move it to Paso Robles and
call it the Mid-State
Festival. However, someone else decided that
Parkfield was too good a place to abandon, and quickly organized a
festival there a week after the Paso Robles event. Whether it was
confusion, competition or other factors, the Mid-State Festival lost
money and was never held again.
Meanwhile Joe Quealy,
long time bluegrass fan and festival sound man, took over as
promoter and kept the event going for several years. Eventually
health and other issues caused him to step aside. By this time the
event had a loyal following on the central coast, where a group of
fans banded together as the Bluegrass Music Society of the Central
Coast (BMSCC). They put on concerts and other events, but their main
focus is the Parkfield
Festival, and they've had enough success that
it set a new attendance record in 2014.
So far, at 5:40 p.m.,
this year's event is not what anyone wanted. Thunderstorms were
forecast for the area, and it rained on and off during my drive from
Fresno. It was dry and sunny in the middle of my trip, but sprinkles started as
I drove the 15 miles from Highway 41 to the town. This continued for
a while, then about 4 p.m. a hard steady rain set in.
The musicians are
performing in the cafe, and I walked over there early in the
afternoon, but it was standing room only, and not much of that, so I've been reading, eating and watching TV. Since all of
today's groups will appear again, I'm staying right here for the
rest of the day, though I'll try to tune in the local FM broadcast
of the music when it starts up again at 7.
Aside from the puddles
and rivulets caused by the storm, it's one of the driest years I've
seen here, no surprise with California in the fourth year of a
severe drought. There is no green left on the hills, and no flowers,
although it looks like there was a fair hay harvest, with most of
the crop cut and some of it baled.
It also looks right now
like there are not as many trailers and motor homes as usual, at
least in the area where I'm located, just back of the cafe and
stage. During a break in the rain earlier I walked around, and saw
only two or three tents, but tent campers might well take a look at
the forecast, and wait till tomorrow or Saturday, when the chance of
rain is a minimal 10%.
May 8: The big rain stopped
about 6 p.m., but there were showers off and on into the night. In
the morning it was cloudy and damp but no rain was forecast. Even so
the morning show was held in the cafe, which was good for the people
who got there in time to get a seat, but less so for the two or
three dozen who had to stand, and the ones who couldn't even find
standing room. I went early enough to be one of the lucky ones and
saw all three of the groups on the morning program.
The best of these was
Steep Ravine, which was at Parkfield last year. They have an
excellent lead singer, and were joined this year by a sensational
mandolin player, Tristan Scroggins, who was here last year with a
different group. Steep Ravine does a variety of styles, from
straight bluegrass to Django
Reinhardt.
Also performing were the
Brothers Barton, whom I've seen several times in the past. They did
too many "progressive" instrumentals, but played bluegrass
very well when they played it.
Finishing the morning
program was Amaya
Rose & Gold Rush, with ages ranging from 13 to 17. These are
kids who got their start in the "Kids on Stage" programs,
mainly at the Father's Day Festival in Grass Valley. Amaya is a good
fiddler and decent singer at 16, and shows a lot of promise for the
future.
May 9: With no
rain in sight, the rest of the festival took place outdoors as
scheduled, with the musical performances ranging as usual from fair
to excellent. Two groups stood out. Snap
Jackson and the Knock on Wood Players were making their seventh
consecutive appearance at Parkfield. Snap had an emergency
appendectomy just over a week before the festival, and was under
doctor's orders to take it easy He could perform but had to do it
sitting down, a bit of a challenge for most bluegrass musicians, and
could not play his large banjo, which weighs around twelve pounds.
Despite the limitations, they sounded as good as ever, and brought
for sale their latest
CD, recorded live at last year's Parkfield event.
The other excellent group
was Bluegrass
Etc., another group I've seen several times. In the past their
bass player was Bill Bryson, who performs with many groups, but he's
been replaced by Steve Spurgeon, a singer-songwriter who's created
hits for a number of country artists. His best known work is "A
Walk in the Irish Rain," which has been done by a number of
groups, and is now considered somewhat of a traditional Irish song.
The other two members are Dennis Caplinger, an outstanding banjoist
whose playing can be heard on The Simpsons and other TV
shows, and John Moore, an amazing guitar player and singer. I name
him the best vocalist at the festival.
Links below will give you
information on all the artists, so I'll just briefly mention a few
more. Bean Creek and Sidesaddle and Co., both from the central coast
area, have both been performing for decades and always put on a
great show. Touted as a special event, the appearance of Joe Craven
gets mixed reviews from me. From what I can understand, Joe is from
the Bay Area and performs in all genres. He put together a group
with two other musicians just for this festival. My take was that
they were very skilled, but played stuff that I did not enjoy very
much. They are on the edge of being an acoustic jam
band.
Next
Generation is a young group, four of the five members 21 or
younger, most of them sons of established bluegrass musicians. I
witnessed the "birth" of this band when they performed as
an informal
group, playing songs between sets at Summergrass
in 2010 to demonstrate instruments that were being given as raffle
prizes. As would be expected, they have improved and come together
as a real band in the five years since.
May 10: I managed
to get in my daily walk every day, thus touring Parkfield and the
nearby roads. The first day I just walked around the area close to
the stage, a good thing since it started to rain again shortly after
I returned. On Friday I walked out to the bridge that crosses
Cholame Creek where the road to Parkfield comes in from Cholame
Road. By crossing the bridge, I moved from the North American Plate
to the Pacific Plate and back, with no shaking in evidence. Saturday
I went north from town on the Parkfield-Coalinga Road, one of the
more scenic walks, with rounded
hills that rise suddenly and steeply from the level valley.
Sunday was my full festival grounds tour - down the road that leads
to the "boondocks" camping area (next to the rodeo
grounds), then around the block that contains the tent camping area,
showers, some motor home sites, and the old wooden water
tower, with its fading Shell Oil sign. On this walk I met two
young boys on bikes, one of whom went out of his way to ride through
a puddle that I went out of my way to avoid.
Despite my initial
impression, I believe attendance was as good as ever. The audience
area seemed to be filled to capacity for the more popular bands. At
what used to be the farthest camping area by the rodeo grounds,
access had been provided to an adjacent field, where there were a
dozen or so RVs.
The rain washed out the
first day for me, but I've always contended that bluegrass festivals
should not start on Thursday anyway, so I just enjoyed TV and
reading. The bonus from the storm was cool weather until the middle
of the day on Sunday, at which time I was ready to leave anyway. The
clouds and rain also made for a very cool first night, with the
temperature at 50 degrees inside my motor home. I used my propane
heater at night and in the morning the first two and a half days,
but didn't need it Saturday night or Sunday morning.
In an unusual wildlife
sighting, I saw what I am pretty sure was an antelope on my way in,
about half way between Highway 41 and Parkfield. I've seen deer
before, but I'm still waiting to spot one of the wild pigs that
frequent the hills.
Although I enjoyed the
festival for the most part, I found myself pondering whether the
whole experience might have reached a natural end for me. When I
first started going, I watched every group with undivided
attention. More recently I find myself reading while listening,
skipping some groups entirely, and in general, not being as invested
in the proceedings as I was in the past. At this and other
festivals, I've been rained on, rained out more than once, baked by
the heat, and froze my a** off some cold evenings. In the words of
the old song, I'm starting to ask if I've enjoyed as much of this as
I can stand. The last two years, the drive to and/or from Parkfield
was fairly stressful due to heavy winds along that route, to the
point where I wish I had a smaller RV. And of course, the festival
and Parkfield itself have gone through a lot of changes since the
early days, some good and some not.
I can't help thinking
that I could read, watch TV, and listen to bluegrass in the comfort
of my living room, and it would not cost upwards of $250 for
tickets, electrical power and gas. I guess a decision will come when
I see what my gut reaction is when the tickets go on sale early next
year.
--Dick Estel, May 2015
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