Time to fiddle around at Wintergrass Festival

Published 9:00 pm Thursday, February 15, 2007

The 14th annual Wintergrass Festival is about 60 miles away in Tacoma, but a couple of our neighbors know a bit about bluegrass and the inner workings of the festival.

Wintergrass features more than 30 bands and 200 musicians on five stages Thursday through Feb. 25, and was the winner of the 2005 International Bluegrass Music Association’s Event of the Year award.

Snohomish’s Pete Goodall, DJ for the KBCS radio show “Bluegrass Ramble” (noon to 3 p.m. Sundays), suggested two bands not to miss at Wintergrass if you want to check out the diversity of bluegrass: “Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver, mainly because Doyle has been doing it for years and years and years. He’s a true professional and has 20 to 30 records. And Blue Highway, one of the newer, more progressive young bluegrass bands,” Goodall said.

Goodall also recommended catching ex-Nickel Creek star Chris Thile’s How to Grow a Band. “They have so much energy and enthusiasm. It doesn’t matter what kind of music you like, you’ll like them. He’s a virtuoso on the instrument.”

Thile was mandolin player of the year (2001) for the Instrumental Bluegrass Music Association. He was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Country Instrumental performance for his song “The Eleventh Reel,” and was recently awarded the BBC’s 2007 Musician of the Year award.

This year’s theme is “The Changing Face of Bluegrass,” and almost half the lineup consists of younger bands. The genre has been on the upswing since the film “O, Brother Where Art Thou?” in 2000.

“Lots of people got into it. They were tired of the same old thing and wanted something more authentic (and) bluegrass reached out and touched them,” Goodall said.

“Now you have older people who have been listening for years and younger people who have been listening for the last few years. People can participate in bluegrass at a lot of different levels, and there’s great access to all the artists. It’s extremely healthy right now.”

Three bluegrass trends are worth noting: traditional, newgrass and pop bluegrass, according to Goodall.

“In the traditional trend, people are going back and re-creating the sound of bluegrass bands in the ’40s and ’50s. At the same time, there’s a trend toward what young people are bringing in, usually called newgrass,” he said.

“There’s also the influence of country music. A lot of people play country music but don’t like the direction it’s going, and (out of that came) pop bluegrass,” such as Rhonda Vincent.

Snohomish’s Jan Jones has two other takes on bluegrass. For her, the music is a family affair. Her husband, Bill, plays guitars and sings in Subject to Change; her daughter, Kim Jones, plays bass and guitar and sings for Roundhouse; and two granddaughters play the fiddle.

She also coordinates the Maltby Jam and is in charge of hospitality for Wintergrass’ 750 musicians and volunteers, seeing that they’re fed three meals a day, with the process running from 7 a.m. to 2 a.m.

She volunteered at the first Wintergrass, when hospitality meant snacks and then took over the coordinator job the next year. She’s assisted by a corps of volunteers: Peggy Johnson of Snohomish, Wendy Chodydin of Monroe and Barb Ross of Kirkland.

For Jones, Wintergrass is special.

“It’s in the winter, all your friends are there, and you’re meeting musicians that you never get to see up here. It’s something that’s exciting and a magic time.”

She once met her favorite bluegrass musician, Bill Munroe.

“That was very special. He was very, very much a gentleman, very nice and walked around the hall with his mandolin and joined in the jams.”

Wintergrass: great music, accessible musicians, fun with family and friends.

Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver

Chris Thile