DARRINGTON — Peggy Cairns took a turn early Monday morning working the entrance to the Bluegrass Festival campgrounds.
While she waited for campers to arrive and check in, Cairns got out her fiddle and played some tunes in the big parking lot that today will fill with vehicles carrying hundreds of bluegrass music fans.
The 39th annual Darrington Bluegrass Festival is July 17 through 19 on Highway 530 just west of town, but a lot of these fans have been in Darrington for the past week, Cairns included.
Every summer for the past eight years the Concrete woman has camped in the majestic wooded grounds, with its delightful view of Whitehorse Mountain and its access to the North Fork Stillaguamish River.
People bring their banjos, guitars, dobros, basses, fiddles, mandolins and even saxophones to join the all-afternoon and all-evening jam sessions that crop up in various corners of the campgrounds.
“It’s like a big family reunion,” said Diana Morgan of Darrington. “People go to bed listening to music and wake up listening to music.”
With its roots in Appalachia among people of Irish, Scottish and British ancestry, bluegrass was often gospel-based and tinged with more than a little country twang. In the past century, as people followed the timber industry out to Washington from the likes of North Carolina, bluegrass became one of the region’s most important musical genres. The “Tarheels” who moved to Darrington during the logging heyday first met for jam sessions in their homes, where they played their favorite old-time tunes and held on to their Appalachian heritage.
The Darrington Bluegrass Festival founded nearly 40 years ago is considered one of the best of its kind on the West Coast.
Though just a few of the festival founders are still alive — most notably Bertha Nations Whiteside and Grover and Ernestine Jones — the legacy remains.
Morgan, widow of the late beloved banjoist Roy Morgan, is a fine fiddle, guitar and mandolin player herself.
Roy moved to Darrington in 1958 at age 19. Diana grew up in north Seattle and was one of the organizers of Western Washington’s first bluegrass festival in 1972 at Gold Creek Park in Woodinville. Along they way, they got to know each other.
On the Darrington Bluegrass and Country Music Makers Association’s festival board since 1993, Diana runs the green room for the musicians about to walk onto the festival stage.
“Sometimes, the bands have to go out for a look at Whitehorse Mountain before they perform,” Morgan said. “Otherwise they might be distracted by the beauty during their set.”
The famous Bill Monroe played the festival one year. One of photos Monroe prized most was of him from the back of the stage looking over the amphitheater audience with Whitehorse in the background, Morgan said.
Terri Jones and her husband Bob, an Everett couple, are not longtime musicians but they love the atmosphere of the festival and have been camping there for the past 15 years. Bob schedules his vacation around the festival.
The Joneses, along with friends and relatives from California, Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, form a corral with their trailers, put up a canopy and decorate the space. Last year it was pink flamingos and this year it’s Christmas in July. On Thursdays of camp week they host a “Sing for Your Supper” taco feed for nearly 100 people.
Guitarist Betty Lampinen of Everett organizes the singing part of the supper. Lampinen, who helps run the monthly bluegrass jam in Maltby, enjoys the campground jam sessions, including with her campsite neighbor dobro player Arlene McCown of Port Orchard.
“We go to a lot of festivals around the West,” McCown said. “Darrington’s is so awesome. The pickin’ here is great.”
The headliners for this year’s festival include the Gibson Brothers, the Crowe Brothers and the Gold Heart sisters.
The Gibson Brothers — siblings Eric and Leigh Gibson from upstate New York — are at the top of the bluegrass pile, having arrived on the scene 20 years ago ready to expand on the bluegrass songbook. They are scheduled to perform twice on Saturday and close the festival early on Sunday evening.
On their newest recording “Brotherhood” the Gibsons salute the harmonizing brother acts who inspired them, including the classic bluegrass Stanleys, Monroes and Osbornes, country’s Louvin Brothers and Blue Sky Boys and the rocking Everly Brothers.
“The Gibsons are one of my favorite groups right now,” Lampinen said. “I am excited to see them.”
Another brotherly group, the Crowe Brothers from North Carolina, will bring their bluegrass and traditional country to the stage as well. Josh and Wayne Crowe have a new album titled “I’ve Got The Moon On My Side.”
Not to be outdone by other sibling bands, Gold Heart features sisters Tori, Jocey and Shelby Gold, who have 10 years of experience on the bluegrass scene, hundreds of live performances and now four albums under their belts.
“These young people, such as the Gold sisters, are our future,” Diana Morgan said. “We’ve raised a lot of players, too.”
Bands with younger members to be featured on the festival stage include regional favorite the North Country Bluegrass Band from Snohomish and King counties.
Other bands set to perform includeRural Delivery, Birdsview Bluegrass, Fern Hill, Red Desert Ramblers, Panhandle Polecats and Damascus Road.
And don’t forget Darrington’s hometown band, the Combinations, scheduled to play Friday evening and Saturday afternoon.
“They are our special favorites,” Morgan said.
Gale Fiege: 425-339-3427; gfiege@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @galefiege.
If you go
Ticket and camping information for the Darrington Bluegrass Festival is at www.darringtonbluegrass.com. Daily and weekend passes are available.
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