Bill and I flew to Raleigh on Tuesday, but the Saturday before (9/27/14) we went down to Park Slope in Brooklyn for the Park Slope Bluegrass and Old-Time Jamboree. This year they were presenting Bill with the Brown Jug Award and I was more than pleased to go down with Bill to watch him receive it. I had no idea what to expect from a small weekend festival held in the middle of Brooklyn and was very impressed with the quantity and quality of fine music and musicians. It was great fun meeting Steve Arkin for the first time as well as James Reams, Jeff Scroggins, and a wonderful young mandolinist, Tristan Scroggins who made quite an impression on Bill and myself. The Award presentation was warm, homegrown, and heartfelt. For my part, I picked up some new and interesting trivia. I had no idea we would see a lot of James, Jeff, and Tristan down at IBMA in just a few days.
I also forgot to mention that our first night in Raleigh we had a lovely late dinner with good friends Ron and Wendy Cody and several others. It was just like a family dinner with good conversation all around and more than a little 'banjo talk'.
OK, end of of flashback.
After Bill's reception we headed on over to the convention center for the Momentum Awards Luncheon and had a wonderful time. The highlight of the event for me was seeing Dominic Leslie receive a Momentum Award for his mandolin skills. Well deserved indeed. Everyone should watch this fine young man with monster chops as he makes his way up the ladder very quickly.
Wednesday night Bill hooked up with Happy and Jane for a nice dinner, while I connected with good friends Ryan Cavanaugh, Rex McGee, and Leah Latella to get out and about. We went on down to one of the clubs involved in the Bluegrass Ramble, Tir Na Nog Irish Pub and caught the Lonely Heartstring Band (out of Boston) and enjoyed their usual first class performance followed by Newtown, before we headed back to catch a bit of jamming here and there in the Marriott.
The suite we headed to was packed with no room for us, so Ryan and Rex moved down to the end of the hallway with their friend Thomas and began to play. Within a minute a guitar player joined in, then another, then a bass and the hallway was rocking! I finally crashed sometime after 2am.
Here is a bit of that jam in the very early stages......
Thursday was 'The Big Day' and the reason I had come to Raleigh. We headed over to the Convention Center Ballroom and met up with Bill's wife Claire who had flown down for the day so she could be at this event with Bill. I was thrilled to walk in and learn the the luncheon where Bill was to receive his award was sponsored by Homespun Tapes, (Happy and Jane) Bill's longtime friends. As with many of the emotion filled events I have been through in my life, this event went by in the blink of an eye and I can't remember a lot of the details. However, I did record the wonderful presentation that Alan Munde crafted for Bill. Be warned, the video is terrible on this, but the audio is acceptable. I had hoped that there would be a better, possibly 'official' version of this available. I had only shared this with Bill's 'family' up to now. However, I have received many positive comments and notes of appreciation and as no other recording has surfaced, I feel the need to share it with you all here.
Likewise, Bill's acceptance was also well crafted and well spoken.......
Again I am sorry for the poor quality of the videos, but they are all that I have, and I am glad for that. Perhaps this will prompt someone to share something of better quality.
After all that, we still had a lot more in store for the day. We were going on a 'field trip' to Jim Mill's place to oogle over his collection of pre-war Gibson Banjos. Bill and I headed over to the front of the Marriott to wait for Ron with his car, we were soon joined by Rex and while we waited a few minutes, Tony Trischka came by and chatted for a bit. This attracted the attention of a radio host who took out her recorder and did an on the spot interview with the 3 greats.
The visit to Jim's was just great (although I was afraid to touch hardly anything in this exclusive collection of banjos and very rare memorabilia, each and every one with it's own story). Those who could, picked and played their way through history on these fine instruments and I listened to many stories and added to my knowledge of bluegrass trivia. It was an exceptional afternoon. Jim is a wonderful host and musician and I suggest if you ever get the opportunity......
But wait, there's more, and yes, we are still talking about Thursday here. Bill and I stopped at our room to freshen up and have a short break before heading out for the big awards show that evening. Bill, as an Honoree had been invited to the pre and post awards show receptions. We took a bicycle rickshaw ride down to the theater which brought us right up to the gate, bypassing the red carpet and the very long line of celebrities waiting to be interviewed on their way in.
By this point I was beginning to be sure I had firmly stepped into a word that was foreign to me in many ways. Scanning the crowd of beautiful women of all ages in their finest evening wear and handsome refined gentlemen dressed to the nines I felt clearly out of place in a simple suit jacket. (Yeah, these folks clean up pretty well,) In addition, the faces I saw were the elite of our musical world. Now that I saw Bill would have no issues getting to, or into the event, I told him I felt like I was in way over my head and perhaps it would be best if I just hung around outside until the show started. Bill grabbed the sleeve of my jacket and gave it a tug, "C'mon" he said, "this is why you're here, you know a lot more of these folks than you think. You're not going to hang around outside, c'mon in." and with that he dragged me along. As always, he was right and I ran into a lot of folks I knew, many who came up to me to say hello. Yeah, I guess I had a pretty good time. OK, I floated around while I secretly pinched myself every once in a while.
Right about then some feller come around ringing' this here brass bell and I heard somebody say that was the signal for the big show to commence. (Sorry, that voice just popped into my head, but it's gone now.)
We had great seats for the show, I was 1 seat down from Eddie Adcock, this years winner of the Steve Martin prize for banjo, and directly behind Special Consensus who picked up two of those pretty Awards that night. The show was super and went past my eyes way too fast. I enjoyed the presentations and acceptances just as much as the entertainment segments. Funny what sticks in my head, but Bela brought out little Juno for some of the presentations (Juno is about18 months old) and he was a big hit. Such a cute kid as he applauded for, and with, the crowd. It was a great show that was well produced and highly polished all the way around. It was interesting and great fun to see all these performers working in front of, and for their peers. Quite the party for sure.
After the show, Bill and I hailed another bike rickshaw and enjoyed a short, if not harrowing ride back to the hotel, but not before a half dozen folks posed for a photo with Bill. I bet I took almost a hundred photos with other folks cameras of them with Bill during the week. Very gratifying.
It had been a long day and in hindsight I realize that we never even had dinner that night except to the snacks at the cocktail reception. I don't think either of us were hungry, just pooped. Besides, by the time we got out of the show pretty much all the restaurants were closed (they shut all the kitchens at 11pm, I still don't understand that.)
Now is probably a good time to explain that this IBMA convention is really broken into at least 3 major parts. This is just my perspective, but it's pretty close. First there is the Convention part and trade show, which is the business side of things involving musicians, bands, promoters, talent buyers, major venues, Festivals, manufacturers, etc that make a living in whole or part from this music. Then there is the World of Bluegrass which is comprised of the major ticketed events that take part during the week, the Bluegrass Ramble and the various venues like the Red Hat Amphitheater and other large places. The thrid part would be the Street Fair which is free to the public and comprises at least 5 stages set up on various streets and in reality there were much more including the courthouse steps and nearly any street corner or park bench that had room to support a jam. There were also many hundreds of street vendors that filled at least 7 city blocks and adjacent side streets. They expected 120,000 people during the week, and I bet they hit that just on Friday and Saturday. Now the business part of the week runs from Tuesday to Friday around mid-day at which time a transition takes place into concert venues popping up everywhere and the town filling with huge numbers off people looking for a good party.
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| Friday Evening with the street Fair just getting started, This is the City Center stage (Sierra Hull performing), by the next day in this same spot, there was barely room for 10 more people and walking through the area was nearly impossible. |
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| The Trade Show Floor. I didn't notice when I took this, but just about right smack in the center of this photo, you can see Ryan Cavanaugh cramming down his lunch between demos for EMO. |
From my very limited perspective, this transition was palatable. Between Tuesday and Friday it was not unusual to see well known artists everywhere on the streets, restaurants, bars, etc. As an example, I stopped at the hotel bar on Thursday afternoon to get a beer and sit quietly for a few minutes while my little brain tried to catch up on processing all the information that was being crammed into it. I sat next to a nice young fella and as things happen we struck up a conversation as he tried to get down his lunch before heading off to a rehearsal. As it turned out 'that nice young fella' was Andy Hall, up for Dobro player of the year at the Awards show that night. I would not have known him from Adam and it only came out in the conversation by accident. Not only that, but he thanked me for the pleasant conversation and paid for my beer as he rushed out. This was common among my experiences in Raleigh. Also common was anytime Bill and I were walking around town, heads would turn. One night after dinner we cut through the bar area to get into the hotel lobby. As we walked past the length of the bar, every head in turn, rotated around and smiled. I saw a few folks poke the person next to them, whisper something and point at Bill and smile. Pretty cool when it happens the first time, amazing when it happens every time you walk down the street. where ever we went, we had to allow time for photographs, autographs and 'catching up' conversations that would happen along the way. I never got tired of it. Bill will tell you that I am exaggerating, but I think he has become used to it and doesn't notice it much, just part of a normal day for him.
The week was a little more than half over and we had nearly completed all the 'must do' items on the list, save one. In part 3, I will finish out the IBMA week and write a bit about the next adventure we were preparing for. Yeah, it gets better.......
Keep the Beat,
Tom
Fantastic story. You succeeded in such a description that I'm now much more envious than I was before! Keep it coming!
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