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2011 was an exciting year for the SPPS. We released several exciting new recordings. We hosted a wildly successful showcase at the International Folk Alliance, which you can read all about here and were also on site at the first John Hartford Memorial Festival. The second year of JHMF is shaping up to be even better than the first!
But we need your help in 2012 to keep the work going. You can donate and learn more about our subscriber levels here. Thank you for your support of the SPPS. We wish you the happiest of holidays!
Sarah lives a relatively quiet existence in Denver, Colorado. She enjoys dancing to bluegrass, trolling through sales bins at record stores, hiking, camping and attending screenings of old movies.
But beyond the music, String Summit is a truly special festival you simply have to experience for yourself. There’s a real sense of home coming here, a spirit that embraces you from the first moments you set your travel-worn feet down on the soft Horning’s earth. Words don’t quite capture it, and will always fall short. As Pastor Tim Christensen, who has emceed the festival since 2003, says, “I try not to describe String Summit to people. Because I start to use superlatives.”
With his quick wit and big heart, Pastor Tim is the warm, fatherly – and endlessly quotable – voice that rallies the masses at String Summit, emphatically calling attendees to get down to the bowl, reminding them to alternate their beer and water, and helping return wander-some children back to their parents. We at the SPPS were stoked to chat to Pastor Tim, who, for those that don’t know, is indeed a Lutheran Pastor in Butte, Montana, about his thoughts on the tenth anniversary of the festival, his experience as the emcee, a special event planned for this year, and what happens late at night when you stick a Lutheran pastor and a dobro player on a golf cart.
Tell us how you came to be the emcee of String Summit.
Pastor Tim at NWSS by Bill Ball
In the first year of String Summit, 2002, my wife and son and I just came out for the festival. I was Yonder’s audio archivist, so I was just hanging out and recording the festival. There was a really nice guy, a DJ from KBOO in Portland who was the emcee. He had a great voice and a great presence and all that, but he didn’t really know the different bands. He hadn’t done the background [research] on them or knew about their music. He was a voice instead of a fan. So afterwards they asked me if I wanted to do it, and I was like, “How much do I have to pay you?.” [laughs]. So I started doing it the second year of String Summit and I’ve been doing it ever since.
My first year emceeing String Summit was the year I did it on crutches. I had horribly sprained my ankle three days before the festival started, so I was up and down the hills on crutches those three days of the festival. But on Sunday afternoon, the beginning of Yonder’s set, we did kind of a miracle healing. I’d actually been off the crutches for 12 hours, but I came on with my crutches, and the music “healed” me and I threw away my crutches. [laughs]. I’m a ham, I really am! I love doing this. I don’t get intimidated by crowds and I’m passionately in love with all of this music. I feel like String Summit is a member of my family. The whole thing is just such an important part of my life and I love getting to emcee there.
What are your feelings now that it’s coming on to the tenth year anniversary of the festival?
It doesn’t seem possible that we’ve been doing this for ten years already. It feels like we started doing this the day before yesterday. It still feels very new. There’s a lot of continuity in String Summit. Some festivals change a lot from year to year, but the only thing that changed for us from the very beginning was that in 2002 we had two stages. Afterwards we realized that that wasn’t necessary because every band that was playing on the second stage really deserved to be on the main stage. So that was part of the decision to put every band on the main stage. We started [the music] a little earlier, we typed up our set breaks and turnovers. We have a crack team on the stage. Our stage hands and our sound crew are phenomenal at working that stage in a manner of minutes. Sometimes we don’t even have time for tweeners because they are so good at turning the stage over and having everything ready.
But it is just great to put some smaller bands and lesser known bands up on that main stage with Yonder – or Grisman Quintet, or Old and In the Way – so they can say they played the main stage at String Summit. It’s gotten to where people say, “We played String Summit.” We’ve become a pretty big festival. It’s not something where you break a band because you played there, but when you’ve got a hard working band and you play String Summit, it actually means something when you go out and let people know that you played there, or that you’re going to be playing there. I think that a band like Fruition - who are a phenomenally talented band, I loved their first CD – I was really hoping that they were going to play String Summit. And when the schedule came out, it didn’t quite work out, but then the Cascadian Coffeehouse is going to be there. So Fruition is going to be playing in the coffeehouse at String Summit. This is going to be even better!
Horning’s really seems to bring out the best in people. Do you have any thoughts on why that is?
Camping at NWSS by Bill Ball
I had heard about Horning’s Hideout for years because I had really fallen in love with the music of String Cheese Incident back in the 90′s. So I had heard of this place out in Oregon, and the word that was always used to describe it was “magical.” I sort of took that as hype, until I got there. I got it as soon as I got there. I literally drove into the place and was like, “Holy goodness, I didn’t realize.” Anybody who is reading this may have that same feeling of, “Okay, that’s hype. I’ve heard this kind of stuff before.” But there truly is something magical about Horning’s Hideout. Beyond String Summit or any of the other events that go on there, it’s the place itself. It’s the rolling hills. It’s the separated campsites. It’s the beauty of the trees. It’s the peacocks. It’s Bob Horning and his family. It’s the pond and the trout. There are so many things there that make this place full of wonder and beauty.
But that also brings to me something. I try not to describe String Summit to people. Because I start to use superlatives. And I always feel like people are like, “Yeah yeah yeah. It’s your favorite show, and your favorite band and your favorite venue.” We’re so cynical. But anybody who ever goes there – everybody gets it. You cannot go to that place, you cannot be at String Summit, and not be changed by the experience of it. So you can’t tell people, “You have to go! It’s so incredible! Its so fantastic. It’s so amazing!” You just have to just say, “Come and check it out.” They come out, and then they get it and they keep coming back. They are the ones saying, “That was so incredible! That was so fantastic! That was so amazing!” It’s like you can’t be the Chamber of Commerce for String Summit. It tends to sell itself.
Is there anything special planned for the tenth anniversary that you can talk about?
Yonder Mountain String Band
We are going to be doing the very first ever induction into the Yonder Hall of Fame. And for those who are reading this, the Yonder Hall of Fame inductee is someone in the community of Yonder’s fanbase who has made a big difference in the scene or the way we communicate as Kinfolk [editor's note: see a full list of inductees at the end of the article]. It’s all voted on by members of the Kinfolk community, our online community. So every year somebody gets voted into the Yonder Hall of Fame. This year the inductee is a little girl named Lilli Trippe. That was one of those things that caught us all off guard, that we’re inducting a three year old girl, well she’ll be four by the time String Summit comes. [laughs]. [editor’s note: read more about Lilli, who has been battling Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia since she was about 8 months old, here and donate to St. Baldrick’s here]. But we’re inducting a four year old girl who really has made a huge difference in our community. So we decided to do something special. We are inviting all of the past inductees into the Hall of Fame to come and be there. We are going to be doing an onstage event, and we have a plaque where all the Yonder Hall of Fame inductees are going to be inscribed, and where we can add new people every year. This is formalizing that there’s something about this Kinfolk community and this family vibe that we have that really does make a difference. The band has always recognized it, their management has always recognized it, and our online community has always recognized it. Everybody is a part of the family. We used to be on Yahoo groups, then we were on Phantasy Tour, then we were on the Yonder Forum and now we’re on Facebook. It keeps morphing and changing but everybody needs to be in touch. We thought that formalizing it with the Yonder Hall of Fame induction ceremony would be a cool way of marking the tenth anniversary of the festival.
Is the plaque going to hang at Horning’s?
I don’t know where it’s hang! We talked about making it like the Stanley Cup. You know, the latest inductee gets to keep it for a year [laughs]. I don’t know what we’re going to do with it, but I just think it’s cool that we’re finally going to have some place where this isn’t just something that’s passing. This is really a part of who we are as a fanbase, as a Kinfolk family.
Is there anything else you want to talk about with String Summit?
Of course there’s some diff bands and some different bands and some late night stuff. The other thing that is new is the Cascadian Coffeehouse. Voodoo Donuts is going to be in there.
[I make the Homer Simpson gurgle]
See, I don’t know about this yet! But a friend of mine Phil Peters has already asked me to make sure to get a maple bacon bar, and to get a picture of me with it, and then I have to inhale it. I would do this duty for my friend, just because he can’t be there this year.
But the Cascadian Coffeehouse is going to be running as a coffeehouse, and there’s going to be live music in there. It’s going to be acoustic sets and late night sets for the people who want to stay up late and hang out there. I think it’s a really cool space to have. We’ve never done this before, so its just another way of expanding the hours of music. I think last year we had something like 32 hours of music on the main stage. We’re adding a fourth night this year, now that our Thursday night has become a three band night, so that probably adds another 10 hours of music. So now we’re talking about 40 something hours of music at this festival, plus the late night coffeehouse -I can’t even add it all up. But it’s near constant music.
Anything else you’d like to add?
Well the only other thing that I would say I’m really looking forward to is the return of my brother-of-another-mother Anders Beck and Greensky Bluegrass. They were not there last year and I’m really excited they’re back. Mostly because it means late night Sunday golf cart shenanigans. I’m sworn to secrecy beyond that. That’s almost become a part of String Summit.
Yes, many Kinfolk know of the legendary golf cart shenanigans, just maybe not the insider details [laughs].
Like many people do not know that there was one year when Anders, Pete Kartsounes, Robert Greer from Town Mountain and I were all on a golf cart and we serenaded two very arms-folded security guards at about three o’clock in the morning with the Kansas song “Dust in the Wind.” That was one of those moments I will never forget about String Summit. Mostly because we couldn’t remember all the words to the second verse, so we just started cracking up and drove away.
NWSS 2010 by Bill Ball
Tickets are still available for the tenth anniversary of Northwest String Summit. Click here to purchase tickets and for more information.
Inductees into the Yonder Hall of Fame are:
2001 Benjamin Hines
2002 Pastor Tim Christensem
2003 Mark Burnell
2004 Brad Burleson
2005 Penny Zemp
2006 Bobby Ray
2007 Benny Galloway
2008 Sandy Alexander and Stella Fleming
2009 Jeffrey Smith
2010 Lilli Trippe
Sarah lives a relatively quiet existence in Denver, Colorado. She enjoys dancing to bluegrass, trolling through sales bins at record stores, hiking, camping and attending screenings of old movies.
If you’ve been to enough bluegrass and jam shows on Colorado’s Front Range, chances are you have run into Phil Rollins. Besides being an all-around nice guy, Rollins is one of those tapers who you can always count on for getting some high quality audio goods in your ears. In other words, if you see a show on archive.org, or here at the SPPS for that matter, and you see Rollins listed as the taper, that’s a show you want to grab. At the Greensky Bluegrass New Years run this year at Cervantes’ Other Side in Denver, Rollins was even live streaming the shows on Ustream, bringing the sounds to those who couldn’t be there in person. The 34 year old Rollins lives in Pine, Colorado, and works as a business analyst for a software company out of Raleigh, North Carolina. He and his wife just celebrated their son’s first birthday.
Why did you start taping?
I started taping because I was going to a lot of shows that I could not find a recording of later on. I just figured that if I wanted to be sure that I could listen to a show again, the best bet was for me to get my own gear and tape them myself.
What was the first thing you taped? Do you remember the circumstances surrounding the first show you taped?
The first show I taped was the Steve Kimock Band in May of 2004 at Cervantes’ in Denver. I had been researching and learning all I could about taping and had a friend loan me his gear for this show. I also went and taped SKB two nights later at State Bridge out near Vail. After that it was all over and I was hooked.
Why do you continue to tape?
More than anything it’s out of habit. I also can’t get over the feeling that if I don’t bring my gear, the show may go unrecorded. Bottom line, though, is that it continues to be fun.
What changes have you noticed in taping since you first started?
Taping rigs have gotten smaller and more digital. In 2004, small all-in-one hard drive recorders where first being used, and laptop taping was all the rage. Also, not as many people are getting into the hobby.
Do you think more folks are becoming tapers now, or less?
There are for sure less folks becoming tapers these days. I think a lot of that has to do with more and more bands selling their live shows on the internet. It’s easier to pay $9.99 for a download than a few thousand dollars for a taping rig.
What are your thoughts on how the internet has changed the nature of taping?
It’s been good and bad. It’s great to have centralized places to upload and download live shows (bt.etree.org and bt.cotapers.org), but it also can be bad because the public expects shows to be up for download hours after a show ends.
What do you think the future of taping would be, if you had to speculate?
I think we’ll see more live streaming of shows in the future. I think the general public is looking for that live instant access to music and shows. I also hope that smaller bands will continue to be recorded, that usually helps bring more people to shows for them.
Is there a particular tape that’s the prize of your collection?
Probably my Yonder Shining Star recording from 2008 where there were about 75 people there and the band played right into my mics. I also recorded the Colorado Playboys (Travis Book, John Frazier, Jon Stickly, and Andy Thorn) quite a few times in the same manner, small rooms with them playing right into my mics. Nothing beats a truly acoustic show with an attentive audience.
And finally, this might sound kind of morbid, but what are you planning on doing with your recordings when you pass on?
Ha! I haven’t ever really thought about that. I’ll probably pass them onto my son, but if he doesn’t want them, I’d probably see about donating them to some music preservation organization. There are way too many of my recordings where I was the only person taping, for those to be lost.
Sarah lives a relatively quiet existence in Denver, Colorado. She enjoys dancing to bluegrass, trolling through sales bins at record stores, hiking, camping and attending screenings of old movies.
For this week’s song of the week, we thought we would spotlight one of the artists performing at the upcoming John Hartford Memorial Festival (read our exclusive preview here), Jamie Hartford. Here he is performing his father’s song “In Tall Buildings,” accompanied by Mike Compton on mandolin, Mike Bubb on bass and Mark Howard on guitar. It’s a heart wrenching cover of this beautiful song, made even more so by Hartford’s introduction. He explains that the song was written about his grandfather, whom John would watch rush to work everyday, even after he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Get your hankies ready, but also get excited for all the amazing performances that we have to look forward to at The John Hartford Memorial Festival.
As a bonus, here’s an episode of NPR’s Mountain Stage featuring selections from both John and Jamie Hartford, as well as Jamie Hartford solo. Check it out here.
Sarah lives a relatively quiet existence in Denver, Colorado. She enjoys dancing to bluegrass, trolling through sales bins at record stores, hiking, camping and attending screenings of old movies.
The incredibly wallet-friendly price of $75 for an advance full festival pass (note: camping not included, must be booked through Bean Blossom) also includes a special kick-off picking party and chili supper on Wednesday evening. Besides the stellar main stage line-up, the second stage will feature workshops, smaller acts and open picking sessions.
To say that the event is a multi-generational labor of love is no exaggeration. The two organizers – John Hotze and Dan Dillman– are 70 and 24 years old, respectively. They met through their mutual connection to Bean Blossom. Dan is the son of Dwight Dillman, the owner of the park, and Hotze has been a frequent attendee at festivals there. The connection between the two men grew over a shared love of music, and, a little over a year ago, they hatched a scheme.
“I started talking about the need to put together a John Hartford Memorial Festival, here at [Bean Blossom],” Hotze describes. “Dan approached his dad, and his dad said, ‘Go for it.’ I think his dad really didn’t think anything would happen. Dan is pretty young and hasn’t done a whole lot [like this before] so he thought it was going to die on the vine. But we really pushed to get it together.”
When putting the lineup together, Hotze’s traditional bluegrass background complimented Dillman’s enthusiasm for new progressive acts nicely. “We were on opposite sides of the table with the bluegrass thing, him being into jamgrass, and me being more into traditional bluegrass,” Hotze explains. “So we wound up with a compilation of bands with a really good variety of music.”
Celebrating an Artistic Legacy
With the luminaries, up-and-comers, and innovators represented on the bill, the on-the-fly collaborations and sit-ins will surely lead to some unforgettable musical moments onstage at Bean Blossom. Since all the artists are there, ultimately, to honor Hartford, a sense of celebration is already palpable amongst the musicians who will be in attendance.
“I can’t wait to get to the first Hartford Fest, because the type of folks who honor John are the kind of folks I want to hang out with,” says Vince Herman (Great American Taxi, Leftover Salmon). “I think it’s about time a multi-day festival was held in his honor so that the depth of his catalog can be pulled out at campfires, so that kids can learn his tunes at this festival for years to come – and so someone can make some really cool t-shirts. Bean Blossom is the ideal location for this to happen, given John’s deep respect for all things Bill Monroe. Having never been there myself, I’m chomping at the bit to get there.”
Bassist Larry Sifford, of The Missouri Boatride Bluegrass Band, echoes that sentiment.
“We felt John was deserving of a memorial event,” he reflects. “There are many songwriters and musicians but none in my book were able to capture the unique and almost mystical legacy John left.”
Herman also comments on Hartford’s influence as a songwriter, describing Hartford as his, “Favorite 20th century writer, and he’s heading up the 21st so far [for me].”
“His deep love of roots music was clear even in his L.A. psychedelic early works. His ‘word movie’ style of writing never failed to deliver on record, and his songs opened the gates to bringing the crowd along with him during his live shows. I have never seen a performer with such control of a crowd. His immense presence was part of that, but his songs sealed the deal.”
Besides being a magnetic performer, Hartford was also an iconoclast. Danny Barnes, a persistently innovative artist himself, learned a great deal from Hartford. His first “concert proper,” as he describes it, was seeing John Hartford at Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin, Texas, sometime in the 70s. He remembered being impressed at how a musician could make music that was so utterly contemporary and relevant to what was happening in the here and now, while still having obviously done his homework in traditional forms. When he befriended Hartford later in his life, he gained insight into his approach.
“One thing [Hartford] told me was that, if a person really wanted to be like Bill Monroe, they should go out and start their own style of music, rather than mechanically play and repeat what Bill played,” Barnes explains. “Folks were copying the wrong part of Monroe’s work. In a sense, to me, that’s John’s legacy. People associate him with the hat and the dancing and the shtick, as it were, and that’s all cool and a part of him. But I think that observation that he had could totally change acoustic music, or picking music, or whatever you call this stuff. I feel like I have been working very hard to keep that written down, on a piece of butcher paper on the wall of the woodshed of my mind. In a sense, I have devoted my whole professional life to this ethos. He was the first that codified it for me in such a succinct way.”
But to Hotze, Hartford was, “Just a nice warm friend I had in high school.”
Hotze and his friend Paul Breidenbach, who played guitar with Hartford in one of his early bands, The Missouri Ridgerunners, were making frequent Greyhound bus trips from St. Louis to Nashville as young teenagers in the mid 1950s to catch shows at the Grand Ole Opry. It was on one of these trips that they met Hartford, who was three years older. They quickly bonded over a shared love of bluegrass music, and discovered that Hartford also lived in St. Louis. They would then get together a few times a month, sometimes making trips down to Nashville together.
“He was addicted to bluegrass music,” Hotze recalls. “I happened to have a reel-to-reel recorder and I was recording the Grand Ole Opry back in, probably starting in ’55, and I specifically recorded mostly bluegrass, Bill Monroe and Flatt and Scruggs, so when we’d get together, John would always want to know, ‘What do you have that’s new? What did Flatt and Scruggs do?’ So I shared the music and I helped him learn some new stuff.”
“John was just a normal guy back then. I’m amazed at everything he did in his career. He was just one of us, but, well, he was exceptional.”
A Part of History
For bluegrass fans, there could be no better setting than the Bill Monroe Memorial Music Park & Campground in Bean Blossom. Over 55 years of musical history have taken place on these hallowed grounds, nestled in the rolling hills of Brown County, Indiana. Monroe fell in love with the park after playing a jamboree there in October 1951, purchasing the land two months later. The first bluegrass festival was held here in 1967, and since then countless legends have graced the stage and picked in the campgrounds. “To most artists who know what Bean Blossom is, it’s a privilege to get to go there and perform,” Hotze says.
It’s an environment that also brings out the welcoming, friendly side of its attendees. “You might have a physicist, a doctor, a farmer, or a blue collar worker, but the barriers are completely down when you are in the campgrounds,” Hotze describes. “It’s a very warm feeling. I’ve been to several festivals, and there’s been no other park that has had the cozy, comfy feeling that Bean Blossom has. You don’t feel like you’re in a huge crowd at Bean Blossom, even though there could be a couple thousand people easily.”
Hotze’s love for the venue comes from a fan’s perspective. He has many stories of his adventures in the campgrounds at Bean Blossom, falling asleep listening to the late night picks from tent, or staying out until 8am taking in the nonstop music, meeting friends old and new. With the John Hartford Memorial festival, he is hoping that attendees will have their own memories and stories to take with them when the event is over.
“Its my dream that, after the festival the fans leave and say, ‘That was really neat, I hope there’s going to be more,’” he says. “I want the artists to feel, ‘We had a lot of fun, I hope that we can come back and do it again.’ That’s what I gage as successful. I’d like to see it become an annual John Hartford Memorial Festival.”
It’s a tough economic environment for the music industry, and, even in stronger financial times, most festivals in their first year rarely manage to break even, much less turn any sort of profit. Although money and logistical concerns have certainly provided their share of curveballs in the past year for Hotze and Dillman, their motivations for putting on the festival have always remained in the forefront.
“It is to do something to honor John,” Hotze says, summing it up.
Tickets to the John Hartford Memorial Festival are available here. The SPPS will be on site, taping all the performances.
Sarah lives a relatively quiet existence in Denver, Colorado. She enjoys dancing to bluegrass, trolling through sales bins at record stores, hiking, camping and attending screenings of old movies.
The SPPS is a non-profit (501c3) electronic library that archives, saves, researches and shares historic Americana recordings. The goal is to promote music through the appreciation of its history and sounds.
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