Topic: Wintergrass 2023

[lindy]

I need a work-avoidance task, so I'll share some vids for bands that performed at this past weekend's Wintergrass Festival, held every February at a big ol' hotel in a Seattle suburb.

#1 emotional experience for me was PasdeCinq ("Dance for Five"). Their one-hour set is near the top of my list for most powerful musical experience ever, sounds hyperbolic but true. They don't have a vid with the lineup I saw this weekend, but here are 4 of the 5 band members I did see, including the soft-shoe/clogger/solo dancer--make sure you watch him. Substitute a nyckleharpa player for the left-handed fiddler in this vid, and that's what I saw:



PasdeCinq and Fiddlers Four share one thing in common besides Darol Anger as a band member: they only get together in rare situations, so the running joke was that they only get gigs once every 20 years. The only vid I could find was taken by an audience member somewhere else. This is one of the most haunting versions of "Man of Constant Sorrow" I've ever heard:



The next band is living the same lifestyle that our old friends John Jackson and Cephas and Wiggins lived for a while, sponsored by the State Department and their own nonprofit to travel and play all over the world as musical ambassadors. Here they're playing pretty straightforward bluegrass, but they also played other stuff like a song they learned from a Nigerian pop band. They love what they're doin', I'm envious . . .



I first saw Allison de Groot playing clawhammer banjo in a trio with Bruce Molsky a few years back, also at Wintergrass, I was really impressed. Here she is in a banjo-fiddle duet with Tatiana Hargreaves--double-wow. Both are on staff for Fiddle Tunes at Centrum this summer:



Dance-wise I was in my element 'cuz they invited the Cajun/Creole musicians Dirk Powell, Cedric Watson, and Amelia Powell (granddaughter of Dewey Balfa -- true Cajun royalty). Can't find a vid of the three of them together, here's Dirk and Cedric playing hardcore Cajun in the Redwood forest in Northern California:



Here's Dirk and Amelia in a way-too-short clip, there are others much longer (15-70 mins) on youtube:



Wintergrass also presented Sonny Landreth with Cindy Cashdollar, the Jerry Douglas Band, and Tommy Emmanuel, vids all over the place, you're on your own.

Here's the full lineup:

https://wintergrass.com/lineup-2023/

As always, I'm happy to lead you down rabbit holes of good music vids.

Lindy

[David Kaatz]

Lindy,
Thanks for the report. I was there Friday and Saturday, and didn't see much overlap with you. I caught a bit of Pas de Cinq - I was disappointed from where I was (standing at the back) that the dancer was not better miked. I moved to the other side of the mix board and it was >slightly< better. Darol Anger is always first rate.
I saw Jerry Douglas' first show, it was excellent as you would expect from a player of his caliber. I saw Landreth and Cashdollar, and have to say, it felt too much like the Sonny Landreth show with Cindy Cashdollar, not a show of equals. She has beautiful tone, but the whole thing was too loud for my taste, and I hoped for more tunes where she led the charge, instead of him. I left about 2/3 through. I considered seeing Tommy Emmanuel but did not, and a friend who was there complained about the extreme volume of that show.
Saw the Jacob Joliff band. They play both trad bluegrass and boundary/genre stretching stuff. Excellent musicians, but one extreme outside comic relief tune was enough for me, so I left after 4 or 5 tunes.
The highlight for me was the Cactus Blossoms. They don't exactly fit with the bluegrass theme, but their amazing sibling harmonies are really enjoyable. Their band was good too. A friend called them a cross between the Everly Brothers and Chris Isaacs, which I think is a spot-on comparison.

I expected to see more, especially Cedric Watson and Dirk Powell, but ending up in a gypsy jam for most of Saturday evening instead. Great fun when playing with competent musicians! I was playing fiddle.

I totally forgot that you attend Wintergrass, Lindy. I wish we could have said hello.

Dave

[David Kaatz]

Here's a vid of the Cactus Blossoms from the show I saw.

[lindy]

I'm with you, David.

For the first four songs of the Landreth-Cashdollar set he played a metal-bodied resonator and you could hear her in a nice balance. Then he brought out his Strat and the balance disappeared. I thought the Jerry Douglas Band was too loud during their Friday night set. I have to remember that the sound people at Wintergrass are a mix of pros and volunteers, and that the musicians themselves have a lot to do with the volume settings.

For comparison, here's a vid of a "get-out-of-the-way, here-we-come, crank-up-the-banjo, don't-expect-us-to-play-none-of-that-newgrass" bluegrass band that played Thursday and Friday, Danny Paisley and the Southern Grass. Danny's got a naturally LOUD voice. The band had a lot of power and volume, but was mixed just right. It was the only band I heard play a Jimmy Martin cover all weekend.



Lindy

[David Kaatz]

I also thought the Jerry Douglas band was too loud at the Friday set, but either I got used to it or it got better. Or both!

[lindy]

I had a "doh" moment drifting off to sleep last night. When I described the Danny Paisley band I wrote, "but [they] were mixed just right."

They weren't mixed, they worked a single microphone, they controlled the balance and volume. Cindy/Sonny and the Jerry Douglas band needed to be mixed, and needed to do extended sound checks. I don't know if you were there at the very beginning of the Jerry Douglas Friday set, but he had a lot of problems plugging in all of his electronics and figuring out why he wasn't getting any sound, right up to a couple of minutes before performing. The Paisley band didn't have to worry about that.

L

[Stuart]

From FJ:

[Johnm]

I wish I had seen Danny Paisley's group.