By SUSAN PALMER/YachatsNews
If you visit Florence at the end of January, be prepared for music, lots of it, breaking out spontaneously almost anywhere.
That’s what happens when bluegrass musicians come to town.
The Florence Winter Music Festival, celebrating its 20th anniversary, gets underway Thursday, Jan. 26, kicking off with a daytime concert for area students and an open mic night for all comers before the professionals take the stage for three days and two nights of performances and workshops.
Bluegrass sounds like sunshine. It can’t help itself. The brightness of the acoustic stringed instruments, the intensity and skill of the musicians, the speed and rhythm of the music energizes performers and audiences alike.
A look at the list of scheduled acts reveals one thing: Festival organizers weren’t messing around. Some of the best bluegrass musicians in the nation — from well-established to up-and-coming — will be there trading lightning-fast licks that often leave lesser-skilled folk slack-jawed and awestruck.
This isn’t hyperbole. Go check out videos of Grammy-winning fiddler Michael Cleveland (12 time winner of the Fiddler of the year Award from the International Bluegrass Music Association) playing “Orange Blossom Special,” or “Lee Highway Blues”. Cleveland and his band Flamekeeper (six-time winners of Instrumental Band of the Year from the IBMA) headline the show.
Cleveland’s latest single “Sunny Days (Are Coming Once Again)” epitomizes the bright nature of the music. He chalks it up to the lively collaborative work that happen onstage. Sure the lyrics can be melancholy but the music tells a different story.
“They’re lovin’ and losin’, they’re cheatin’, they’re killin’ and drinkin’ moonshine,” Cleveland told YachatsNews in a soft southern Indiana drawl. “And they’re all happy about it.”
Cleveland, blind from birth, was a child prodigy whose parents and grandparents loved and followed bluegrass. As an adolescent he was playing with legends Bill Monroe and Doc Watson. Essentially he grew up with a fiddle in his hand and by the time he was 16, he was performing professionally.
For bluegrass festival neophytes, this won’t be some kind of staid event with distance between performance and fans. Jams break out in hallways. Workshops bring professionals and amateurs together to learn from each other.
That’s the thing about bluegrass, Cleveland says. It’s a conversation, a back-and-forth among the musicians that, like jazz and blues, depends on improvisation.
“When I play with somebody, I might have an idea of what I’m going to play … but when you listen to somebody and hear what they’re playing or how they’re playing, the groove they’re playing. It’s communication. Music to me is that,” he says. “When everything’s going right, when everybody’s playing at the top of their game and firing on all cylinders, and the audience is into what you’re doing, there’s nothing better,” Cleveland says.
While Cleveland is all about traditional bluegrass, this festival celebrates the whole swath of Americana music, with acts such as Portland’s Never Come Down, a group comfortable across a range of genres, and A.J. Lee and Blues Summit with their effortless harmonies and country-tinged music.
The festival also features Jake Blount, whose 2020 album “Spider Tales” was highlighted as among the year’s best by the The New Yorker and by National Public Radio.
If Cleveland upholds the bluegrass of the 20th century, Blount — gay and Black — is carrying it forward in a unique way. The scholar in him brings a researcher’s sensibilities to the historical narrative behind the music — the roll of Blacks in the development of both the instruments and the music.
The performer in him draws listeners toward the future with an unblinking exploratory creativity that offers surprises: an added lyric, a melody shift, a nuance in a rhythm or harmony that gives an audience something it hadn’t known it wanted. Blount, who performs on Saturday just before Cleveland will also offer a free concert Friday afternoon. For a fascinating taste of his music, listen to the “Didn’t it Rain” from his current release “New Faith.”
Events begin Thursday
Festival organizers Kirk Mlinek and Rachel Pearson are clear about their goals for this festival. They want an event in the depths of dreary January to bring people to the coast — not only for the financial benefits that result from a crowd of visitors — but because live performances fill the heart and soul in ways that video can’t.
Pearson has been involved with the festival since its beginning. More than two decades ago, as a parent, she wanted her kids and their classmates to see live music. Friends encouraged her to organize an annual concert for students. She did.
Meanwhile other organizers had been pulling together an annual folk festival. Eventually the two groups concluded that joining forces made more sense than operating independently.
The first combined event occurred in 2003, Pearson said. “We never looked back,” she said.
Kirk Mlinek got involved in 2019 with Florence Arts Culture and Entertainment, the nonprofit group that organizes the music festival and sponsors several other events annually. A fan of bluegrass, he encouraged the organization to add another night of programming, bringing bluegrass into the mix.
On Thursday, Florence-area students will get their own show. Singer and storyteller Josh Goforth will perform at the 445-seat Florence Events Center. For kids who can’t make it, Goforth’s show will be live-streamed.
Thursday evening the festival offers wanna-be performers an open-mic night. Take the Stage runs from 6-9 p.m. and anyone with an acoustic instrument can sign up, step up and perform two songs, Mlinek says.
“If you’re that person that’s been playing in your garage or perhaps you’re thinking about starting a band, this is a chance to come dip your toes in the performance world in front of what promises to be a supportive audience,” he says.
Performances get underway Friday when Jake Blount takes the stage for a free community concert. Shows continue Saturday and Sunday.
Workshops — how to jam, release your banjo mojo, mandolin and guitar ergonomics to name just a few — are free to festival ticket-holders.
And about those jams: they’re liable to break out anywhere. Look for knots of musicians in hotel lobbies, empty event center rooms, even in the library. There will be guitars and mandolins, banjos and fiddles, basses big and not so big.
There will be harmonies and laughter and endless tuning and stopping to see a tricky lick repeated. A three-day party, a veritable feast for the ears.
And maybe some lucky 13-year-old will get to sit in with Michael Cleveland, the way he did at a festival when he stumbled upon legendary guitarist Doc Watson and the two ran through a tune together in the wonderful acoustic ambiance provided by some performance hall bathroom. The video of this encounter is charming.
For those who can’t make it to Florence, the programs will be streamed for a fee. Pearson says a new sound management team is on board this year and the streaming should be seamless.
In previous years, the festival has brought people from 85 different zip codes to Florence, people from Washington, California and Idaho show up as well as from all across Oregon Mlinek says.
“Some of this music is as complicated as any jazz or any fusion or any sophisticated classical music performed today,” Mlinek says. “It’s just exciting to be a part of.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION
WHEN: Thursday Jan. 26, open mic night. Concerts, workshops Friday through Sunday.
WHERE: Florence
TICKETS: Go here
SCHEDULE: Go here
MORE INFO: Go here
- Susan Palmer is a Eugene journalist. For more of her writing, visit her website