Friday, Nov. 20, 2009

S.C. Bluegrass State Festival in Myrtle Beach | Schedule of performances

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the S.C. Bluegrass State Festival in Myrtle Beach, kicking off Thursday for three full days of music at the city Convention Center.

Participants say the affair provides a reunion of friends from a family built around their shared loved of plucking strings.

Haven't missed many fests

Doyle Lawson, who started playing the mandolin at age 11 in his native Tennessee, returns with his gospel band, Quicksilver, as a headliner on Nov. 28.

"There have not been many years I have missed since the festival was started," he said last week by phone from Bristol, Tenn.

Lawson first played the festival in the 1970s as a member of the Country Gentlemen from Washington, D.C.

"There are so many people I see year after year when I come to Myrtle Beach," he said. "You have people who become acquainted with each other and became friends along the way."

Bluegrass, with its fiddles, banjos, guitars and bass, has retained its widespread appeal as a multifaceted base in a big umbrella of country music, Lawson said.

"Today, if not more than ever," he said, "people are reaching out for it. The message for gospel music for the most part presents a positive side. Overall, though, with the things in the world today, people are really looking for something to grab a hold of and take comfort in. Our music seems to be one of the things that's fitting the bill."

Lawson calls bluegrass an enduring genre of music. Amid trends in the mid 50s to expand music styles with a more amplified sound among country and developing rock groups, "bluegrass people were content to stick with acoustic instruments," he said.

Since the mandolin's migration from Italy, Lawson said, the instrument found a home among many phases of string bands with any combination of a fiddle, banjo and other guitars, even before the music took the name bluegrass. Lawson praised another mandolinist, Bill Monroe, known as the father of bluegrass and a pioneer bandleader who in the 1940s showcased such talents as Earl Scruggs on banjo and singer Lester Flatt on guitar.

"That's what solidified bluegrass music. That became our guideline for our kind of music," Lawson said.

For example, he saluted Scruggs for introducing a new banjo style of plucking with his thumb and two fingers.

Even though country music has taken other turns through the years, the mandolin has maintained a presence, sometimes smaller, then larger, Lawson said.

"Along the way," he said, "I've always believed, what goes around comes around. You're as apt to hear a mandolin in Quicksilver as in a Keith Urban song. Vince Gill cut his teeth on bluegrass."

Lawson views himself as a catalyst for bluegrass, but isn't changing too much himself, either.

"You kind of roll with the flow," he said.

'An authenticity'

Rhonda Vincent will wind up the festival Nov. 28 with her band, The Rage.

Speaking in a call at home in Kirksville, Mo., Vincent said the music stands tall in acoustic performances, with limited electronic enhancement.

"That's the really great thing about it," said Vincent, who was playing drums, mandolin and fiddle in the 1970s while still in elementary school in the Show-Me State. "There's an authenticity in bluegrass that you don't really find in any other type of music. What you see is what you get."

On the technological side, though, as Lawson also noted, satellite radio and the Internet have made bluegrass more accessible than ever, especially to share the style with future generations. Vincent cited Sirius channels such as Bluegrass Junction and Willie's Place, along with the Grand Ole Opry's radio station based in Nashville, Tenn., as sources to keep bluegrass playing offstage.

Sharing a concert with a musical legend also adds to the Rage's fan base.

Vincent said the group had a standing-room-only engagement two weeks ago with Willie Nelson, whom she thanks for giving younger acts a platform to reach more masses.

"Some of the people there, they had never heard of us before," Vincent said. "It's wonderful opportunities like that, that give us more exposure."

Vincent said she and the Rage usually kick back from their 180-date-a-year pace to spend quality time at home with their families between Thanksgiving and New Year's. Yet, she's proud they can join the S.C. Bluegrass Festival for such a ceremonial year.

"We see folks and fans we might not see the rest of the year," she said. "It's like this family reunion."

A commuter between Missouri and the Rage's recording base in Nashville, Vincent doesn't tire of going cross-country to perform.

"We have a passion for travel that translates to the stage and the energy in our show," she said. "We have fun, and we want that to translate to the stage."

Offseason: the right time

Tony Anderson of Adams and Anderson LLC in northern Georgia, promoter of this and other bluegrass festivals on the eastern seaboard, said this time of year remains perfect for this Myrtle Beach event.

With low hotel rates and without the wintry weather, the festival joins the usual offerings of restaurants, shopping and golf in abundance across the Grand Strand.

"We just use the old, traditional style of bluegrass with the very top entertainers out there," Anderson said, noting that S.C. festival mainstays Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys will perform Thanksgiving night.

Anderson also raised the camaraderie from the contingent of fans who turn out every year.

"People make a lot of friends through the years," he said. "It's just a time to get together with old friends."