Westcliffe - 1. Bluegrass

As long-time, avid readers know, we've been coming to the Westcliffe High Mountain Hay Fever Bluegrass Festival for several years now.  Well, we're here again.  But first a sad note - friends Bill and Connie Lacy have often come, too, in their motor home.  If I recall correctly, Bill was in cancer treatment last summer and couldn't come then.  He succumbed to cancer in January.  We really miss him.  He could sit through eight hours of bluegrass with the best of them.

There are two host bands for the festival: the Dry Branch Fire Squad and Sons and Brothers.  I heard Dry Branch back in the 70s and 80s in a different incarnation in the Washington DC area.  The leader both now and then is Ron Thomason who, around 10 years ago bought a ranch in the Westcliffe area and moved out here. His experience has really helped to attract top bands to the festival. He’s a horseman of some renown as well as being a great musician and story teller.  I moved some of Dry Branch's recordings to the top of the Tuzigoot playlist so you can hear them, if you’d like to.   

Dry Branch traditionally starts the Sunday morning festival session with a gospel set.  They do some old-time numbers with old-time passion that always choke me up.  Thomason says that the litmus test that separates hard core bluegrass fans from casual fans is whether you like gospel music.  A member of another band mentioned Dry Branch’s YouTube recording of The Little Old Church By The Road and you can listen to it here.  Little Old Church By The Road.

Sons and Brothers is a band that started by a Westcliffe family, who also launched what has become the High Mountain bluegrass festival.  The band consisted of Dad and his three sons.  Dad died tragically a couple of years ago of cancer but the band has continued.  They added Uncle Fred and a (brother-in-law) drummer, so it's still a family band.  Uncle Fred plays an electric guitar and they like to kid him and say that they have to keep him on his meds so he doesn't get out of control.  The emcee threatened to remove all frets above the fifth from his guitar, saying there's just no need to go there at a bluegrass festival.

The band plays music with country, western, and bluegrass elements, but have moved well beyond to hard-driving, fast, loud, electrified and drummified, but I still like it.   I couldn’t find a video or recording to link to.  Sorry about that.  Turns out they are playing at a chuck wagon dinner here in the Valley next week so we bought tickets.

As always the Festival lineup included a good mix of music styles. One of the groups was a duo who call themselves The Moron Brothers – good ole boys from Kentucky who told stories and corny jokes and played down-home music.  I think we heard them here a few years ago because some of the jokes seemed familiar.  Like the one about the guy who bought a parakeet, but it wouldn’t talk.  Took it back to the pet store and was told, You need to file his beak a little.  Came back a week later and said, The bird died.  Well, did you file his beak off like I said?  Yep.  Well, what happened?  I think he was dead when I took his head out of the vise.

Anyhow, the more moronic of the brothers talked about driving to Westcliffe from Pueblo (which he pronounced Poo-ba-low):  Saw a sign saying Watch for Elk.  Watched.  Didn’t see any.  A little bit later, saw another sign saying Watch for Falling Rocks.  So, they were looking up at the mountainside for falling rocks, when Bang.  They ran into an elk!

I made notes so I could tell you more of the Morons’ stories.  One note is water/mouse.  Wish I could remember what that one was about.

Couple goes to Wal-Mart.  Man wants to buy some beer, but wife says, No, we can’t afford that.  Times are tough.  But, she buys some make-up.  He says, Why’d you do that?  Thought we couldn’t afford such things.  She says, I just wanted to make myself look good for you.  He: That’s what the beer was for!

Take my wife.  Please!  The Brothers had one more version of that classic line.  Man robs a bank.  He knows he's been recognized by bystanders, so he goes to one and asks: Did you see me rob that bank?  Man says Yes.  Bang, Shoots him dead.  Goes to a second man.  Same thing. Bang.  Goes to a third man.  Did you see me rob that bank?  Man: No, but my wife did.  A bit gruesome (my apologies to all wives out there), but funny in the right situation.

 
Here's a picture of the Moron Brothers..

You can see and hear the Moron Brothers here.  They have a rather unique houseboat.

 Another Kentucky group was the Roan County Hilltoppers.

 The woman and the seated man are original Hilltoppers.  According to Wikipedia, the group attained some fame back in the 80s and were visited by Boy George and the Sex Pistols - to learn about pitch and harmony, I guess.  The other band members above were recruited for this gig.  The woman plays a washtub bass - a stick and rope attached to the tub - and did the talking.  The seated man (I think these two are husband and wife) plays fiddle, banjo, and guitar left-handed - but not with the strings reversed.  He taught himself to play this way, she said, because when he told his Dad he wanted to play left-handed, Dad said, Nobody ever played a fiddle left-handed, so it was a challenge.  He showed 'im.

The Hilltoppers almost didn't go on.  The airline lost her stick.  Luckily, the local hardware store came up with a post-hole digger handle and that seemed to work just fine.  Not exactly Yo Yo Ma equipment required.

The rest of the festival lineup was more conventional bluegrass except for one three-woman band who seemed entirely too impressed with themselves and their arrangements.  Seeing them once was enough.  Susie and I knew when to schedule our breaks the rest of the time  Incidentally, Susie spent quite a bit of time at the festival because, for one reason, the fact that we'll be in Westcliffe two more weeks means she'll have plenty of time to browse the stores, etc.

One more performer I want to mention is Heidi Clare (a stage name, I think, as in, I declare it shore is good to see you).  She's one of the best fiddlers ever, I'd say, and several years ago she was in a band that hit it big, The Reel Time Travelers, playing old-time and old-time sounding music.  They toured with performers from the movie, O Brother, Where Art Thou?  The band came from NE Tennessee and played in a couple of High Mountain festivals and I think Heidi and other members even joined Dry Branch on stage for a few numbers.  Then, the band broke up.  I don't know anybody who could give me the inside scoop.  A year later, Heidi showed up alone here and sitting in with Dry Branch and, especially, doing a set with Ron Thomason of that band.  That's continued, so now, it's pretty clear to us that they're an item, but we're not sure whether to blame Heidi or Ron for the breakup, not only of the Travelers but of her marriage to a guy in that band.

More importantly, though, she really plays the fiddle - a very physical, even athletic, style.  She also clogs - that's a dance, not something you do to drains.  A YouTube video that includes both fiddling and clogging is here.  Gotta see and hear it to believe it.

[Note added a week later, 7-16.  Heidi rode a horse in the Westcliffe Rodeo parade, all decked out in formal riding gear.  Didn't see Ron.  More on the parade in a later posting.]

I'll leave you with a picture of downtown Westcliffe with the festival tent at the end of Main Street.

See, what you do in the early morning here in Westcliffe is stop by the filling station and pick up a Denver Post, then you go to the Amish bakery and get some orange juice and pastries and sit out front and read the paper.  Then, you go back to Tuzigoot and tell Susie, Time for bluegrass!

As I write this, this week we're finding out what Westcliffe after Bluegrass is like.  Stand by.


Rob and Susie