A few months ago, I was notified that I’d won two weekend
tickets to a Bluegrass festival held at a beautiful
country resort. It seemed like a great
opportunity to relax, hear some good music and to collect more “behind the
scenes” information about the workings of Bluegrass
festival venues. So… we headed out in
our motorhome to take advantage of having won the prize!
I’m not unfamiliar with the time and energy that goes into
organizing and directing large events and it was obvious that the director had
worked her tail off:
- Contacting sponsors for financial support
- Collecting many raffle prizes from local businesses
- Arranging for accommodations at a beautiful resort area, in a multimillion dollar lodge
- Booking internationally and nationally recognized bands
- Hiring
“the best sound man out there” to provide the equipment and skill
“necessary” for the amplification of the “new”
- Etc., etc. etc.
We appreciated the opportunity, enjoyed our stay and met
some wonderful people. In fact, being
there helped us in our journey of considering how we can rightly honor Lloyd
Loar in his hometown.
Last winter when I began to plan for the first annual Lloyd
Loar’s Hometown Bluegrass Festival, other than scheduling a few bands for stage
shows, inviting jammers and listeners and getting the word out to the Bluegrass
audience, I had little idea of what this
festival might look like. I never felt a
need or desire to mimic what is already happening out there in the festival
venue. In fact, it seemed that this was
to be different, but I didn’t really know what that meant. I’m still not totally clear and I’m ok with
that because I realize that it will evolve over the years into its own entity,
if allowed.
It wasn’t long ago that someone responded to being
introduced to my idea of a Bluegrass festival in honor
of Loar saying. “I’m not sure that Loar would be honored.” At first it ticked me off. “Why wouldn’t he be honored to be remembered
in his hometown for what he contributed to music?” The more I thought about it, however, the
more I began to realize that they were probably correct in their
statement. While Loar was known as a
very kind man who had country roots, Loar was not a Bluegrass musician and it is not
likely that he would have been impressed to have been recognized as a
contributor to “hillbilly” music. Loar
was a very polished, highly educated and classically trained musician who was
driven to “amount to more than a farmer” (http://interwareralloydloar.blogspot.com/).
The majority of Bluegrass music fans
are lower to middle-class country folk, many of whom are farmers. While they may be aware of Loar’s name and
his contribution to the development of the mandolin, most aren’t aware of and
likely wouldn’t appreciate his perception of their “status” in this world!
I’d be in error if I didn’t
consider, “Would Loar be rightly honored through a Bluegrass
festival?”
Stay tuned as I share a series of articles focused on
sorting through these important questions:
- What
is the history of
- Who was Lloyd Loar and what did he represent?
- What is the focus of our place, Marigold Meadows?
- How can these things rightly fit together to maintain that? Or can they?
Whole-Heartedly,
Bonnie
P.S. Please
feel free to contact me with questions, thoughts, topics you’d like to ponder
or to read past articles at: http://whole-heartedlife.blogspot.com/. You may also contact me at:
Bonnie
Jaeckle
In Search
of the Whole-Hearted Life
Diagonal
Progress
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment