Event of the Month

EVENT OF THE MONTH Toe-tapping Fiddle Scores Resound at Wickenburg's Bluegrass Fest

They come from throughout the West . . . two or three thousand of them. They come to hear professional and amateur bands play. The amateurs play for $6,500 in prizes. They come to visit with each other because this is sort of a fraternity, a family. And they come to play in jam sessions that go on half the night around campfires among the parked RVs at the Wickenburg rodeo grounds. What we're talking about is the Wickenburg Bluegrass Festival. It's a kind of desert Woodstock, taking place the second weekend in November. This year's happening, in that reallyrather-Western town 50-odd miles northwest of Phoenix, is one of many such festivals occurring around the Southwest.

Bluegrass, not quite as noisy as rock 'n' roll or country and not quite as popular either, has, nevertheless, a legion of devotees. They dote on its pure acoustic (meaning nonamplified, nonelectrified) "high lonesome" twang: fiddle, guitar, mandolin, banjo, and upright bass, with, sometimes, a Hawaiian-style slide guitar known as the "dobro." (So called, supposedly, because it was invented by two Czech brothers whose last name began with the letters "Do.") Bluegrass has its own language. Those who come TEXT BY JOSEPH STOCKER PHOTOGRAPHS BY ERROL ZIMMERMAN To play are "pickers." Those who come just to listen are "grinners."

And the music itself? Talk to the bluegrass junkies, as I did at last year's festival, and you get pretty much the same story. Julie Brooks, executive director of the Wickenburg Chamber of Commerce, which sponsors the festival: "It's simple music music of the country."

Ben Sandoval, who organized the '94 festival: "It's primarily mountain music, about the homes that folks have left behind . . . the loves they've lost."

Dave Marts, a Fort Huachuca engineer-draftsman who plays guitar and banjo in a Sierra Vista bluegrass band: "It's music from the heart . . . just ballads about life . . . just things that happen."

Catch a few of the bluegrass titles, and you'll see what those folks mean: "Little Cabin Home on the Hill," "Blue Ridge Mountain Blues," "Sweetheart, You've Done Me Wrong," "If I Could Hear My Mother Pray Again."

Bluegrass may come from the hills, but it isn't as old as the hills. A Kentuckian named Bill Monroe is widely acknowledged to be its creator and patron saint. He and his "Blue Grass Boys" (he spelled it out in two words) started playing it along about the 1940s, and it caught on, especially with Southern clear-channel radio stations and the Grand Ole Opry. Then it went bigtime with a television series called "The Beverly Hillbillies." It languished some with the coming of Elvis Presley and rock 'n' roll, but it's making a nice comeback now. And one of the reasons it's returning is festivals like the one at Wickenburg (there are some 400 held every year all around the U.S.) and the music and the socializing. The socializing, especially. People drive zillions of miles to pick and grin and just plain visit with each other. At Wickenburg I heard of a retired computer technician who doesn't play or sing but goes in his van to 40 bluegrass festivals a year. "It's a fun thing," said Julie Brooks. "When we're just setting up the festival, folks will already be here, and they'll come and give us big hugs."

There's really no explaining it, although people have tried. People like Bob Artis, a festival promoter, teacher, and mandolin player who wrote a book on the subject. "There's something about it," he said, "that makes me feel I really belong on the Earth, that I have found something of myself in bluegrass."

WHEN YOU GO

This year's Wickenburg fiddle and steel festival is Friday through Sunday, November 10-12. Wickenburg is 58 miles northwest of Phoenix. To get to the festival site, turn off U.S. Route 60 just east of the Hassayampa River Bridge onto El Recreo Drive, then onto Constellation. This year the decade-old three-day event is highlighted by the Four Corners championship contests for fiddle, flat-pick guitar, banjo, and mandolin. Admission for adults on Friday is $6; seniors, $5; and children 12 and under, $3. On Saturday and Sunday, adults are $8; seniors, $7; and children 12 and under, $5. There also are special two-day and three-day individual and family packages. For more information, contact the Wickenburg Chamber of Commerce, P.O. Drawer CC, Wickenburg, AZ 85358; (520) 684-5479.