Bluegrass thrives mixed with other greenery

Music review - The RiverCity festival shows how the genre adapts to meet the future

Monday, January 07, 2008

LUCIANA LOPEZ Special to The Oregonian

Fiddler Darol Anger might have summed up the fourth annual RiverCity Bluegrass Festival best with an odd observation: "You can't have a bluegrass festival without Stevie Wonder," he said, before he and his band, Republic of Strings, along with guest vocalist Stephanie Schneiderman, launched into their version of Wonder's funk classic "Higher Ground."

If it seemed a counterintuitive way to describe the festival, held Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Oregon Convention Center, it is, on reflection, a deeply hopeful description. Though the festival focuses on bluegrass, a narrow idea of that genre doesn't cover all the music that was played, including styles influenced by bluegrass and bluegrass influenced by different styles. That kind of musical back-and-forth is what ultimately will give bluegrass longevity, what will allow it to move into the future and stay vital. And that process was very much on display over the weekend, at a festival that, while drawing on traditional music, looked repeatedly to the future of bluegrass.

Take Saturday headliner Marty Stuart, who's long combined genres such as country, rock, bluegrass and gospel. Now add disco to the list: He and his band, the Fabulous Superlatives, played a bluegrass version of the Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive" that brought down the house. It was an unexpected moment of musical plaids and stripes, and a pure delight, coming near the end of a set that had already been full of joy. The result sounded new, fresh, in a way the song hasn't sounded in years (if not decades).

The festival was sprinkled with such moments. Anger's set on Saturday included not just Stevie Wonder, but music with jazz, classical and even Latin roots, such as the Brazilian choro song he played that allowed him and fellow fiddler, 15-year-old Alex Hargreaves, to show a sense of humor, as well.

David Grisman, who played on Friday night with his quintet, has taken bluegrass in so different a direction that he's created his own style, "dawg music," drawing on bluegrass, folk and jazz. His set sounded so good it was easy to forget, from note to note, just how difficult his music was, how intimate and idiosyncratic.

Grisman is an extreme example, of course; he's a virtuoso on the mandolin, arguably the heir to bluegrass founder Bill Monroe. But other artists showed the same willingness to expand bluegrass into other horizons. Tony Furtado, for example, played on both the smaller and the main stages, showing a strong blues influence in his excellent finger work. And the Kung Pao Chickens brought jazz into their set on Saturday.

Healthy and strong

All of this is not to say that the festival shunned traditional bluegrass. The innovation at the festival is so healthy in part because bluegrass's roots remain so strong. The Del McCoury Band, who played on Saturday, remain not simply outstanding bluegrass musicians, but outstanding musicians, period. They brought in other influences, as well (though no Madonna or Donna Summers covers, alas), but hewed more closely to traditional bluegrass music. The band balanced their gleaming polish with an inviting warmth, and their final song, "My Heart Will Not Change," was one of the most beautiful of the festival.

The Dan Tyminski Band, though recently formed (this was the biggest stage the band has yet played), includes musicians with long histories in bluegrass. Tyminski, for example, is perhaps best known for being George Clooney's singing voice in the movie "O Brother, Where Art Thou?," which spawned a multiplatinum-selling soundtrack, a popular tour and a revitalized public interest in bluegrass.

Child's play

The festival also placed a stronger emphasis on the future in another way this year, by expanding its offerings geared to younger musicians. A new academy for kids started early on Friday before the festival performances, run by area bluegrass multi-instrumentalist and instructor Chick Rose. The kids separated according to skill level (adult musicians helped figure out who would do best where), and, once established, settled down to learn from one another as well as from more advanced teen instructors.

In one room, 7-year-old Sophie Harnew-Spradley, on the mandolin, learned from 14-year-old Molly Adkins, playing guitar, as other small groups worked around the room. Later, the kids in the room regrouped to form a circle and a jam, led by Rose.

During the festival itself, there was also a youth and family stage, with bands such as Sequoia, a trio who covered the Scottish band the Proclaimers' song "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" from the 1993 movie "Benny & Joon," and Adkins herself, who played with multi-instrumentalist Martin Stevens -- they showed a sweet vulnerability in their harmonies.

The melding of old and new, tradition and vision, is what gave rise to bluegrass in the 1940s, when Monroe invented it. Listening to the form adapt to other styles and watching a new generation learn its intricacies, it's difficult to imagine a world without bluegrass.

Luciana Lopez: 503-412-7034; lucianalopez@news.oregonian.com