August Long Weekend Music Festivals
by Julie Druker and Jeff Green
Flinton Country Bluegrass Jamboree Bill White and
White Pine
It was an all-in-the-family
extravaganza of local talent at the sixth annual Flinton Country
Bluegrass Jamboree on Saturday and crowds over the weekend soared to
1200, making the turnout the best in the Jamboree's six-year history.
Fans of the kind of pop-country or
country rock that have become the staple of country radio might not
find the Flinton Jamboree quite their taste, but for those with a
taste for traditional country and bluegrass music the Jamboree has
become a cherished event.
The Harrowsmith-based band, White Pine,
started off this year’s Saturday after dinner show. Bill White
leads the band and his son Joe is the featured fiddler. This much was
familiar to the audience, as White Pine is well known and loved
throughout the region and has graced the Jamboree stage on other
occasions. This time there was a twist, however, and they were joined
on stage by five and seven-year-old Marshal and Wyatt Tebworth on
mandolin and violin.
Marshall and Wyatt are sons of the
band’s mandolin player, Rob Tebworth. White Pine also includes
Barry Calthorpe on dobro, John Renne on bass, and Len Heatherington
on banjo.
They played a diverse and energetic set
with ample solos threaded into the mix and with players taking turns
at lead vocal mike. Their four-part harmonies are as good as they
come and their set was peppered with tunes from their latest CD,
which is called Requests, Among those were Grandfather's Clock, The
Jubilee Road, and The Lonesome Old Home. Later on they took a request
from Jack Weber for Sawmill Road. Not surprisingly the crowd demanded
an encore and got one, with the band returning to play Jimmy Martin's
tune,Tennessee.
Next up were the Black Family, a family
of nine young players, singers and step dancers ranging in age from 3
to19, who all played a number of instruments. It was their first ever
performance at the Jamboree and judging from their reception, likely
not their last. They thrilled the crowd with their versions of
Jessica's Waltz, St. Anne's Reel and a single from their CD called
Maple Sugar, and came back to play a series of gospel tunes for their
Sunday performance.
Last up for the night were headliners
The Abrams-Burtch Connection.
Wayne Abrams on guitar and vocals and
Bob Burtch on mandolin and guitar formed the core of the band. They
were joined by Shawn Kellett on fiddle, guitar and mandolin, Mary
Abrams on backup vocals, and Glen MacDonald on banjo, all of whom are
familiar to fans of the Abrams family bands. The Connection was in
fine form and played a raucous set, showing the crowd they can rip up
a tune with the best of them.
At one point, Bob Burtch told the crowd
“We play real country music”. Indeed.
Canadian Guitar Festival
 Guitar “Superstar”
Vicki Genfan
The sixth annual Canadian Guitar
Festival took place at Loughborough Lake Holiday Park just south of
Sydenham and the festival is known for attracting high caliber
players from all over Canada, the States and further a-field.
The festival also offers a finger style
guitar competition and this year 31 entries competed.
Among the Sunday night performers this
year were the Chicago-born blues player Dennis Snyder, who just
released his 8th CD, entitled Full Circle. His set included songs
from various CDs including “Melancholy Mood” from “Eclectic”
and “Fly on the Wall” from “Roots and Branches”. He ended his
set with a tribute song he wrote called “Slide” in which he pays
homage to the many musicians who have influenced him and helped him
to develop his own unique sound over the years.
Next on stage was award-winning New
Jersey guitarist Vicki Genfan, whose mind boggling combination of
picking, thumping, strumming, slapping and harmonic tapping guitar
stylings recently won her the title of Guitar Superstar in Guitar
Magazine.
Her guitar wizardry is combined with a
soulful singing voice, making Genfan is a force to be reckoned with.
Her playing is highly complex, polished and modern and her repertoire
is diverse. In her set she covered the Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood”,
Chris Jones' “Ain't Got Love” and the Rascals classic “Groovin”.
She also played a number of originals including “Joy” and “Atomic
Reshuffle” from the double CD Up Close and Personal.
For guitar lovers who have yet to visit
it, the Canadian Guitar Festival is a must see event and the venue is
sure to please.
Variety and youth at Blue Skies 2010
 Matthew Zadow performs at Blue Skies
The dust was flying on the Clarendon
Road over the long weekend, as up to 3,000 music lovers beat a path
to the site of the annual festival.
This was the second year for artistic
director Joel Leblanc, and he continued on the path he set out last
year by bringing in a diverse array of mostly young musicians who
were not known to most of the audience before they hit the festival
stage.
Every year at Blue Skies there seems to
be more seniors in the crowd, but at the same time there are more
babies being carried around. It defies any kind of expectations about
people of different generations attending a single event. Programming
for such a diverse crowd is a difficult task, and Leblanc’s
strategy is to keep everyone guessing right from the start. With the
exception of James Keelaghan, who played the Saturday matinee, there
were few acts that could reasonably be called folk musicians in any
sense, with the standout exception of Cedric Smith, the founder of
the ’60s collective the “Perth County Conspiracy” who performed
a short set on Saturday night.
Among the surprises were three
Australian artists, and an act called “That One Guy” that defies
description. That One Guy played a homemade pipe that resembles the
Canadarm as well as an electric boot, performed magic tricks, and his
music that was so danceable that the younger members of the audience
just about stormed the stage.
The festival also featured a 15 member
roots music collective from Kingston (The Gertrudes), a trio of young
women from Montreal who seemed to channel the gypsy jazz sound of
Django Reinhardt`s guitar, and a bus load of young musicians from
Toronto who call themselves the Toronto All - Star Big Band, which
closed the Friday night concert.
And then there was a bit of opera,
delivered by a former blues man who once called Sharbot Lake home.
Matthew Zadow has been pursuing a career as a baritone for a number
of years since he graduated from the Queen's School of Music. He is
based in Toronto and Brussels these days, and he was persuaded to
come back home, and bring a one-hour show.
With the exception of the performance
of the Blue Skies Suite by a chamber orchestra a dozen or so years
ago, Blue Skies has been pretty much a classic music-free zone, and
if there has ever been an opera singer at the 38-year-old festival it
was many, many years ago
So, Matthew Zadow had a bit of extra
work to do, performing before an audience that was not necessarily
familiar with Mozart or Verdi. But, armed with a smooth voice and
considerable charm, he managed to turn the audience his way, singing
selections from Don Giovanni, Ravel, and others.
He was joined late in his set by
Richard Hoenich, a bassoonist from Montreal who now lives in Brooke
Valley. Hoenich performed Flight of the Bumblebee while Mathew Zadow
took a short break. When he
Returned, he sang a particularly
beautiful piece by Johann Sebastien Bach.
Even though he was one of the early
performers on the final night of Blue Skies, and he had to sway an
audience that is more familiar with banjos than Bach, Mathew Zadow
received a huge ovation at the end of his set, and was given an
encore, which is rare for that time of the evening since there were a
number of acts to follow.
|
