Winter Fall NovemberFebruary EditionEdition 20192017 JerryJerry Schrepfer Schrepfer-Editor Editor Fall November Edition Northern Kentucky Bluegrass Music Association 2019 Keeping Bluegrass Music Alive in the Northern Kentucky Area In This Edition IBMA World of Bluegrass 2019 Edition! IBMA World of Bluegrass Raleigh in a few hours?” (8 hr drive!) God bless her soul, she was onboard with my very 2019 Raleigh, N.C. - Tom Bushelman Jr. last minute decision. At 6pm we headed south Here it is again, the IBMA Bluegrass and, I’m not making this up, we stopped in IBMA World bonanza, the biggest bluegrass event IN THE Rocky Top, TN. for the night at a lovely little Pages 1-2 WORLD! Originally in KY., then TN., and hotel. Surprisingly, there was not a T-shirt now occupying most of downtown Raleigh, shop in sight because we would certainly have IBMA Award NC. IBMA World of Bluegrass is really the gotten one though we did go through several And the Winner Is must-attend event of the year. About six city stanzas of the Osborne Brothers classic song. Page 3 blocks are cordoned off and filled with stages After a quick stop at Hank’s house in Star, and vendors of all varieties are everywhere. NC., for a chicken dinner that couldn’t be beat IBMA Award The stage schedule is packed with top-notch (you might remember Hank of ‘the 3 Hanks’ Winner’s List bluegrass bands all day and getting a good from a previous article), Pam and I arrived in Page 4 spot for a show is generally not uncommon Raleigh in the early evening. I felt like a just because there are so many good shows wind-up toy that had been wound tight and SamJam Recap going on all the time and all over. Counting was just waiting to be put down so I could Page 5 in my head, I can think of 8 stages outside plus furiously zoom around and see everything all Turkey Jam four or five official showcase stages in the at once. Great band here to the left! Oh! Neat Page 6 main hotel, a workshop stage and another half paintings of the old Gruhn Guitar Building to dozen locations in the trade show that the right! Ahhhh! The Trade show! The trade Christmas Party periodically have bands playing. Scheduling show! The clouds part and a ray of sunshine Business Meeting one’s time can be quite a challenge because beams down on all things musical with angels Page 7 there is so much fun to be had. humming in perfect four part harmony. I love The fall season seems to be very busy, with the trade show. WoodSongs Events bringing in the harvest, cutting firewood and The trade show is in the bottom of the Page 8 doing things that need doing before the convention center and to get to it, one must blustery winter weather sets in. Having time go down a long escalator. Just before you step Jams for ‘non-work’ fun isn’t always in the cards. onto the escalator is a balcony from which you Page 9 Sometimes, though, the siren call of the can see the whole trade show laid out in all its ringing banjo can be heard all the way across magnificent glory. For fun, I suggested to Pam Pages 10-11 the Blue Ridge Mountains. I called my wife, that we time how long it takes before we run Ads & Info Pam, at work about noon on Thursday and into someone we know, while a whole Membership Info said in the smoothest voice I could muster, mountain range away from home. It took 45 “Honey….how do you feel about driving to 1 seconds from the time I brought it up.(Con’t…) Fall November Edition 2019 At the bottom of the depending upon who turns up. Pleasant surprises at every escalator, the high speed turn. wind-up toy syndrome On the second day, at the Pre-War Guitar Co. Booth, my really took over. I am a eye was caught by the extensive row of beat up old guitars. Dobro© guy and there When I say beat up, some of them looked like they had were at least ten booths literally bounced around in the bed of a pickup truck for years. with those ‘pie-plate’ In fact, one had been shot through the top and out the side guitars, several which with a .22 riffle. I played auditorium model 00s and ended were devoted to that with a super Brazilian Rosewood dreadnought that sounded instrument exclusively. I like a million bucks and looked like 20. On closer inspection, played Beards and the interior of that guitar was pristine. So I asked the guy how Scheerhorns, Merediths they managed to clean up the inside so nicely on such an old and Byrls and on and on. guitar. I’ve played a lot of old guitars and none of the insides Paul Beard, the foremost were clean and they always smelled bad. The guy floored me resonator maker in the when he said that guitar was a 2019 model, brand new. This world, a real ‘somebody’ company builds new guitars and spends a great deal of effort greeted me and Pam as if to make them look and sound old. If not for the clean insides, we were old friends and I I may not have believed him, me being a sometime storyteller always feel like we are, (fibber) myself. Later that day, Pam and I were sitting down even though we only see with a newly made friend and he was telling us about the great him at this trade show . old guitars in this one booth. The guy was a doctor and Some people are just nice nobody’s fool but he would absolutely not believe that those to the core. guitars were new. He looked at them, played them, but didn’t The Elderly Instrument talk to the maker. So Pam looked up the company on her booth is always a treat phone and showed him pictures. I could have made a $100 because they carry a lot of used instruments and you never on a bet. know what they might have. They probably had 150 I could go on for another 15 pages about IBMA 2019. I will instruments in the booth on stands for display and test picking. just mention the Banjo Stand (see photo below), the Rye Bar Right out there in front of God and everybody was a 1924 that stretches an entire city block and all the great new friends. Lloyd Loar Gibson F-5 mandolin hanging on a stand on a Plan the trip to IBMA if you can for next year folks. Or, a table top! No armed guards, no guard dogs with spiked collars couple of hours before, just ask your wife to go to Raleigh, in a circle around it. In fact, no notice was being taken of it NC. I guarantee you will have a grand time. at all. I looked at it from a couple of angles, looking for the laser beam cordon that would cut my hand off if I reached for The IBMA it but saw nothing so I gently reached out and picked up the holy grail of mandolins. Still no alarm bells or shots fired, so Banjo Stand I picked a few tunes on it from a conveniently placed nearby surrounding the chair. It played and sounded fantastic! Pam and I had statue of Sir purchased a lottery ticket (one of our traveling rules) and if Walter Raleigh we had won the 60 million promised, I would definitely have (city of shelled out the $120,000.00 for that historical gem. Right next Raleigh’s to it was a $40,000 Martin D-28, but once you play something namesake) over the six figure mark, you know….it just sounded….Meh. holding a huge There were bands outside to see so as I mentioned, there is banjo made for way too much to do, all at once. We left the trade show the occasion reluctantly to see some favorite bands, passing BBQ and with a shell homemade ice cream booths, hundreds of little wooden pigs made from tree limbs, hippie artists by the dozens and fellow made from bluegrass fans by the thousands. Busking areas were here and banjo necks and there where cute little kids could be seen periodically sawing trimmed in through ‘Boil Them Cabbage Down’ to earn enough to buy banjo pots. a better fiddle, or occasionally tearing up ‘Wheel Hoss’, 2 Fall November Edition 2019 “Support local Bluegrass Radio”. Had I started thanking “And the Winner is!”- By Steve Martin individuals, starting with good friend and unreal engineer Jerry Have you ever wondered what it is like to stand at a podium Schrepfer, I would have never finished. in a full convention hall holding a small sealed envelope in Radio stations are vanishing. The local ones that had some your hand and announcing “…….and the winner is…..”? autonomy and could feature a Bluegrass program are being To set an appropriate back drop for what will be my response purchased. Many are left with no music. All of them are left to this query, in late 2014 I was approached about serving on with no Bluegrass. Fewer stations mean fewer options and a few committees of IBMA. Never having been involved at fewer opportunities for artists. that level my response was, “why would anyone want me to?” Now, as for my first and long since buried lead, ‘have you Not meaning to be anything other than surprised by the request.