The Official publication of the Colorado Bluegrass Music Society January 2016 CBMSCBMS toto CelebrateCelebrate ColoradoColorado BluegrassBluegrass MoversMovers && ShakersShakers atat Mid-WinterMid-Winter What’s Inside: • Fruition at WinterWonderGrass ..................4 • New Album from Coral Creek ......................6 Address Service Requested Service Address • Monocle and Masontown in Lyons .............7 Wheat Ridge, CO 80034-0406 CO Ridge, Wheat Bluegrass News P.O. Box 406 Box P.O. Performance Calendar, Music Society Music Colorado Bluegrass Colorado CBMS Bands on Call & More! EXECUTIVE MESSAGE ach year brings a great opportunity for music patrons in the Shows start at 7:00 p.m. with tickets available at coloradobluegrass.org. Front Range region to sit in a downright-for-real auditorium Other performance dates and acts are: and enjoy a double hitter of bluegrass in the finest of indoor sound environments. Please consider joining • February 6- Ron Thomasson of the legendary Dry Branch Fire Squad us for the first performance of our seasonal Broomfield and Heidi Clare, a fabulously talented fiddler and clogger, will perform. Auditorium Series on January 9. They will be joined by openers Kantankerous, who are a seriously great E band and could be headliners on their own. Dave Patton, longtime friend of CBMS and a guy who plays, promotes, talks and distills his way into your heart the minute you meet him, books the • March 12- The Railsplitters (yeah- you know it) will appear with sup- series. This year, the line-up is extra tasty. porting act, Acoustic Mining Company, who are one of the most original We start out with Finnders & Youngberg on Jan 9. Enough said. Well bluegrass bands in the state with super inventive instrumentals and a okay, if not, then check it out: host of great singing. Colorado’s Finnders & Youngberg proudly swim in the deep currents of We hope you will get your tickets early and join us in the mini-Lincoln American music--classic bluegrass, tried-and-true honky tonk, country swing Center of our mighty fine state of grassin’. and skillfully spun folk tales. While their sound evokes timelessness, it is a decidedly contemporary, well-traveled 21st century sensibility that informs their songwriting. Their tunes draw on the bumps, bruises and laugh lines Annie Savage earned when we find ourselves in the “bogs” of back roads, dive bars and President long, lonesome nights. Colorado Bluegrass Music Society They open for Blue Canyon Boys, who as I hear have been gifted with some serious stage wear. Pretty sure you want to be there. Pow'r Pickin' Production Staff The Official publication of the Editor in Chief: Garian Vigil - [email protected] COLORADO BLUEGRASS MUSIC SOCIETY Advertising Sales: Annie Savage - [email protected] A non-profit association of Bluegrass enthusiasts. Graphic Design : Bone Doggie - [email protected] Proofers: Annie Savage, John Schmidt, Garian Vigil January 2016 CD Reviewer: Garian Vigil - cds@ coloradobluegrass.org ****** P.O. Box 406, Wheat Ridge, CO 80034-0406 Web site: www.coloradobluegrass.org Representatives www.facebook.com/theCBMS B.J. Suter Greg Worth 303-485-5222 303-918-0335 Editorial E-mail: [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Advertising E-mail: [email protected] CD Reviews E-Mail: cds@ coloradobluegrass.org Kevin Slick John Clancy 303-718-3143 303-323-1937 [email protected] [email protected] COLORADO BLUEGRASS MUSIC SOCIETY BOARD of DIRECTORS: President Vice-President Key Volunteers Annie Savage Marte Meyer Joy Maples John Schmidt 319-601-6379 303-726-8549 Web Wrangler Membership Coordinator [email protected] [email protected] 719-465-3025 970-663-7581 [email protected] [email protected] Treasurer Secretary Randy Jones Janeen Bogue All information contained in Pow’r Pickin’ is the opinion of the authors. Such information does not necessarily represent the opinion or policy 303-431-1899 303-517-4860 of the Colorado Bluegrass Music Society, its officers or members, unless [email protected] [email protected] otherwise noted. 2 ON THE COVER ON THE NORTHERN BEAT Mid-Winter CBMS Fest Cures to Celebrate What Ails Ya! By Jan Peterson Colorado Bluegrass hroughout history, it seems, January and February have been in a tight race for the title Movers of “most depressing month of the year.” The post-Christmas- holiday letdown is real, but ameliorated & Shakers Tby New Year’s Eve partying and New Year’s Day hangover-nursing, a fitting prologue to the deprivations of January at and February. Mid-Winter Following the exuberant mayhem of the holidays, this already-bleak season seems even more intractably destitute. January and February reign over the darkest time of the year, with some of the shortest days Dr. Banjo to Emcee Special Ceremony and longest nights of the seasonal cycle contributing to a mental health problem that has been tagged Seasonal Affective Disorder By Annie Savage (SAD)—a psychological vexation that has • A selection of the nation’s finest flatpickers scientifically been demonstrated to contribute n Sunday, February 14, at to depression and a sense of hopelessness; the Mid-Winter Bluegrass • Our current CBMS board members, including doom, gloom and barrenness. Woe is me. Festival, we will present the several new members Well, I bring you tidings of great joy: The first ever CBMS Colorado • Some well-known Colorado jam grassers Mid-Winter Bluegrass Festival returns, Bluegrass Round Up and once again, to battle early-year depression • A wide selection of statewide deejays who Recognition Ceremony. serve in the bluegrass genre and SADness! The knowledge that this Please join us as we recognize people who event is coming up sustains me through Ohave been key contributors in our musical • Countless other stewards of our might fine the impoverishment of those coldest and community. state of bluegrass here in Colorado! darkest months of the year. With visions of concert performances, hallway jams and All in addition to Pete Wernick serving as This ceremony, which we hope to make an new artist CDs crowding each other in my emcee and master of ceremonies!! annual event at the Mid-Winter will include and head, I am able to overcome the melancholy acknowledge: So won’t you make arrangements to share and dreariness of pre-Spring. You, too, can • Our CBMS Hall of Honor guests, who have this time and space with us? We would love experience the psychological boost provided been invited to perform a song together as to share it with you. And stick around for by this divinely-timed pick-me-up! well! one of the nation’s up and coming bluegrass The Mid-Winter Bluegrass Festival will • Valuable volunteers who have generously musicians, Molly Tuttle, who is flying in for a return February 12-14 to the Northglenn given of their time and effort in the past year, special Sunday set to follow the ceremony! Ramada. You have until February 6th to get your advance ticket orders in and save $15 • The musicians/bands who were invited The Mid-Winter Bluegrass Festival will be on each 3-day pass, but hotel rooms may to showcase at the 2015 IBMA Bluegrass held February 12-14 at the Northglenn Ramada not be available if you wait too long to make Ramble Plaza at Interstate 25 and 120th Avenue. Go to a reservation—I got mine! Less expensive • As many banjo players as we can fit on stage midwinterbluegrass.com for more information (true) and ticketing. Continued on page 14 3 THERE'S GRASS IN YOUR JAM Fruition return to the Front Range; WinterWonderGrass By David DeGrandpre y now, there’s a good chance you’ve heard the name Fruition floating around the bluegrass world. The Portland, Oregon-based band have been making a name for themselves over the past six years as they’ve toured across the country, and packed larger and larger venues with their mix of bluegrass, folk, rock, and blues. In mid-November, the Bband played two outstanding shows to a tightly packed Bluebird Theatre in Denver, playing mostly originals mixed in with a few choice covers. Featuring Jay Cobb Anderson on vocals and a powerful groove, while “Lay Down Blues” If you miss your chance to catch them during lead guitar, Mimi Naja on vocals, mandolin is a ragged, fiery rockabilly jam. The tender those three shows, have no fear, as Fruition and guitar, Kellen Asebrook on vocals and “Sanctuary” closes out the EP with a powerful will return to the stage at WinterWonderGrass rhythm guitar, Jeff Leonard on bass, and Tyler lyrics and some fine mandolin playing from Mimi in Avon for their third time at the fest, February Thompson on drums and banjo, Fruition’s Naja. 19-21. talented lineup easily shifts between genres Fruition will be returning to the Front Range Speaking of WinterWonderGrass, the winter without missing a beat. in late January, spending one night at the bluegrass festival has become a yearly highlight At the end of October, the band quietly Aggie Theater in Fort Collins on January 21, as its organizers have successfully grown released a new EP, Holehearted Fools, without before headlining the main room at Cervantes the festival since its inaugural year in 2013, any notice, delighting their fans. Comprising Masterpiece Ballroom in Denver on the 22nd and bringing together a wealth of talented bands five tracks, it demonstrates the band’s excellent 23rd. In Denver, they’ll be joined by Nederland and musicians, along with a growing number songwriting and instrumental prowess. The favorites Gipsy Moon as well as San Francisco- of Colorado breweries to present an incredible charging “Somehow, Someway, Someday” based funk and blues band, the California weekend of music and craft beer set against the kicks off the EP with stinging lead guitar and Honeydrops.