Bluff Country Gathering is a four-day celebration of traditional American music and dance, held May 16-19 in Lanesboro. It will include two days of workshops and jams, as well as concerts and barn dances open to the public. The concert on Friday, May 17th at 8pm will feature classic country music from the Ozark Highballers, Martha Burns, Eric and Saz Thompson, Trevor McKenzie, Terry McMurray, Paul Brown and more. Ru. The barn dance will take place on Saturday, May 18th at 8pm and will feature all of the mentioned musicians who make up the three bands, with Beverley Smith providing the square dance calls and instruction. Tickets can be purchased at the entrance. For more information, call 507-498-5452 or visit our website. www.boveeheil.com.
Every May since 1999, except during the dark days of the pandemic, the weekend before Memorial Day weekend, old-school musicians gather in Lanesboro, Minnesota to celebrate America's tradition of old-school country music. Bluff Country Gathering is held. Predating bluegrass and being more modern, country-western old-time music drew heavily from its folk roots and was performed at community events across the country. Barn dances, corn shucks, pie dinners, house parties, school events, and any other excuse to have a good time were all perfect venues for this authentic people's music. Music was an essential part of rural life, participatory, and rather ubiquitous.
Bluff Country Gathering, which began as a fiddle camp, now also honors musical traditions such as the banjo, guitar, mandolin, harmonica, and songs from an era before this music was commercialized. Lanesboro, a small, historic town with a population of less than 900 people, embraces the festival and its 200 to 300 music lovers who gather each year, and some locals refer to it simply as “The Day the Fiddler Comes to Town.” ” some people call it. This year, fiddlers will be in town from May 16th to 19th.
The gathering begins Thursday with a potluck dinner for staff and registered participants, followed by a small concert to explain to those who have registered what staff will be doing in the workshop over the next few days.
The Ozark Highballers are an old-school, classic string band making their second appearance at the Gathering.It consists of Roy Pilgrim (fiddle, vocals), Aviva Pilgrim (guitar, vocals), Clark Buehring (banjo), Seth Shumate (harmonica, vocals). They began performing as a band in May 2014 while busking at a farmers' market in Fayetteville, Arkansas. They have since performed at the Brooklyn Folk Festival, Ozark Folk Center, Stephen Foster Old Time Weekend in Florida, and the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C. in 2023.
Roy Pilgrim is a Fayetteville native who started playing music with his neighbors at the age of eight. He is an avid student of early American fiddle music and a horse cutter. He and Aviva live and garden on a farm just south of Fayetteville, Arkansas. Aviva Pilgrim was born in Washington state, and she lived in Virginia for several years until she moved to Arkansas in 2014. She plays guitar, cello, sings, occasionally plays violin in a band, and is a printmaker, gardener, and architect in the early 1900s. style parlor guitar.
Clark Buehling is a well-respected and well-known banjo player whose expertise extends to early stroke and fingerstyle minstrel banjo playing. His specialty is classical banjo, and he has a filing cabinet full of sheet music from the late 1800s to prove it. His previous band, the Skirt Lifters, has been a staple of his band's music since the 1980s.
Seth Shumate was a versatile harmonica player, applying the techniques of pre-World War II harmonica masters, often complementing note-for-note fiddle melodies, and drawing on his old-fashioned expertise. performs a well-developed rhythmic backup playing style. Guys like Dave Rice and Mark Graham. Seth's grandfather and his great-grandmother both played harmonica in the Ozarks of Arkansas in Stone County.
One of the most beloved players in old-time music today, Beverly Smith is sought after as a banjo, mandolin, and guitar player, as well as a singer, fiddler, and dance caller. In addition to fine recordings of old duets with Carl Jones, Alice Gerrard, and John Grimm, her guitar playing has also been featured on recordings by fiddlers like Bruce Morsky and Leif Stefanini. She has performed with the Heartbeats, the Big Hoedown, and the Rockinghams in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Known as a thorough, humorous, kind and patient leader, Beverly calls Marshall, North Carolina her home.
Paul Brown can't get enough of old-school hometown music. And he loves to share it. As a young boy, he quietly sang the songs his mother knew in central Virginia, picked up the banjo at age 10, the fiddle and guitar in his youth, and embraced the music of his elders in the best way possible. I soaked it in. He has been playing with them at home and on the go for decades. Paul, a former NPR journalist and longtime familiar voice on NPR's World News program, began his radio career at the famed old-time and bluegrass station WPAQ in Mount Airy, North Carolina. A veteran of the Toast String Stretchers, Surry County Boys, and Smoky Valley Boys with Benton Flippen, he studied banjo intensively with Round Peak's legendary Tommy Jarrell.
Terry McMurray has spent many years avidly watching and listening to the great traditional musical masters of North Carolina and Southern Virginia, and it shows in her playing. Her expertise as a banjo, banjo, ukulele, guitar, and singer includes Toast Her String Stretchers and Kirk Her Hollow, the group she co-founded with Riley Baugus, and Old Her Hollow Her String Her Band. has been well utilized in her over 20 years of performances.
Trevor McKenzie, director of the Center for Appalachian Studies at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, is an accomplished multi-instrumentalist who plays fiddle, banjo, mandolin, and guitar, as well as an accomplished traditional singer. He grew up on a stock farm outside his retreat in Rural, Virginia, and his first exposure to music was in church and his father's record collection. He then began attending fiddler's competitions at an early age and became more involved in the traditional music of his region of southwestern Virginia. Since 2010, he has been a member of his band Elkville String, frequently performing with Paul Brown and Terry McMurray. Trevor said: “I consider myself a historian who uses music as a vehicle to share stories. I enjoy digging into old songs and tunes that connect the past and present of communities in this part of the world. It's really fun.”
Martha Burns sings classic American songs the old-fashioned way: heart songs, cowboy songs, tragic ballads and funny songs, mountain songs and mountain range songs. Her haunting voice is a perfect fit for her old repertoire, and she's an accomplished guitarist whose accompaniment brings out the heart of the songs and provides the solid back-up that the violinist craves. She played for several years with legendary East Coast fiddler, the late Alan Bullock. Although she has lived all over the country, she currently resides in Washington, DC.
Eric Thompson and Susie Thompson explore strange and unknown old American music: distorted fiddle tunes with strange tunings, cinematic ballads, and country-blues songs with mystical metaphors. I have dedicated my life to it. Using fiddle, mandolin, and guitar, he brings the sounds of the early 20th century into the modern era. Eric's mandolin and guitar playing is extraordinary in its tonal purity, speed, and soulfulness, and he often accompanies notable musicians such as Ramblin' Jack Elliott and David Nelson. there is. Susie is a powerful singer, a strong blues guitarist, and an award-winning fiddler who has performed with performers such as Jim Kweskin, Jeff Muldauer, Del Rey, and Ann Savoy. The Thompson family were founding members of many influential roots music groups, including the Black Mountain Boys, Any Old Time String Band, and the California Cajun Orchestra. They live in Berkeley, California, and this is his fourth time attending the Bluff His Country Gathering.
Participants who are fully registered for the Gathering will be able to attend the Friday night concert (May 17), Saturday night barn dance (May 18), lunch both days, the Thursday night potluck and staff concert, You can take a two-day workshop called Sunday Morning Brunch. If you just want to attend a concert or barn dance, tickets can be purchased at the door.
Please visit our website for more details www.boveeheil.com/bluff-country-gathering.htm Or call us at 507-498-5452.