By Dean Poling
October 18, 2006 02:41 pm
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LIVE OAK, Fla. For 10 years, the MagnoliaFest has brought what is touted as a festival of American Roots Music just a few dozen miles south of the Georgia-Florida line. This week, the MagFest has returned with plenty of familiar Americana musicians for festival regulars and some newcomers. What is American Roots Music? Well, it’s a little bit of everything and anything musical that has a bit of the American Dream at its core. On this week’s Suwannee SpringFest bill, American Roots Music is the kaleidoscopic Cajun zydeco of Donna the Buffalo. It’s the folk sensibility of Peter Rowan and Tony Rice’s ÒCome Back to Old Santa Fe.Ó Through the years, some folks may have come to believe that the artists of the MagnoliaFests, and sister event the Suwannee SpringFest, lean more toward the alternative fusion bluegrass of The Grateful Dead rather than the traditional bluegrass of Bill Monroe. These folks would be right but only partly right. There is a lot of non-traditional bluegrass, etc., here. David Grisman, for example, was involved in the Fests early years; Grisman is a mandolin player who calls his style ÒDawgÓ music and he often collaborated with the late Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead. But plenty of traditional bluegrass has been represented in the past, too. Heck one of the original bluegrass innovators Earl Scruggs headlined one of the fests. ÒDocÓ Watson, a folk-bluegrass legend, has headlined the Fests. So, the Fests are a mix of original, traditional innovation and the newer innovations which they inspired. The Fests are a place where both the banjo of Earl Scruggs and Bela Fleck are welcome because they both sound that American Dream. The Fests defy definitions while defying the mantras of purists or the wags who love innovation for innovation’s sake. At a Fest, folk may include electric; bluegrass may have the beat of a drum; jazz may know the plunk of a banjo while later in the day, someone may play folk traditionally unplugged; bluegrass with strings only; jazz with brass and woodwinds. The Fests are eclectic in their understanding of what makes up American Roots Music and luckily that understanding is exquisitely enjoyable. A few of the MagFest artists SAM BUSH As the point man for New Grass Revival, Sam Bush was at the forefront of a bluegrass movement. He built upon the traditions of the form and then tweaked them with different sounds to create the bluegrass category known as Ònewgrass.Ó With the Sam Bush Band, Bush is still at the top of his form as is apparent in the recording ÒSame Ol’ River.Ó A mix of bluegrass tradition with new-age vision. Tony Rice Rice has been one of the regulars since the Suwannee Springfest and the MagnoliaFest started in the mid 1990s. His flat-pick acoustic guitar style touches upon the innovations of legends such as ÒDocÓ Watson and Clarence White, while finding his own bluegrass rhythms on the six string. He was part of the Bluegrass Alliance that formed in Southern California in the late 1960s and went on to be a member of the influential J.D. Crowe’s New South, both of which formed the true ÒnewgrassÓ sound based upon traditional bluegrass traditions. Tony Rice, independent and collaborating with folks such as David Grisman, and Peter Rowan this weekend, remains a vital force in the world of flat-pick acoustic or any guitar form. The Waybacks This San Francisco-based band touches upon all of that city’s past musical flavors with a spell-binding cross-pollination of numerous genres. With full acoustic wit, The Waybacks seize upon the independent natures of newgrass, western, swing and jug band to forge an alchemy of American roots traditions. The Duhks This young band is more folk than traditional or alternative bluegrass, though a listener can still find traces of both in The Duhks’ music. Listening closely, one can also hear the echoes of Celtic reels, French-Canadian folk tunes and some hillbilly groove. Donna The Buffalo This band with its rollicking mix of male and female performers, instruments from the fiddle to the squeezebox, and its duality of humorous and touching songs has become a cornerstone to the roots festival. Donna The Buffalo has played each one of the past several SpringFests and MagnoliaFests. The band has also made a few stops in Valdosta along the way. And there is a reason why they come and are invited each time. The aforementioned combinations, along with a high degree of talent, make Donna The Buffalo one of the must see, must hear acts of the festival. Dread Clampitt OK, the name kind of says it all really. Dread Clampitt. A cross of ÒBeverly HillbilliesÓ bluegrass Jed Clampett and the dreadlocks of reggae. That’s Dread Clampitt. Balder Saunders, a former Georgia Tech engineering student and the band’s frontman, says his father told him that people loved bluegrass in Jamaica. Upon his father’s statement, Saunders was transfixed with the concept of marrying the musical forms of bluegrass and reggae. He imagined Òa sort of eponymous persona for the bandleader of a group ... barefoot, in bib overalls, sitting in a plastic chaise lounge next to a moonshine jug with a corn-cob stopper in it, cooking fish, or deer meat, on a charcoal grill with a busted wheel, wearing his hair in dreadlocks, a knee blown out of his overalls, a pair of evil Tonton Macoutes shades on, and picking a tune on a hand-made mandolin.Ó If that image doesn’t explain this band’s music, no other words will. You’ll have to hear it for yourself. Blueground Undergrass Blueground Undergrass has spent the past several months touring with the Rev. Jeff Mosier. A South Georgia bar and North Florida Magfest and Suwannee Springfest regular, Blueground Undergrass plays progressive bluegrass which the band describes as Òpsychedelic, hick-hop bluegrass.Ó SHOWTIME The 10th Annual MagnoliaFest. When: Started Thursday, but continues Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 20-22. Where: Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park, Live Oak, Fla. Who: Dozens of performers scheduled. Sam Bush Band, Riders of the New Purple Sage, Donna The Buffalo, The Duhks, The Waybacks, Peter Rowan and Tony Rice Quartet, The Lee Boys, Drew Emmitt Band, The Greencards, The Codetalkers, Col. Bruce Hampton, Big Chief Bo Dollis & The Wild Magnolias, Jim Lauderdale Band, Old School Freight Train, Joe Craven, The Hackensaw Boys, Tony Furtado, Steep Canyon Rangers, Blueground Undergrass, The Overtakers: Bluegrasstafari, Toubab Krewe, David Gans, The Anarchist Orchestra, Michael Merenda & Ruth Ungar, Annie Wenz, The Pinkham Family Band, Dread Clampitt, Redheaded Stepchild, The Panhandle String Band, Big Cosmo & The New Traditionals, Boss Hawg, Little Green Chairs, Brent Hopper & Brittany Reilly, Crazy Fingers, Uncle John’s Band, Glass Camels, Quartermoon, Sloppy Joe, Scramble Campbell, Tania & The Magic Moon Traveling Circus. Ticket options, more information: Call (904) 249-7990; or visit the Web site (www.magmusic.com).
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