It's been a good month here in Austin, Texas. The weather has been great, though steadily getting warmer. This weekend was the annual April 19th celebration that Kim, Doug and I share to remember their mother's birthday. We have found that the Old Settler's Music Festival is held annually on the third weekend in April, which aligns well with April 19, so we have made attending the festival our way of sharing this celebration together.
We know that this is exactly the type of event Lynda would have enjoyed with us.
Before Doug and Kim could join me for the Saturday festivities, Maggie and I caught the Friday lineup. The high point of the day for me came early. Maggie met me at Kim's house after making her first solo run in our Chevy pickup truck. The significance of this lies in the fact that the Chevy has a standard transmission and Maggie has been learning how to make the transition from an automatic to the less user friendly clutch and gear shift lever on the truck floor. For those of us who grew up in the 50s and 60s, shifting gears manually seemed to be a natural function. But for those who started out driving in cars with automatic transmissions, hitting city traffic in a pickup truck with a floor shift and clutch can be daunting. I'm proud of Maggie's determination to master the skill....one hop at a time.
Friday was a day that started off gray and threatening thunderstorms. A cold front was moving in from the west and we were prepared for rain, taking umbrellas with us. Fortunately, the front moved through fast around noon. By the time we reached the festival grounds around 2:30 in the afternoon, the sky was clearing and the temperature was dropping from the 80s into the 70s. This made perfect weather for an outdoor music event. We arrived about an hour before the first band hit the stage, which gave us premo seating, up front/center stage.
The lineup we followed started with a hot bluegrass band, Frank Solivan and Dirty Kitchen. This was followed by Grace London, who describes herself as "...a 12-year-old indie sorta singer-songwriter person girl. I play guitar, piano, and use my vocal cords." Grace was the winner of last year's Youth Competitions at Old Settlers. Next up was one of my favorite bands, Steep Canyon Rangers. These guys are amazing musician and performers. Check out some of the videos on their web site.
Old Settler's began as a Bluegrass Festival in the 1970s, but over time it has evolved to include, what its director describes as a festival including any good performer that can loosely be considered "roots music". And, be assured, the connection to "roots" is very loose. It seems all it takes to qualify is to be a singer/song writer. But the requirement of being good has not be stretched at all. Following the bluegrass kickoff, the evening shifted to the rockin' sounds of Lissie, followed by bluesy Amos Lee. Both put on performances that had the audience populating the standing room in front of the stage. This made our front and center seats less desirable. But the music was great.
Saturday kicked of with Doug, Kim and I meeting up for breakfast at a local Mexican restaurant around 10:00 AM. Maggie was committed to Jo Anna's wedding this weekend, so she was not able to join us on Saturday. The day was about as near perfect for a music festival as you could hope for. The sky was clear, with the temperature reaching into the 70s and a nice breeze. We made it to the festival around 1:00.
The day started with Old Settler's drifting back into its bluegrass roots. We had three top-notch bands in a row: Audie Blaylock and Redline, followed by Dale Ann Bradley, then topped off with Doyle Lawson and Quick Silver. With over four hours of some of the best bluegrass performers on the planet under our belts, we then started the swing toward Old Settler's more eclectic offerings. It was a steady transition, beginning with Gaelic Storm. As I told Kim, "you can't go wrong with any band that starts their sound check with an accordion and bagpipes". These folks were rowdy Irish to the bone. They were followed by Sarah Jarosz. Sarah won the Youth Competition at Old Settler's 10 years ago, when she was 10 years old. With her clawhammer banjo, mandolin and guitar there is nothing remote about her ties to roots music, even with her cello accompaniment. She grew up at this festival and is always a crowd favorite.
After Sarah, we quickly slid to the far end of the Old Settlers mix with JJ Grey and Mofro. JJ brings a mixture of old school rhythm & blues and down-home roots rock ‘n’ roll. He got down with a song titled Georgia Warhorse he dedicated to his 95 year-old Grandmother (who he reported still carried a 32 pistol that won't shot in her purse). Georgia Warhorse is a Southern name given to a particularly tough grasshopper.
By 10:30, when the headline act, Iron and Wine hit the stage it was getting pretty cool outside. We made it till about 11:45, then called it a night when I started shivering.
This is always one of my favorite weekends of the year. The combination of good music and spending time with my kids together is hard to beat. And, as always, the mix of old hippies and just plain crazies that an Austin based music event draws provides ample fodder for Kim and Doug's continuous banter. It's a weekend full of fun. It's about as good as it gets.
