Bobby Davis leaving VS

Oh my! I feel bad now that I teased him earlier in the week about everyone asking who Valerie's bass player was.

"Bobby who?"

I hope things go well for him with a new band.

That's a good picture of Bobby (blog below). Here is one taken recently at the Awards Show in Nashville 2009.

Bobby Davis leaving Valerie Smith

Bobby announced that he is leaving Valerie Smith and Liberty Pike for other opportunities after last weeks IBMA conference. We wish him the best. He is a great bass player and a good bluegrass friend.

For the love of music

From a comment posted about a recent blog about our long, last day at IBMA -
".....sounds like a labor of love."

That reminded me of comments that I heard during the week. During the World of Bluegrass trade conference, I was a presenter in a seminar on how to recruit, train, and retain volunteers for festivals. The other two presenters represented two BIG festivals, both of which I believe are for-profit festivals. NIBGA is a non-profit.

After the session, and for the rest of the week, many, many people came up to me and commented about how much they liked our system of volunteers. They commented that I was the only one on the panel that seemed enthusiastic about the music and festival, and that the others treated it as just another business venture. Their "volunteers" do it because of the perks. For some, that is the only way they could possibly afford to attend the festival. No matter how you look at it, they are volunteering their time, in exchange for a ticket, so that someone else can make a profit.

Everyone from the for-profit festivals were flabbergasted that we could put on a festival of such high caliber 100% by volunteers. Every person there, from the president of the association to the person that fixes the electric circuits, is a volunteer. Oh wait....the lady that cleans the toilets gets paid a small stipend - but would YOU volunteer to clean those toilets??!?! Didn't think so.

Our volunteers do it as a labor of love....for the love of the music. They know that Tri-State is run "by the people, for the people" (hmmmmm....that phrase sounds familiar). If we didn't have so many dedicated, conscientious, enthusiastic volunteers, we couldn't have a $25/weekend ticket price that is affordable to all. It all boils down to this....without our volunteers, we wouldn't have a festival! My hat is off to all of you!

Whew...made it home

We finally hit Findlay about 4:30 a.m. Saturday morning. Didn't grab a thing out of the van except our cellphones...stumbled into the house and into bed. Had to go out the next day (??? Ok...same day....just later) and get my toothbrush, etc., out of the van so I could get dressed.

Yesterday, after we got the van packed in Nashville, we spent the next couple hours getting ready for the Bluegrass in the Schools program that Joe was helping with. Thank goodness Janet Deering (of Deering banjos) came by and helped tune all the banjos. He taught 50 people (+/-) how to play banjo in 45 minutes. They were doing a good job, too! I was impressed that they were all playing and singing songs using 2 or 3 chords and ROLL PATTERNS! Nancy commented that it was the largest class in their history. It was fun.....but I was WAY ready to get out of town.

Once we got all the banjos packed back into the van, we walked over to our favorite restaurant in town, Demos, and had lunch/supper. Back on the road by 8:30ish, I think. LONG TRIP.

Got the van unloaded about noonish....now we're repacking for a quick overnight trip to the Cleveland area. Who planned this agenda?!?!?!?

Tired

It's only 1:11 a.m., but GOSH, am I tired!!!! I think I'm going to go to bed soon.....that will be about 3 hours earlier than normal. Before the awards show, Joe and I, Jim and Linda, and Marianne and Dave attended the pre-awards cocktail party. We got the "invite" because of our nomination for bluegrass event of the year. It was fun to have an excuse to dress up...most of the women were in glamous dresses and the men were all in suits. A sea of black and sequins.

The club was given two complimentary award tickets, and since the others had all been there several times, Joe and I went. Since I'm too new to bluegrass, I didn't understand a lot of the humor tonight. Waldo Otto, Slade, Red Knuckles, and Wendell Mercantile made guest appearances. I guess they have something to do with Hot Rize. Don't ask me.... I don't know.
The best part of the show for me was watching the Dilliards. (Actually, I didn't realize they were even still alive). They were inducted into the hall of fame. The funniest part was when one of them said that they were honored to be inducted....while they were still alive. They said they had discussed it and decided that someone would have to die before anyone was inducted...and no one wanted to volunteer.

Ok....going to bed now!!!!!

Congratulations Grey Fox

Oct. 1
Grey Fox was selected as the 2008 Bluegrass Event of the Year at the IBMA awards luncheon.

NIBGA showcase room Weds. late night

Sept. 30
We had very good crowds for most of the shows. Special Consensus closed the evening at 1:30a and almost packed the house. He has a new guitar player Ryan Roberts replacing Justin Carbone. He was very good and fit right in. Justin came in just to put a little pressure on the new guy but he did very well. Ashby Frank couldn't make it so Greg had a substitute mandolin player. You would never know he wasn't in the band for years.

When introductions were made, Ryan joked that he had been with the band for 5 days but he was no longer the new kid since the mandolin player was new.

We saw two bands that go onto the 2010 short list. Joe Steiners list is getting very long with top talent. Now the job is to put together a budget and select a balance of bands for the 2010 festivals.

With the help of all six of us, the showcase room was tore down in a record 40 minutes. Back in the room we unwound for an hour and hit the sack around 4:20a. We were up 4 hours later and are now getting ready to go to the awards luncheon where hopefully NIBGA will get the Event of the Year award.

Watch a YouTube video of the official IBMA showcase bands.