Friday, September 03, 2004

 

Bluegrass Country: Harrison Jam attracts musicians from ages 4 to 91

From the Rockford Register Star
It's 56 degrees at 5 p.m. Saturday, and the rain is continuing to pour when Vivian Gaines does what she hasn't done before at the Two Rivers Bluegrass Jam: Shut down the only stage.

It sits outside on the 110-acre, tree-covered property owned by the Northern Illinois Coon and Fox Hunters Association in Harrison, a 30-minute drive northwest of Rockford in Winnebago County. Gaines worries about borrowed electrical equipment getting drenched and wrecked.

About 100 people hang around as a few others arrive. All told, about 650 people attended the free festival since it opened Thursday night.

None of the performers is paid.

Yet they pull out their acoustical banjos, basses, dobros, fiddles, guitars, mandolins and harmonicas and play on a roofed porch outside the clubhouse with the bands they came with.

Musicians, some who know each other and others who don't, join in an impromptu circle in the middle of the building, usually with eight or 10 bluegrass-lovers to jam to whatever song anyone wants to play.

Mike August, 45, of Roscoe, a FedEx package delivery driver, plays a dobro like a guitar.

"It soothes me," he explains. "It makes me feel good. And the music tells a good story. I can bring my kids, a 13-year-old boy, and a 12-year-old girl."

Read the article
Rockford Register Star


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