Folk Routes

 

The Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival, Bluegrass Mecca of the Northeast

 

By Peter Anick

(reprinted from Fiddler Magazine)

 

 

Look on the calendar of any diehard bluegrass fan living in the northeast United States and odds are you’ll see a circle around the third weekend in July.  This is the weekend that a hay farm perched high in the Berkshires is transformed into the sprawling city of tents, RV’s, lawn chairs, and non-stop music known as the Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival.  For most of the 4000+  “citizens” of this makeshift community, this annual event is quite literally the high point of their musical and social calendars, an enormous family reunion fired by a shared passion for acoustic music.

 

Passion is really the only way to explain it, because the Grey Fox festival is a festival of extremes – from its notoriously unpredictable weather to its stellar stage performances full of surprise appearances.  The main stage itself is set at the base of a natural amphitheatre and it is not unusual for the audience to applaud the spectacular sunsets that accompany the evening sets.  The roster always reads like a who’s who of bluegrass, with a soul satisfying mix of traditional stylists and new acoustic artists that in recent years has included Del McCoury, Earl Scruggs, Peter Rowan, Natalie MacMaster, and Nickel Creek.  Music continues on the main stage from mid-morning to past midnight, but hundreds of jam sessions can also be heard in the camping areas practically any time of day or night.  Whether you’re a player or a listener, one of the best ways to make new friends is to “wander in” to a jam session that suits your taste.

 

View of the main stage and surrounding mountains from the top of the amphitheatre.

 

 

 

A row of vendors will keep you well supplied with food, t-shirts and new instruments, but the accommodations (unless you are in an RV or lodging offsite) are definitely camping “in the rough”, complete with portapotties and just one trailer full of shower stalls.  Old-timers remedy the situation by constructing elaborate compounds sporting solar showers, lounge chairs, kitchen areas and bars.  Still, one can just as easily make do with a pup tent.  Just choose a neighborhood that fits your living style - there are designated quiet areas as well as rowdy sections that never sleep, and everything in between.  

 

If you’ve had a late night (and you probably have), you are likely to be awakened by a blood curdling scream, but this is yet another tradition.  It’s the ice truck announcing “AAAAIIIIIIIICE!!!” as it winds up and down the avenues.  Best to avail yourself of the opportunity to refill your cooler.

 

It’s the unpredictable weather that wreaks the most havoc at the Rothvoss farm.  Take last year, for example.  Just as I pulled into the festival grounds after a pleasant three hour drive, the heavens opened up, forcing the festival organizers to close the road up the hill to the camping and stage area.  Undaunted, I donned my poncho and pulled the essentials out of my car (tent, sleeping bag and fiddle, not necessarily in that order) and trudged up the muddy hill on foot.  Others lined up for the yellow school buses that were shuttling folks and their baggage up and back.  Though it wouldn’t be ‘til the next morning for the road to be dry enough to allow their cars up, everyone managed to make it to the hilltop to enjoy the evening concert and jam away into the wee hours under a beautiful starlit sky.

 

Such transient inconveniences of nature only serve to intensify the sense of camaraderie that pervades the festival.  Like war veterans, Grey Fox veterans are a band of brothers (and sisters) who take great delight in the retelling of tales of hardship.  The family who packed up in the rain, only to find the road out closed, forcing them to pitch camp all over again.  The “tornado” that leveled a section of tents on the hill.  The 90 degree days when it was too hot to lift a finger until the sun finally took pity and set.  Tales such as these made me think twice before I made my first trek to the fabled hillside, but I’m now a confirmed Grey Fox junkie.  And in the dozen or so years that I’ve been attending, I’ve always been impressed by the staff’s professional handling of every situation imaginable.

 

Indeed, over the festival’s nearly three decade lifetime, the organizers have come up with a number of innovations that have made a good thing even better.  One of these is the Bluegrass Academy, a weekend-long course of study for kids aged five to seventeen.  Led by Brian Wicklund, author of the American Fiddle Method series for young musicians, the Academy offers guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, bass, Dobro, and harmony singing instruction.  Throughout the weekend (starting on Thursday), the students learn a shared repertoire which they eventually play as an ensemble on the main stage, a thrill for the kids as well as the audience.  The program has been so successful that it now requires advance registration.

 

Bluegrass Academy graduates prepare to perform on the main stage with “professor” Brian Wicklund.

 

 

Another innovation is the Dance Pavilion, a separate area catering to dancers all day long where one can get instruction in Cajun, clogging, and swing steps and dance to bands of the caliber of  Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys and Donna the Buffalo.

 

A variety of workshops are offered at yet another stage area, where you can sit down with bluegrass legends the likes of Sam Bush and Richard Greene, watch their technique up close and have your questions answered personally.

 

All of this is in keeping with producers Mary Tyler Doub and Ron Thomason’s vision of Grey Fox as a family festival with something for everyone.  There is such a range of activities on the site (including games, clowns and crafts to entertain the tots) that parents can feel comfortable bringing along their kids.  Even teenagers not particularly enamored of bluegrass enjoy the vendors’ boutiques, dance pavilion, nearby swimming hole, and laid-back social milieu.  It is no wonder that many festival fans now arrive days, even weeks early to be in line for prime real estate when the gates open.  (Note that you can also simply come for a day, as many do.  There is free day parking and shuttle bus service, and lots else to enjoy in the Berkshires in July.)

 

So if you haven’t yet made a pilgrimage to this bluegrass Mecca, gather up your family and friends and make the trek to Ancramdale, New York next July.  It is a true bluegrass rite of passage.  And once you’ve been there, chances are it will become a permanent circle on your calendar.

 

 

Banjo legend Earl Scruggs and friends at the 2005 festival

 

The festival is held mid-July on the Rothvoss Farm in Ancramdale, New York.  For more information, visit the web site at www.greyfoxbluegrass.com  or contact Grey Fox Office, PO Box 535, Utica, NY 13503.  Toll Free phone: (888) 946-8495, International: (315) 724-4473. 

 

If you can’t make it there in person, you can enjoy the festival vicariously through Ruth Oxenberg and Rob Schumer’s “Bluegrass Journey” DVD, which contains performances and interviews from the 2000 Grey Fox festival.