Jammin’ at the Bluegrass Fest

-Duane Donald Sunday, July 3^rd, I was out at the Farmlane Equestrian Camping Park located in Waterloo on Clear Lake Rd. Farmlane put on a bluegrass festival beginning July 1^st through the 3^rd. The event was sponsored by Best Buy of Ann Arbor, Briarwood Ford of Saline and our own, Lighthouse Coffee Company here in Milan. The intense heat during the Fourth of July weekend unfortunately worked against the promoters of the Farmlane Fest resulting in attendance being lower than excepted. It’s unfortunate because a lot of people missed out on some really exceptional bluegrass/mountain music. Some friends and I endured the heat on Sunday and though hot, we all had a great time. It was really nice seeing all the horses trotting around the grounds on top of hearing some really accomplished bluegrass bands take the stage. When we arrived at about 2:30, a great sounding group called Deep Water Bluegrass (Toledo, OH) was on stage. Deep Water offered a more traditional sound with wonderful three part harmonies in the five piece band. Two guitar players, and upright acoustic bass, mandolin and banjo were all pulling it together in a very tight, polished sound. Deep Water offered up some true standards along with some of their own originals and then just for kicks, mixed in a few rock favorites like Lynyrd Skynyrd’s, “A Simple Kind of Man” but with an acoustic, bluegrass feel. I spoke to Deep Water band member, bass player, and song writer, Jeff Birdwell about the group. “We’ve been together as a band for about 4-4 ½ years but this current line of Deep Water has only been together for about three years,” Birdwell said. The group sounded so tight and seamless you’d have thought they’d been playing together for decades. Having spent years living throughout various mountain ranges I’ve learned a deep appreciation and joy in well played mountain music so this assignment was right to my liking. But I feel even people that are not really schooled in good bluegrass/mountain music would have liked what they heard during this festival at Farmlane. I spoke with event coordinator and Farmlane owner, Don Walz. Don was hard to pin down as he was trying to juggle twenty things at once but he took a few minutes out to talk to me about Farmlane Equestrian Park and FarmFest 2011. How many years have you had the Farmlane Bluegrass Festival out here in Waterloo? “Well, we actually had the first FarmFest here in 2008 and then again in 2009,” Don Walz said. “But we had to skip a year in 2010 because the economy was so tight. So we were excited to put the Bluegrass Festival back on this summer.” What was the catalyst for the putting on a bluegrass festival in the first place? “We were looking for a way to generate interest in our Equestrian Park and fund it to keep the park going. So we had been having, and still have free live music out here at Farmlane every Saturday night in the summer. So this festival kind of grew out of that whole idea of live music,” Walz told me. “I began pulling all the bands together for that first event back in ’08 and so this year I still worked hard to pull all this great talent together for everyone to enjoy.” After Deep Water Bluegrass stepped off the stage, a group of three men came on called, Josh Slone and Coaltown. Coaltown is normally a four member group but for some reason the band’s mandolin player got held up and didn’t make the show. To be honest, the three remaining band members had such a tight, well-rehearsed sound, I am sure no one in the audience noticed a thing. Coaltown is out of Kentucky. Band leader, Josh Slone told me, Coaltown has the number one bluegrass album of the year (2011) according to the National Traditional Country Music Association. They also have three top hits on the bluegrass charts. They are going to be showcased at the International Bluegrass Awards this year and Slone said that they are scheduled to play on “Mountain Stage” next year. Mountain Stage is a nationally broadcast bluegrass program played on NPR (Sat on WEMU in our area 89.1). Coaltown had more of a bluegrass/country mix going on with their music but they were a very polished band who sounded great. I thought for an outdoor event, the sound quality was exceptionally clear. The audience could hear every individual instrument and a clear vocal. I spoke briefly to the event soundman, Lewis Maynard. Maynard heads up a group called, Southern Comfort out of Willis, MI. His band played Saturday night and Maynard said they had a very good turn out Saturday and the crowd was really into the music. “Bluegrass is just good clean fun,” Maynard told me. “When you listen to mountain music you can see the humor in their lyrics and hear the clean, clear sound of America’s music. Bluegrass is a true American folk sound.” Waiting to go on stage, Jim LaPrad of the group Nitro Hill (out of OH) was telling me that his group had been around since 1977 when banjo player Donny White formed the band and they’ve been playing festivals like the one at Farmlane ever since. Farmlane is one of only a couple Equestrian camping parks in Michigan that have on-site electric for its campers. What I found the most intriguing was how Farmlane is surrounded by very beautiful, heavily wooded forest. Don Walz told me that his park offers over twenty-five miles of riding trails with a great deal of those winding through the surrounding forest. Walz is a fourth generation owner of Farmlane. The farm use to be a dairy farm but in 2003 the economic climate was such that they had to sell off their cows and Walz soon after decided to open a big part of their farmland into the equestrian park. Don Walz went on to say that the park is having a hard time making ends meet during these tough economic times. He hopes events like this bluegrass festival will be enough to keep them going. As I watched the many riders taking their horses out to the trails, I could see that any equestrian would love it out at Farmlane. Supplying food for the event was Waterloo Pizza/Deli. We stopped by their pizza shop, just down the road from Farmlane, on our way home. Owner Mark Schroder made us some very wonderfully crafted pizza and ice cream. “We try to keep our prices low and fair when we’re at events like this one,” Schroder said. “Other vendors argue with me sometimes about setting my prices so low but I don’t charge more for pizza, or ice cream while I’m set up at a festival than I do at my pizza shop down the road.” If you have a horse or two and are looking for a beautiful place to ride, I strongly urge you to check out Farmlane. I think you’ll be very happy with their facilities and the beauty of their surroundings. (For more information about Farmlane Equestrian Camping Park visit their website at farmlanecampground.com)