Merlefest 2009

Merlefest 2009, Wilkes Community College, Wilkesboro, NC
March 23, 24, 25, 26 2009



I wasn’t going to Merlefest this year. I’m unemployed again and money is tight. At the last minute I changed my mind. It ain’t like I had anything else to do anyway, so I contacted the publicist, Karen Byrd, who was nice enough to give me credentials for the event. I loaded up the truck with instruments, threw in an air mattress and a sleeping bag and grabbed a change of clothes. At the last minute I decided to throw the popup awning in the truck as well. I had a cooler full of Diet Pepsi and a case of water, 3 apples and a box of Ritz Peanut Butter crackers. I grabbed up all of my meds, a handful of cigars and decided that I was as ready as I would ever be.

As always, I didn’t get out of house until hours after my planned departure time. My wife needed me to go with her to do this, My kids needed my help with that. There is always something. Finally my wife gave me a kiss and told me to run along and have fun. She knows that this music stuff is important to me. She’s good to me like that.

I got to the festival in time to pick up credentials but not in time to catch any of the acts. That’s okay. I don’t go to Merlefest to watch the performer. I go to Merlefest to be a performer. As Tom Driessen is fond of saying, “Music is a Participatory Sport.” I made it to the Moravian Falls campground, found our regular campsite and parked the truck. I blew up the air mattress and set up the awning and the RV was good to go. I then spent the next hour just sitting in a chair, in the dark and smoking a cigar. I could feel the stress slowly slipping away. Before long, my camping buddies showed up, a fire was started and we began picking. We picked from about 10pm until 3am. There were some great pickers as well as some intermediate and beginners. Some were drinking adult beverages of various types, but everybody was synced up together and having an awesome time. This is what Merlefest is to me, that reconnection with friends and the making of new friends around a campfire. As I was finally crawling into the back of the truck to get to sleep, a couple of guys came up and we started singing the entire Mel Street catalog. I was in heaven.

Unfortunately, the RV has no heat and it got down to frigid temperatures during the night. There are certain things that you can be certain of when it comes to Merlefest. It will be freezing cold at night. It will be hotter than Hell during the day, and it’s going to rain sometime during the weekend. There’s a law.



Friday Morning, I woke up, chipped the ice from my beard and was graciously fed by my fellow campers. We headed over to the Festival to see what we could see. My first stop was the Jamming Tent to see and pick some with Riley Baugus. This year Merlefest set up a jamming tent where the artists come down for 45 minutes and the fans can jam with them. Riley lives down the road from me but we never seem to be able to get together and play. We all picked for awhile and it was fun. I don’t get to play a lot of Old Time music. I’m more of a Honky Tonk picker anyway. I was flat blown away by a 6 year old little girl named Ruth who played the fiddle. Make sure you check out the video. We picked for awhile and then I proceeded to ramble on to see who I could see.



I ran into old friends Rob Stokes, Peter Diaddario, Dana Thorin, Jim Lauderdale, Buddy Woodward, Dan Miller, and others. That’s one of the other things I love about Merlefest. The hooking up with old friends that I only get to see once or twice a year. It’s a homecoming of sorts for so many of us. The weatherman told us that it would be sunny skies all weekend. The weatherman lied his ass off. I could see a storm cloud coming over the mountain and decided to cut the evening short and head back to the campground. On the shuttle bus on the way back, the bottom fell out of the sky. Oh well, it wouldn’t be Merlefest if there wasn’t a little rain.

We listened to the Main Stage artists on Merlefest Radio and prepared to do some picking as the rain let up. The picking party lasted from about 9pm until almost 4 in the morning. Now I love Emmylou Harris and Sam Bush and the Waybacks and Peter Rowan and all the rest, but none of that compares to picking and singing Ocean of Diamonds around a campfire and hitting that three part harmony with a guy from West Virginia and another guy from California that you just met and it blending just perfectly so that everyone has a big shit eating grin on their face. It’s moments like that that I live for. They are moments that have to be lived in the “now” because they can’t be recreated. They will never exist again. There will be similar moments, maybe even better moments, probably worse moments, but that same moment will never, ever exist again, so you better be tuned into the “now” and enjoy it while it happens.


See? Even Sam Bush would agree


I could go into more, about who I saw at the festival, all the great music that I got to hear (there are 10 stages, not to mention numerous jam sessions everywhere) which acts rocked, old friends I hooked up with, and all of that, but there is really no point in it. To me, Merlefest is about catching up with old and loved friends, many who are performers, just as many who aren’t. Tens of thousands of people show up for this thing and there are tens of thousands of reasons why they come. For me, it’s about getting away, getting spiritually centered again, it’s about immersing myself in the music, it’s about connecting with people through Jimmy Martin tunes around a campfire. That’s what my Heaven will be. You can have the streets paved with gold. I want a campfire and a bunch of good pickers to play with for the rest of eternity. To me that’s Heaven. To others, that's just Merlefest.