Our friend, Phil Leadbetter, sent along this report from Bluegrass Camp Germany, where he has held the resonator guitar chair since its inception.
This year, Bluegrass Camp Germany was held on on May 2017. The camp takes place in the Bavarian region of Fischbachau, Germany (which is near Munich). This is the camps fourth year (started in 2014). Greg Cahill and I have been there since the beginning. The camp was founded and organized by Michael Pugh (who grew up in Hermitage, TN and attended MTSU), and banjo player Rudiger Helbig. Rudiger is a very popular banjo player in the Munich area where he runs a large music store. Michael is the managing director of Oktopus Events in Munich, where he has lived for nearly 20 years.
This years teachers were me, Greg Cahill, Alan Munde, Rick Faris, Ashby Frank, Rudiger Helbig, and his wife Heidi Helbig.
Camp consisted of daily individual classes with late night camp fire jamming. A camp concert took place on Friday night. This year, the camp had their very first BBQ cookout which took place in the forest near the camp. Ashby brought in some samples of North Carolina BBQ sauce which was served with the smoked BBQ dinner.
Next year’s camp will run May 10-13, 2018.
