Ralph Stanley and Keith Whitley with the Clinch Mountains Boys
at the 1976 Bluegrass Canada Festival in Carlisle, ON – photo © Mike Higgins
Thanks to Mike Higgins with Bluegrass Canada, the magazine of the Bluegrass Music Association of Canada, for this look back at a festival that still triggers memories from old timers in Ontario.
Presented here are my photographic memories of the biggest series of bluegrass festivals ever held in Ontario, if not all of Canada, that featured literally every first generation US band, as well as many of our own exceptional Canadian talents. It was in June of 1973 when the first ever Ontario bluegrass festival, Bluegrass Canada, was organized and continued to take place well into the 1980s at Courtcliffe Park in Carlisle, Ontario, located off Highway 6 north of Hamilton. Attendance often reached upwards of 15,000 enthusiastic fans.
Even today, older generation bluegrassers will ask, “were you at Carlisle?” The response invariably and is often “yes,” or “no, but my father was there, and I heard all about it.”
Mike also shared this excerpt from an article he wrote for the October 2022 issue of the magazine about the festival’s beginnings.
The idea for the first Bluegrass Canada festival had been kicked about by Carlton Haney and his partner Jim Clark at some point in 1972. The original intent was that the two of them would be co-promoters. The involvement of Jim Hale in Toronto came about when Jim Clark hired a folk singing trio Hale was in to perform at a festival in Lancaster, PA. Clark approached Hale about being his contact person in Canada, find a location, arrange production and help with local promotion.
They had a meeting at the airport before his flight back with instructions to secure a venue and make other arrangements using the cover of spontaneously created, on paper only of The Ontario Folk Arts Music Association. Jim Hale mentioned to me that he wasn’t aware that Carlton Haney was involved until he received a call that he was coming up to Toronto to discuss the criteria to use in selecting a site. It was a productive session but that was the last of Carlton’s Haney’s involvement.
Jim Hale eventually found Courtcliffe Park in Carlisle Ontario – just north of Hamilton. Jim Clark then flew up to Canada for a meeting with Hale and the Weaver family to finalize the deal with the park, and the date was set. The band line up was arranged, and Jim Hale soon began receiving phone calls from bands and their managers requesting information about the event.
The rest is history.
