Terry Eldredge with The Grascals again at the Labor Blue Grass Festival – photo © Laura Tate Photography
Since it reopened on Labor Day weekend in 2019, Camp Springs Blue Grass Park continues to grow annually, and this year’s festival was no exception. The campground was lined with RVs, and by Saturday evening the hillside in front of the stage was packed. Attendees enjoyed the Lonesome River Band’s second show of the day, and Authentic Unlimited’s extended set to close out the three-day weekend of music.
Promoter Cody Johnson shared on Sunday…
“We want to thank everyone for making this weekend so special for us again. Thanks to MC Cindy Baucom and Jackson Bethune Music with Luke and Lucy [Lindblom] for making it sound so good. This Labor Day festival just keeps growing and we are so thankful for all that support us. We love all of our bluegrass family.”
Camp Springs was the site of the first bluegrass festival ever held in North Carolina in 1969, and the location where the 1971 Bluegrass Country Soul movie was filmed, which was shown Wednesday night for early arrivers. Cody and Donna Johnson restored the historic park, started by the late Bluegrass Hall of Famer, Carlton Haney, after it had laid dormant for many years.
Each day brought great entertainment and excitement to the same grounds that such first generation bluegrassers as Bill Monroe, Earl Scruggs, and Ralph Stanley had played. Thursday, Little Roy returned to play on the same stage he had played with the Lewis Family in the ’70s and ’80s. Also on Thursday, The Kody Norris Show and Creekwater Collective performed.
Friday kicked off with Wildwood Drive, a high energy set of North Carolina pickers that merged former members of two bands: Wildwood Honey and Drive Time. The ensemble featured Tyler Jackson on banjo; his wife, Tori, on fiddle; Ellie Morris, Tori’s sister, on guitar; Doug Young on mandolin; Grayson Tuttle on electric bass; and special guest teenage guitar prodigy, Truett Wagner, on guitar. He filled in for Ellie’s husband who had to work.
Tyler explained, “We have all played together, but this is our first time in this configuration.”
Their collaboration did not disappoint and hopefully, we will hear from this talented group of musicians and vocalists.
They were followed by the Will Clark Band that included two previous members of the late Terry Baucom’s Dukes of Drive: Clark and Clint Coker. In addition to hard driving tunes, Clark kept up lively banter. As he sang the classic Doin’ My Time, he switched up the lyrics to sing, “I’m gonna swing it like John Duffey”. Then he referenced their stick bass as “our bass on Ozempic.’
A nice surprise collaboration, the Camp Springs Bluegrass Band, came next. A group of seasoned musicians including dobroist David Nance (formerly of Jimmy Martin’s Sunny Mountain Boys), fiddler Johnny Ridge (formerly of Bass Mountain Boys and Malpass Brothers), and mandolinist Nick Goad (formerly of Sideline) brought two powerful sets of classic bluegrass music. This powerhouse group also included Matt Boswell, a talented 15-year-old guitarist; along with his dad, Matthew (Starlett Boswell’s brother) on guitar, and a young JD Crowe clone banjo picker, Ethan Handy.
The second day of music also featured girl power on banjos with Grace Van’t Hof hammering the five-string with Chris Jones & the Night Drivers, followed by the most awarded recipient of IBMA’s Banjo Player of the Year, Kristin Scott Benson, with the Grascals. Dolly Parton’s former bluegrass band paid her a nice tribute with their collaborative creation, Broken Angels.
Jamie Johnson stressed, “We owe our careers to Dolly Parton, for hiring us and taking us all over the world. Thank God for Dolly!”
Then former band mate, Terry Eldredge, joined the Grascals for a couple of tunes before they closed out the second day of memorable music.
Saturday kicked off with The Brothers Young, followed by The Bays Mountain Cut-Ups whose set was “cut” short by a brief thunderstorm which dropped the late summer heat by about 20 degrees, and made the remainder of the day much more comfortable. After a short break for the weather, the Junior Sisk Band took the stage and was followed by the Lonesome River Band.
Sammy Shelor stated, “It’s great to look across this hill. It takes me back 45 years.”
During LRB’s first set, the house briefly lost sound in the middle of a song. Without losing a beat, Jesse Smathers and Adam Miller walked to the front of the stage and continued to play acoustically until the audio resumed.
Following supper break, Bays Mountain Cut-Ups returned with a high-energy and entertaining expanded set due to having been cut short because of the storm. With Max Silverstein filling in for Josh Gooding (who had a conflicting appointment), the band was comprised of the first edition of Seth Mulder’s Midnight Run: Colton Powers-banjo, Ben Watlington-guitar, and Max Etling-bass. All “cut” their teeth playing together, first at ETSU, and then at Ole Smokey Distillery.
Closing out the festival, Authentic Unlimited offered 90 minutes of their best. A humorous incident occurred when Jesse Brock took a hot break on the mandolin and was surrounded with smoke from Lucy Lindblom’s fog machine.
Jerry Cole teased, “You’re picking too hard, Jesse!”
Not only is Cody Johnson a promoter, he is a baseball coach. One of his players and fellow church members, 14-year-old Levi McKinney, is suffering from cancer. Johnson held a raffle with a prize of a lifetime ticket to all future bluegrass events at Camp Springs Blue Grass Park. The raffle raised $5,758 to aid the youth in his medical expenses.
Next up, Tony Rice MusicFest will be held at Camp Springs on Memorial Day weekend. The history and the music will continue thanks to the vision and hard work of Cody and Donna Johnson.
