AJ Lee & Blue Summit at the 2024 Earl Scruggs Music Festival – photo © G. Nicholas Hancock
The 2024 Earl Scruggs Music Festival held at the Tryon International Equestrian Center in Mill Spring, NC over Labor Day Weekend is now a wrap. I was there on Friday and Saturday to cover and photograph the Junior Appalachian Musicians (JAM) and the Young Appalachian Musicians (YAM) participation in the event for their third year in a row.
In addition to that, I was able to catch the performances of some of the 30 other main acts the ESMF had to offer.
Among the current and former JAM and YAM youngsters that were featured on the Foggy Mountain Stage, The Wilder Flower, Creekwater Collective, and The Biscuit Eaters, were standouts to me.
The Wilder Flower, graduates of YAM in South Carolina, features Danielle Yother on guitar and vocals, Molly Johnson on banjo and vocals, Madeline Dierauf on fiddle and vocals, and Norbert McGettigan III on bass. They are a classy act. Their instrumental abilities are top notch and the young ladies’ lovely harmonies, especially on their original material, are crowd pleasers.
Creekwater Collective made its debut appearance at ESMF and turned out to be crowd pleasers also. Three of the youngsters, Ayden Chappell (15) on banjo, Lilly Anne Svrlinga (14) on guitar, and Judson Stone (13) on mandolin, are products of the YAM program in Pickens County, SC. Guitarist JonPaul Sepulveda (15) from Travelers Rest over in Greenville County, SC, learned his lead guitar skills through private and online lessons. Having been performing together for only 11 months, Creekwater Collective is developing an entertaining stage presence that many older bands have not yet developed. Their performances on their instruments are remarkable considering their ages, and they told me their next goal is to get their vocals and harmonies to a higher level. They must be doing something right because they were booked earlier this year on bluegrass festivals in North Carolina, Georgia, and Ohio, and will be playing at the third Grits ‘n Grass Mountain Music Festival in Pickens, SC on Friday, September 13.
The Biscuit Eaters hail from Lowgap in Surry County, NC are a family band whose five youngsters range in age from eight to 15 and they are all products of the Elkin (NC) JAM program of which their mom, Meredith Wilkerson, is a fiddle instructor. The three boys, Samuel, Joseph, and Silas are multi-instrumentalists often switching off on banjo, fiddle or mandolin, while Maggie sticks mostly with the guitar and little Molly plays fiddle and wins over audiences with her flatfoot dancing. This was The Biscuit Eaters’ second appearance at ESMF delighting audiences at the Foggy Mountain Stage, and later playing two numbers with Chris Jones & The Night Drivers on the main Flint Hill Stage. After the kids’ second tune, and their breaking the cuteness meter, Jones said, “How do you follow that?”
And now on to three outstanding, in my opinion, ESMF main acts.
Darrell DeShawn Camp. Better known as Shawn Camp, 58, and lead vocalist for The Earls of Leicester. Camp’s one-hour solo set on the smaller and more intimate Foggy Mountain Stage late Friday afternoon alone was worth the whole general admission three-day ticket price. The man is simply spellbinding. The wonderful lyrics of his original songs; that great baritone voice; that very much more than adequate guitar picking; that outrageously rich and deep tone of that 1947 Martin guitar. Put all that together and it will bring tears to anyone who knows and appreciates good music and good songwriting.
AJ Lee & Blue Summit. I have been waiting 10 years to see and hear AJ Lee in person. I got to do that Saturday night at the huge ESMF Flint Hill Stage. The Santa Cruz, CA-based Lee and her band have, at last, begun to get and play booking dates on the East Coast. And AJ, in my opinion, has begun to get the recognition for her lovely voice and songwriting ability on a national level, that I think she deserved years ago. Rounding out Blue Summit are Scott Gates on guitar and vocals, Sullivan Tuttle on guitar and vocals, Jan Purat on fiddle, and of course, AJ on mandolin, guitar, and vocals. For those who aren’t familiar with AJ and the band, maybe you can catch one of their shows listed online.
Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives. I first met Marty Stuart at the Lavonia, GA bluegrass festival in 1971 when Marty was 13 and playing with The Sullivans, a Mississippi bluegrass gospel group. I have run into Marty several times over the years as he progressed through his musical journey with Lester Flatt, Johnny Cash, and later with his own band. Marty and the Superlatives were headliners Saturday night at ESMF and the audience and I were not disappointed. Marty, now 65, and crew, are the definition of great stage presence. And you won’t find better musicianship anywhere.
The ESMF is huge. It covers a lot of acreage and presents more than 30 top bluegrass and country acts on the program. Please note that the official name of the event is Earl Scruggs Music Festival, not Earl Scruggs Bluegrass Festival. However, bluegrass is the dominant genre played and featured at the event. Kudos to the ESMF staff and volunteers for their organizing ability, and for their patience with and courtesy toward the thousands of people who show up to enjoy the music.
And now one sour note. Sound people. ESMF is based on the memory and accomplishments of Earl Scruggs, a man who is generally considered a pioneer in the three-finger style of five-string banjo picking, and certainly one of the best bluegrass banjo pickers that has ever lived; a man who probably propelled bluegrass banjo picking to into the minds of the American public more than any other human being. While there are some country and Americana groups featured at ESMF, the prime offering is bluegrass and bluegrass-based music. Bluegrass music is not rock music. Bluegrass festivals are not rock music festivals or concerts. Therefore, why are sound people (engineers?) today obsessed with putting on light shows when providing the sound for the audience at these bluegrass-based events? Good bluegrass, Americana, or whatever you want to call it, music doesn’t need a dazzling and blinding light show to get the audience’s attention. The music will do that by itself.
I found the light show thing at the Foggy Mountain Stage much more distracting than at the larger Flint Hill Stage. The Foggy Mountain Stage provides an intimate, close-up atmosphere between the performers and audience members. That was destroyed Saturday night by bright and pulsating lights positioned behind the performers that shined right into the faces of the audience members. I found it annoying and left without waiting to see a band I wanted to see perform on that stage that evening.
We will have additional coverage from the Earl Scruggs Music Festival throughout this week.
