Thursday, August 12, 2010

Bluegrass is keeping it about the music

By Adam Hammer • aehammer@stcloudtimes.com • August 12, 2010




RICHMOND — The sounds of bluegrass — from the pickin’ banjo to the wailing fiddle — will resonate through the trees this weekend for the Minnesota Bluegrass & Old Time Music Festival’s 31st annual event at El Rancho Mañana Campground.
Keeping with its tradition of having a theme each year, the four-day festival starting today is dubbed “Bluegrass Resonates In Minnesota” and will pay tribute to an iconic instrument in bluegrass — the resophonic guitar.
If you’re not a guitar player or a bluegrass, country or blues music fanatic, the term resophonic guitar probably doesn’t mean much to you
Even if you’ve never heard the term, chances are you’ve heard the unmistakable metallic-acoustic slide sound, like on Merle Haggard’s 2007 album “The Bluegrass Sessions” featuring Dobro player Rob Ickes. (Resophonic guitars are often referred to as Dobro guitars after the original builders from Czechoslovakia, the Dopyera Brothers. Dobro is now a trademark of Gibson guitars.)
Ickes, a Northern California native with bluegrass roots in North Dakota, is Minnesota Bluegrass & Old Time Music Festival’s main attraction on Saturday along with his Grammy-nominated band Blue Highway.

The festival is expected to draw about 5,000 people.Full story

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