JUST AS EVERY FOOTBALL FAN should visit Wembley once in a lifetime and every Moslem should make the journey to Mecca, then every bluegrass fan should make the time to visit the International Bluegrass Music Association’s annual World Of Bluegrass (IWOB) in Kentucky. Be warned however you will get very little sleep as music goes on 24 hours a day.

The IBMA events were held in Owensboro from 1986 to 1996 however, in 1997, when difficulties were experienced, the events were transferred to Louisville. The IWOB event has long been called a seven day bluegrass music ‘family reunion’ when a cumulative total of about 20, 000 people focus on the three major events, the Trade Show, the IBMA Awards Show and the Bluegrass Fan Fest.

Brian Barker with his hero J.D.Crowe

Imagine my feelings in October last year when my wife, Lynda, suggested we have separate holidays in 1999 as we had experienced so many problems in getting people to cover our business, (we run a small post office) while we went away last year. Providing I did not spend as much as last time on Compact Discs I could return to the IWOB which I last attended in 1995.

Finally the great day came and I flew, via Chicago, to Music City USA, Nashville where I saw Blue Highway and The Reno Brothers at the Station Inn before touring through Tennessee, N Carolina, Virginia and finally to Louisville, Kentucky. En route I visited Sneedsville, the birthplace of the larger-than-life bluegrass artist, Jimmy Martin, saw Raymond Fairchild perform in Maggie Valley, several local groups, visited County Records and saw many of the places featured in song.

The first three days of IWOB consist of lunch time and evening concerts, given by emerging bands and established bands that have a new project out that their label wishes to promote, together with the trade show. This consists of booths run by Record Labels, luthiers, publishers such as Bluegrass Unlimited and Bluegrass Now, and a variety of other, bluegrass related, booths. During the day there are also workshops on every subject you can think of ranging from ‘Starting your own Bluegrass Business’ through ‘Brilliant Marketing Plans for Event Producers’ to ‘The Politics of Music’.

For me the highlights of the first three days organised concerts were Mountain Heart, a great new traditional band, Continental Divide, who have a new line up with a great stage presence and a more traditional sound, and Women in Bluegrass. Picture this line up together on stage, The Stevens Sisters, Lynn Morris, Claire Lynch, Rhonda Vincent, Laurie Lewis and Missy Raines……. knockout. Lynn Morris suggested they may record under the name of either Longboob or Boobview (pun on all-male supergroup Longview!) but then immediately retracted it.

Following the organised concerts there were numerous small concerts, starting at midnight and going on into the wee small hours, in hotel suites. These tended to be given by groups who were not appearing on the scheduled programme and I saw concerts by The Stevens Sisters, Larry Cordle, Continental Divide, The Chapmans and Gary Ferguson, amongst others. There were also jam sessions wherever you turned.

On the Thursday I went on a Deluxe Motor Coach Tour to the International Bluegrass Music Museum at Owensboro followed by a visit to Rosine.

The first settlement at the site of Rosine was named Pigeon Roost, apparently because hordes of pigeons lived in Cedar trees just east of the Town. A town was formally set up on September 15, 1873 which became the birthplace of Bill Monroe and of Bluegrass music too.

The town graveyard is “the lonesome graveyard” immortalised by Bill in his song Memories of Mother and Dad; it is the resting place of “Uncle Pen” and Bill himself. Nearby is Jerusalem Ridge, after which a brilliant fiddle tune performed by Kenny Baker and Bill Monroe was entitled.

Jimmy Martin and Dell McCoury sing a-capella

Whilst I had developed a love of bluegrass in the late 1960s and early 1970s, through first The Byrds and Dillard and Clark, followed by the Flying Burrito Bros., Country Gazette and the Kentucky Colonels, it was a 1975 concert by Bill Monroe in Liverpool which cemented my love of the music and supplied me with the names of mail order firms who could supply this hard-to-obtain music. Without that concert I would not have been so enthusiastic in Bluegrass and, in turn, would not have ended up with two visits to Kentucky. It therefore seemed fitting to make this pilgrimage to visit Rosine and view the plaque at the Old Barn, which was dedicated to Bill September 21, 1995.

Following the excursion I returned for the IBMA’s big evening and the climax of the week: the Annual Awards Ceremony.

In addition to the presentations we were entertained by top-line artists, including cameo performances by Earl Scruggs, Kenny Baker and Ralph Stanley. Immediately after the show came a celebration party where it was possible to mingle with all the top names in the business - and the beauty of bluegrass is that everyone is approachable.

Great as this was, for me the best part of the night was yet to come as the stars ‘let their hair down’ in the hotel following the party. As I returned to the hotel at 1 a.m. I was greeted by Del McCoury and Jimmy Martin in the foyer singing a-capella songs for anyone who cared to listen. And jam sessions were breaking out all over.

Later in the evening Bobby Hicks was sitting quietly playing fiddle for just four of us. He was soon joined by other musicians. To my delight I stood with Bobby Hicks to one side of me and Eddie Stubbs (ex Johnson Mountain Boys) immediately to my left playing twin fiddle with him on Katy Hill, Faded Love and Grey Eagle. This was an unsurpassable moment!

Bobby Hicks played for just the four of us...

The final three days featured the fan fest with twelve hours a day of magnificent music from 40 top groups, including the likes of Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder, Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, The Lynn Morris Band, Charlie Waller & The Country Gentlemen and others too numerous to mention.

An incident at the very end showed again how bluegrass differs from other art forms. I was saying good bye to Dan Hays and Nancy Cardwell (both IBMA officers who had been major figures in arranging the week) and thanking them for their work in the week so enjoyable. Alan Stack of Rarely Herd was also with them and he actually thanked me for sitting in the front row during his act... surely it should have been me thanking him for the entertainment!

Following the finish of Fan Fest I returned to Nashville for a few days of leisure and a chance to catch up on lost sleep before flying home to bring back the happy memories with my photographs and CDs to dream that in the year 2000 there is another ‘World of Bluegrass’.

Brian Barker, Santon, Isle of Man. Photos copyright © Brian Barker

1st Jan 2000