THE 1998 YORKSHIRE DALES BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL, held in July at Silsden, had some new content and first-time elements. Primarily it is the Festival of British Bands and continues with success along these lines. Our regular top Brit bands, which include Down County Boys, Acme Band, Missing strings, Band Like Alice, Backwater Band, Generation Gap and Ken Tardley Playboys, are all regular performers at this event. But this year they were joined by five other Bands, which I will review in alphabetical order.

Bakers Fabulous Boys are fast becoming the "new kids on the block" not only in terms of musicianship but also for a exciting and entertaining set. There’s no settling in for a quiet night when they get on the stage. Lorraine Baker has put together a nucleus of great musicians from some previous good bands to create the present line up, Johnny Hulme (banjo, ex Tom Travis Band) and the Williams boys Stuart (guitar) and Russell (mandolin). The last two graduated from The Planktones but also play with my band King Arthur and His Knights of Bluegrass. The way she plays that bass on stage it’s hard to believe that it wasn’t so many years ago that Lorraine didn’t play bluegrass music. Her first entry into Bluegrass-related music was with The Southgators, a country-blues band, playing at weddings, barbecues and Barmitzvahs. BFB’S are 5 star performers and well recommended.

Maybe it did rain - but it cleared up sufficiently for the stalwarts to
have their regular Barbecue! Extreme left: Newly-weds The Forsters!

Jane On Thunder are four very talented and gifted young musicians who play their brand of music with enthusiasm and verve. Far from the old tradition of Bluegrass in the choice of material, they provided a nice contrast to the weekend line-up of more regular Bluegrass bands. Their reworking of a number of classic numbers no doubt brought a few tuts to the purists, but young people like to be controversial anyway and I enjoyed the set very much. Their guitar, mandolin and banjo picking was well rehearsed and executed, and held together by solid double bass playing. The stage presence and introductions needs to be a little more confident; their stage nerves were very apparent. All in all a great performance and a good addition to any festival.

The Bluegrass Brothers. My first thoughts when they entered the stage were “Is this a rework of the Duffey Bros. act that has entertained around the loosely associated Bluegrass-Country scene for quite a few years?” At the end of the show I felt I had witnessed a very talented performance. There were new songs, old songs, reworked songs and a blend of singing and playing that made this line up stand out as a band that had really got it together in more ways than one. The undoubted talent of the two sets of brothers making up the band made the performance one to look forward to when they next ascend a stage. If they are playing a venue near to you, go and see them for yourself don’t just take my word.

Whitehouse Reunion is a Family Band, plus 1 adopted musician. It is well suited to a family-oriented Festival and it’s good to see a band that doesn’t include the best banjo, best guitar, best mandolin, best dobro or best bass player in the world. They have a homespun talent that is synonymous with what Bluegrass music is about, playing and singing for enjoyment, not only for themselves, but for their audiences. They probably won’t ever top the bill at a festival but their choice and execution of material in their set was good to hear and they have well balanced harmonies, as well as being real nice people! I enjoyed them!

The first of the new elements I mentioned above was the sound, which this year were provided by Hipposound, alias John and Moira Wirtz. The sound overall was very good and I have always felt that a Bluegrass Ear is required to produce correctly a good acoustic sound and this is what we got. 9 out of 10 for effort.

The second new element was the Rain, but then again the Yorkshire Dales Festival are always in the forefront of firsts and this was a first for this festival.

Arthur Robinson, Scarborough

Updated 23rd Jan 1999