MerleFest 2007: A Preview
By Michael Buffalo Smith
MerleFest 2007, the Americana Music Celebration Presented by Lowe’s, (the 20th annual festival in celebration of the music of the late Merle Watson and his father Doc Watson) will be presented on the campus of Wilkes Community College in Wilkesboro, NC on April 26 - 29, 2007. Those joining Doc Watson and Merle’s son Richard Watson for MerleFest 2007 will include Blue Highway; Sam Bush; Cherryholmes; Elvis Costello; John Cowan Band; Donna The Buffalo; Jerry Douglas; The Duhks; Béla Fleck; Paul Geremia; John Hammond; Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver; Del McCoury Band; Nitty Gritty Dirt Band; Peter Rowan & Tony Rice Quartet; Darrell Scott; the Legendary Earl Scruggs with Family & Friends; Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives; Pam Tillis; The Waybacks; and many others. Just announced is a very special performance by Tony Rice and Alison Krauss and Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas, celebrating the music of Tony’s 35-year career.
MerleFest has been a long time friend of GRITZ Magazine, and is now a friend of SWAMPLAND.COM, the company that GRITZ has happily merged into. Look for a full report following the event, right here in the pages of SWAMPLAND.
In the past, we have featured interviews and features on countless MerleFest performers, including Vince Gill, Bryan Sutton, John Hartford, Claire Lynch, Larry Rice, David Holt, JD Crowe, Jim Van Cleve, Kelly Perdue and a look at women in bluegrass music. Check them out.
The History of MerleFest
In the early dark hours of October 23, 1985, just days before 'Frets Magazine' named him the best finger-picking guitarist of the year in folk, blues, or country music, Eddy Merle Watson rolled his farm tractor on a steep hillside near his home, ending the life of one of the world's great musicians in a tragedy worthy of the blues ballads he loved. MerleFest began in the fall of 1987, two years after Merle’s death, when Wilkes Community College Dean of Development Frederick W. “B” Townes, Bill Young, a close friend and picking buddy of Doc Watson, and Ala Sue Wyke visited the legendary guitarist and his family at their Deep Gap home. Townes and Young broached the idea of a benefit concert at the college to raise funds for a memorial garden in honor of Merle. While Doc seemed receptive, the prospect positively excited his wife, RosaLee, and daughter, Nancy. They suggested that a multi-day festival would more appropriately honor Merle’s memory and his contributions to acoustic music. Thus they decided to invite many of Merle’s musician friends to play in this seminal tribute.
Lots of alarms and confusions followed, but with the assistance of the late Ralph Rinzler the first MerleFest took place in late April of 1988 with a relatively small number of America’s foremost acoustic artists playing on stage in the college’s John A. Walker Center and on the deck of two flatbed trucks in front of the Cabin to a crowd of 4,000 people. MerleFest now involves more than 78,000 participants including more than 100 artists and bands that perform on one or more of the festival’s thirteen stages and annually produces a boost to the regional economy exceeding $15 million.
“Since it hadn’t been that long since Merle had passed away,” Sam Bush, who appeared at the first festival with New Grass Revival, told the Wilkes Journal-Patriot before a recent concert, “our thoughts that first year were basically centered on wanting to be with the Watson family to celebrate Merle’s life. We had gotten to play with Doc and Merle in the ‘70s and ‘80s, so our concern that first year was about Merle and Doc and RosaLee.”
Doc & Merle Watson’s musical style and heritage have been cited many times as the primary reason why musical diversity – spanning American roots music and more — has become a hallmark of MerleFest. This eclectic blending of style and tradition has won Doc, often with Merle, several Grammy Awards, and his taste is evident in the selection of artists who have performed on the festival stages in tribute to his son. Acoustic music aficionados who have attended MerleFest over the years have heard performers as diverse as the Menhaden Chanteymen, who sang work songs of the Afro-American fishing communities in eastern North Carolina, leading singer-songwriters such as Guy Clark and Mary Chapin Carpenter, blues and Celtic musicians like Kelly Joe Phelps and Natalie MacMaster, old-time masters youthful and aged, giants of bluegrass from Bill Monroe, Earl Scruggs, and Ralph Stanley to Sam Bush, Alison Krauss, and Del McCoury, exploratory artists such as Bela Fleck and the Flecktones and Psychograss, and superstars like Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, and Patty Loveless.
Collaborations among the diverse musical talents at the festival have become a regular feature that both musicians and fans look forward to. Doc hosts several Watson Stage celebrations, and many impromptu duets, trios, and quartets occur there, as well as at the other stages. Both performers and audiences have always enjoyed the opportunities for interaction at the festival’s more intimate stages. Many workshops of varied types and topics are scheduled, and award-winning artist Laurie Lewis particularly likes these. As she puts it, “you never know what’s going to happen, what questions people will ask. And you get the chance to play with people you don’t usually perform with.” From its two-stage beginning, MerleFest has evolved to thirteen stages spread across the 150-acre college campus. As the festival grew it added the Pit Stage, the extremely popular Midnight Jam in the John A Walker Community Center on campus, the workshop oriented Creekside Stage, and the Little Pickers area which caters to children young and old. A traditional music and dance stage presented by Old Time Herald Magazine has become a popular feature, virtually a festival within the festival. In 1996 it spawned a separate Dance Stage where visitors can learn and participate in traditional and contemporary dance. The MerleFest Outreach Program now carries MerleFest performers to every public school in Wilkes County on Thursday and Friday of festival week. In 1998, the festival debuted the new, and now very popular, Lounge Stage located in the college’s Learning Resources and Student Center.
In 1992, North Carolina Public Television, under the direction of producer Michael Sheehan, worked with the community college staff to tape all four days of the festival. The crew shot more than 125 hours of videotape, then edited down to an eight-part series, “Pickin’ for Merle.” The series has been shown on public television stations nationwide. A two-hour highlight video of the festival was also prepared. Since then the audiences traveling to Wilkesboro each year have grown in increasingly large in number. Public radio has aired segments of MerleFest in various areas of North Carolina, and in 1994 the crew of the National Public Radio’s “E-Town,” hosted by Nick Forster, was on location to tape at the festival. Then, in 2002, the Doc Watson 15th Anniversary Jam presented Saturday night on the Watson Stage was recorded live with the intent of using that one of a kind footage to create a festival video and audio project for retail marketing and distribution. Those unforgettable performances are now available for purchase on DVD, VHS tape, and music CD during the festival, year round on the MerleFest web site, and at various retail outlets around the country.
Audiences for MerleFests of the past have been as diverse as the musicians they come to hear. Many fans are of the baby boom generation, but listeners of all ages can be seen. When surveyed as to which performers they’d like to see at future festivals, responses range over the musical spectrum from Bela Fleck to Dolly Parton.
Despite its enormous success, MerleFest has continuously made improvements and risked experiments. The Hillside Stage, for example, moved to its fourth location in 1998 adjacent to WCC’s Learning Resources and Student Center. It found a home there with large and enthusiastic audiences. Over the years, the once flood-prone soil of the Watson Stage area has been built up, the entire festival entrance scenario changed, and infrastructure painstakingly improved. In 1998 extensive renovations to the Watson Stage physically raised the elevation of the stage to more than six feet, which significantly improved visibility for all. In addition, the festival provided, for the first time in 1998, “assigned seats” (reserved) for 4-day ticket holders who chose this option. This step alone sped up bus routes by freeing up in excess of 12,000 bus seats previously filled with chairs over the course of the festival. This also results in the elimination of the old height restriction necessitated by the low elevation of the Watson Stage. The “assigned seating” area in front of the Watson Stage provides for maximum participation in that area and reduces early morning anxiety.
MerleFest 2000 brought many changes beginning with eliminating the gravel walkway behind the sound mixing tower, the addition of more assigned seating, and significant improvement of sight lines for the general admission audience. New concrete aisles were extended outward in an effort to improve visibility and traffic flow for all. A new, permanent, covered Creekside Stage and sloped seating area was built. Also, a new paved road from Hillside to the on-campus RV campground was completed for MerleFest 2000, which also witnessed the debut of the R&R Tent which has become a very popular destination. MerleFests 2001 and 2002 also contributed much to the maturation of the festival in many ways. High quality LCD projection of Watson Stage performances was located stage left allowing fans vivid close up shots of incomparable musical mastery. An expanded and relocated Gift Shop now provides festival participants far more choices of MerleFest logo clothing products and memorabilia. XM satellite radio now broadcasts live across the country on its bluegrass channel and Charter Communications provides real time internet access from its mobile gateway. Many additional sidewalks, portable restrooms, and other fan-friendly capital improvements on campus were introduced in 2001 and 2002. Other recent changes and additions of note include a reinvigorated Midnight Jam, the expansion of the popular Pickin’ Place and its activities, the introduction of the massively popular Teen Dance on Saturday night, a new volunteer headquarters called Flattop’s Getaway, and significant technological upgrading of the official on-campus MerleFest radio station, WSIF 90.9 FM.
As can be seen, the history of MerleFest, as is true of all things, is constantly evolving and metamorphosing. What isn’t changing, and never will, is its mission. The festival remains committed to producing a high quality diversified American roots based musical experience fostering interest in a variety of musical genres representative of the repertoire of Doc and Merle Watson. Through public school outreach, MerleFest takes the acoustic experience to the young people of northwest North Carolina in an effort to further educate and cultivate an interest in music. The festival is committed to new ideas in music and associated cultural experiences, including arts and crafts representative of the heritage of western North Carolina. MerleFest supports the Eddy Merle Watson Memorial Garden for the Senses and provides funds for the Garden’s upkeep. The garden provides an interpretive, educational, artistic, and cultural experience for the visually impaired, as well as the sighted. The festival serves as an economic catalyst for the surrounding community and has a significant impact each year. MerleFest remains committed to promoting the work and efforts of non-profit community organizations and the Mission of Wilkes Community College. Through its web site, the festival provides an opportunity for a deeper appreciation of the event and a vehicle for year round communication and connection. MerleFest will consistently strive to present the best possible “Americana” music experience.
Visit www.merlefest.org for more information and to order tickets.
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