CMT Blog: Merlefest

Merlefest is probably the world’s largest Americana and roots music festival. I was at the very first Merle Watson Memorial Festival (as it was called in those days) 21 years ago. The first concert featured jams with Chet Atkins, Doc, Earl Scruggs, Mac Wiseman, Jim Shumate, Sam Bush, Tony Rice, Jerry Douglas, Grandpa Jones, Marty Stuart, Newgrass Revival, John Hartford, Mark O’Connor and others inside the Walker Center and outside on a flatbed truck stage. I remember sitting on hay bales outside watching the whole thing go down. A few years later, I was playing Merlefest as a member of Alison Krauss and Union Station. One particular year was memorable because the mainstage show consisted of us and Ronnie Milsap, who just murdered the crowd with a solo guitar version of “Knoxville Girl.”

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5:30 a.m. That’s a hard hour to get up when you know a long day at school lies just beyond your rising! Especially when you’ve just spent the last three days at Merlefest in Wilkesboro, N.C. — one of the most exciting festivals I get to attend all year. This year’s Merlefest was indeed a very busy one, but a total blast of many sorts!

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Festival season has started in full force, and our conditioning for outdoor venues, coupled with multiple consecutive dates, has begun. Our weekend started with our departure from Nashville to Ladysmith, Va. Though rain had pounded the festival grounds just days before, it turned into a perfect sunny day. We performed two shows, our last being the festival closer, before we boarded the Martha White Bluegrass Express, en route to Merlefest in Wilkesboro, N.C. Merlefest is completely different than any other venue we ever play, and even more so this year. Read more…

Merlefest is one of those festivals that is sort of addicting. It was my very first music festival back in 2005, and I have not missed a year since. Set in the hills of Wilkesboro, N.C., at Wilkes Community College, Merlefest is a celebration of all types of roots music. It’s an absolutely beautiful place for a festival, and a very nice get-away from the hustle and bustle of Music City.

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It was short but sweet for The Infamous Stringdusters this weekend. A last minute call to play on the Opry forced a hasty retreat from Merlefest, but that didn’t stop the band from packing four days’ worth of picking into two. On Thursday morning, we played a middle school for the school outreach program (Go Falcons!) then dashed down to the festival for our 5:45 mainstage set. That was our only set of the day, so I got a plate of Southern cooking and a good seat for Marty Stuart and the Fabulous Superlatives. It had been awhile since I had seen him, but Marty did not disappoint. I put him at the top of my must-see list for this summer.

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The very first band I saw at South By Southwest (SXSW) this year really knocked me out. They’re called the Barker Band, and they’re from London. Fronted by handsome twin brothers, with several musicians on support (including their dad), the band’s a little bit ragged, but right all the same. Reminds me of Old Crow Medicine Show’s early monthly gigs days at Station Inn, as well as the energy of the Avett Brothers. The Barker Band could go just as far. I wouldn’t dare call it bluegrass because almost all the instruments are plugged in, but a banjo occasionally surfaces, and if they played a festival like Merlefest, the place would go totally crazy.

They started off with “Who Will Watch the Old Home Place?”, which I recognized from a Laurie Lewis album. But while she sings about how sad it was to tear it down, this band seemed awfully content to tear it up. I’m listening on repeat to “No Matter How Bad It Gets” on their SXSW page as I write this. They have quite a few more songs on their MySpace page. Chew some gum, drop it on the floor and stand on it — and you can pretend that you’re in the same Austin bar hearing them too. They gave away CDs at the end of the show, but since I was in the back of the room (as always), I didn’t get up there in time, but hopefully I’ll catch up with them again.

Incidentally, they’re featured in a documentary called We Dreamed America, along with some other UK bands “in the gritty underworld of the New British Country movement,” according to the Web site. Shot for $400, the movie premiered at the SXSW film festival yesterday, and it’s showing again on Friday. I met the filmmakers while the band was sound-checking, and invited them to Nashville, since they drove down from New York City to get the American experience, and they’re heading back next week, via New Orleans and Memphis. Naturally, in the meantime, they are loving Austin. Me too.

The Barker Band on SXSW

The Barker Band on MySpace