Bluegrass legends to appear at Joe Val Festival

Date: 2/16/2017

Take a break from the frigid winter cold when banjos, fiddles, mandolins, guitars, and upright basses take over the Sheraton-Framingham Hotel, from Feb. 17 through Feb. 19, for the thirty-second annual Joe Val Bluegrass Festival. Well-organized workshops, artist showcases, a kid’s academy (for budding musicians between 5 and 17), and a stellar mainstage lineup are only the crest of a bluegrass experience that includes music in nearly inch of the castle-looking hotel.

Longtime festival favorites Frank Solivan and Dirty Kitchen, Joe Mullins and the Radio Ramblers, and Danny Paisley and the Southern Grass will be making return appearances, as will Nashville-based sextet, The Grascals, who backed Dolly Parton on her bluegrass outings.

Doyle Lawson will be leading the latest edition of his band, Quicksilver, as headliners on Saturday night. A former member of Jimmy Martin and the Sunny Mountain Boys, J.D. Crowe and the Kentucky Mountain Boys (The New South), and The Country Gentlemen, the IBMA (International Bluegrass Music Association) Hall of Fame inductee has been on the cutting edge of hill country music for more than a half decade. “Bluegrass is the most honest, emotionally sincere music there is,” the Tennessee-born mandolinist/vocalist told the writer. “It’s an American product from the get-go. It has a lot of integrity to it.”

While they’re adept at quick-paced instrumentals, Lawson and Quicksilver are true masters of bluegrass harmonizing and gospel music. “What we’re doing is telling stories using melody,” said Lawson. “Rather than reading a book, we’re singing. I’ve been driven to find songs that have something to say, not just words thrown together to make a rhyme.”

Sunday’s concert is the real treat. Two years after Gaven Largent replaced Rob Ickes on Dobro (resonator guitar), Blue Highway has continued to bridge the roots of bluegrass with more progressive innovation, exemplified by their 2016 CD, “Original Traditional.”

Formed in 1994 by Kingsport, TN-born Tim Stafford, who played with championship-winning Dusty Miller in 1990 and with Alison Krauss and Union Station (1990-1992), they were a smash from the beginning. Their debut CD, It’s a Long Long Road” topped the Bluegrass Unlimited charts. The IBMA named it “album of the year” and the group “emerging artist.”

“This is Blue Highway’s twenty-third year,” said Stafford, “That’s hard to believe. We were able to keep the original members together until Rob left. Jason left for a couple of years but he came back. Wayne’s had health issues – heart attack and colon cancer – but he’s in great shape. He’s got a lot more energy and he’s lost weight. He’s mean and lean, still singing great. Gaven played since he was five (he was 19 when he joined). He never plays anything the same.

“It’s as close as I’ll ever come to playing with Flatt & Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys,” said Jerry Douglas, the Ohio-born and Nashville-based Dobro player/producer. “They were my Beatles.”

Guitarist/lead vocalist Shawn Camp added, “The way Earl Scruggs played banjo was like it was a car going down the road, the tires squeaking. When we play those songs, we feel the power he and Flatt made coming back from the audience. It’s a real wall of sound.”