Green River Festival promises to present music, crafts and foodDate: 7/6/2017
GREENFIELD – For the twenty-first year, the campus of Greenfield Community College comes alive from July 14 through July 16 with the crafts, food, children’s activities, and dynamic music of the Green River Festival. The Mavericks, Lake Street Dive, Joe Russo’s Almost Dead, The Funky Meters, and Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams lead a lineup guaranteeing a history-making weekend.
The Infamous Stringdusters will be riding the crest of the bluegrass world. Released in January 2017, the Denver, CO-based band’s eighth album, “Laws of Gravity” reached the top of Billboard’s bluegrass chart and spurred a follow-up, “Laws of Gravity: Live,” featuring re-workings of its thirteen tracks.
“We were still making new discoveries,” said mandolin player Chris Pandolfi. “Improvising is just slow songwriting. It’s the most thoughtful, creative process but we also have another tool – spontaneous creation. Those things come together so the songs continue to evolve. That’s the beauty of playing in a live band.
“The more you embrace improvisation, and take that ride, the more you see how a song is a blank slate. It offers opportunities for complexity, more of your own statement. I listen to those tunes and am amazed at how much of a springboard they are for improvising.”
Emerging from the jam band world, The Infamous Stringdusters stood out from other bands merging roots music, rock, and improvisation. “Our drive has always been to take what we love about bluegrass,” said Pandolfi, “The precision, the feelings you could elicit the way those instruments are played – and refining it along the way. That’s a big part of the consistency, trying to take those dyed-in-the-wool bluegrass techniques and apply them to a more modern concept of songwriting. We have a lot in common with bands like The Yonder Mountain String Band, Railroad Earth, and Greensky Bluegrass but we’re the only ones to cut our teeth on what some people call traditional bluegrass.”
Formed in Boston, while Pandolfi and former guitarist Chris Eldridge attended the Berklee College of Music, The Infamous Stringdusters relocated to Nashville in 2003. “We were playing with Jim Lauderdale, Dolly Parton, Ronnie Bowman, and traditional voices of bluegrass,” said Pandolfi. “That’s how we learned to play our instruments. We tried to get gigs at the Station Inn and sessions on bluegrass albums. There was only one way to do that. That doesn’t mean we’re masters but we put in the time.”
Briarcliff Manor, NY-born Pandolfi has deep New England connections. His grandparents started the Connecticut Opera Association, in Hartford, in 1942. “I didn’t know what bluegrass was when I got my first banjo,” he said. “I got Pete Wernick’s book, ‘Bluegrass Banjo,’ and started to learn rolls. I tried learning Bela Fleck and the Flecktones’ tunes but they were so heavy on technique, I was in over my head. It made more sense to learn songs like ‘Blue Ridge Cabin Home’ and ‘Fireball Mail.’ I learned bluegrass out of necessity but I fell in love with it.”
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