Winter is over, and festival season for 2013 will kick into high gear this weekend with the aptly named Durango Bluegrass Meltdown.
Now in its 19th year, it remains a heralded but still under-the-radar event that continues to showcase up-and-comers and established national bluegrass acts. The festival will start Friday with music at Durango Arts Center and Henry Strater Theatre, and will continue through the weekend with all day tunes in those venues as well as the Wild Horse Saloon and the Elks Lodge on Saturday.
Typical festival fare will feature workshops in the downstairs area of the Strater, the barn dance Saturday night in the Elks Lodge and the unofficial fan favorite, the ad-lib picking sessions that will start in the Strater lobby Friday and continue into the wee hours of the weekend mornings. Even if you consider yourself a night owl, its most likely the musicians dedicated to picking way past midnight will surely outlast you.
Its impossible to highlight everything, but among those performers not to miss are The New Reeltime Travelers, a new version of an old-time string band that played Meltdowns past, and Bluegrass 101 featuring Brad Folk, who used to front Colorado bluegrass band Open Road.
Rounding out my personal favorites is Jeff Scroggins, celebrating 10 years of coming to Durango for the third weekend in April. Scroggins and his band, Colorado, features Scroggins on banjo, Greg Blake on guitar and vocals, Annie Savage on vocals and fiddle, K.C. Groves on bass and Tristan Scroggins, Jeffs son, on mandolin. The Meltdown coincides with the release of their latest record.
Scroggins grew up a rock n roll kid playing guitar. When he picked up a banjo, his musical life shifted toward bluegrass. Since then, hes won more than 40 festival banjo competitions, including Winfield, the bluegrass festival held every September in Kansas.
I was more like a heavy-metal guitar player, Scroggins said. I bought a banjo at a garage sale, I saw it, and I thought it would be fun, I always liked it. It took over my life, I fell in love with it and pretty soon it was all I did. At this point, I rarely perform on any other instrument. It wasnt my first thing, but once I found it, I was really into it.
When life made Scroggins a father, playing banjo moved to the back burner. It was his son and now band-mate Tristan, who took an interest in bluegrass that got Scroggins back in the game. Some dads may yearn to coach their sons baseball team or perhaps lead the scout troop. For Scroggins, sharing the stage with his son in a high-energy bluegrass band is the bonding experience; its what started the streak of a decades worth of Meltdowns, which is his favorite festival.
There are top level acts that you get to see in such an intimate environment, and also when I perform, I enjoy that same feeling, he said. Its nice to play for 10,000 people somewhere, but its really fun to play for 300 extremely interested people.
They are interested, passionate about it, and sophisticated and knowledgeable. Its held a special place for me because its something Tristan, and I started going and it became an annual event. As Tristan got interested, it got me back into it, eventually in a bigger way. The Meltdown was the beginning of that. It got me back into playing on a serious level.
Liggett_b@fortlewis.edu. Bryant Liggett is a freelance writer and KDUR station manager.
If you go
Friday-Sunday: Durango Bluegrass Meltdown at the Henry Strater Theatre, Durango Arts Center and Wild Horse Saloon. Weekend Pass $60, Saturday only $45, Sunday only $20. For tickets and information, visit www.durangomeltdown.com.
