The Low-Tech Times

Last Thursday, I went out of my way to stop at the Birchmere on the way home from work to purchase tickets for an upcoming bluegrass show featuring Chatham County Line and Crooked Still.

While buying the tickets in person took a little of my time and some gas to get there, I refuse to pay the $8 service charge per ticket that I would have had to pay if I ordered through Ticketmaster.com. It was a principled decision.

Bluegrass is an old-fashioned, low-tech genre of music played on acoustic instruments. Typically, the sound features bass, guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, and harmony vocals.

This weekend, a friend of mine working for the Prince William County, Virginia government is putting on a bluegrass festival to benefit historic preservation efforts at Bristoe Station Battlefield. The lineup for the show includes:

• Skystone — a great traditional band I’ve seen many times at Tiffany Tavern in Old Town Alexandria
• The Blue Ridge Ramblers — a band originating from southwest Virginia. I’ve never heard their music, but I have heard good things about them
• The Page County Ramblers — another band I’ve never heard perform
• Leon Morris — I’ve never heard him perform, but I understand he’s a longtime local performer

Here is additional information on the festival:

Prince William County Bluegrass Festival

Phone: 540-895-0247, Email: mwmdjm@aol.com
PWC Fairgrounds Route 234 , Manassas, Va
Phone: 571-749-7156
Time: 11a-4p Saturday, June 14, 2008

Also, the DC Bluegrass Union calendar is showing that Dr. Ralph Stanley and The Clinch Mountain Boys are playing on Friday, June 13, 2008 at the Strasburg Theater in Strasburg, Va and on Saturday, June 14th, 2008 at The Birchmere in Alexandria, VA. Dr. Ralph Stanley is truly a living legend in bluegrass music whose popularity has surged in recent years after the success of the Oh Brother, Where Art Thou movie. I’ve enjoyed seeing their shows on several occasions.

My wife and I went to a show last Thursday at Jammin Java featuring Chatham County Line. Chatham County Line is a young bluegrass band that incorporates some very traditional bluegrass elements, like playing around a single microphone. They are one of my favorite bands these days and I own two of their albums. Both are highly recommended.

Route 23 is an excellent album, featuring several fine songs including Nowhere To Sleep, Engine 709, Make Some Pay, Born to Be With You, and the title track. Route 23, the song, tells a moving story of a gas station along a two-lane road that gets bypassed by a new four-lane highway.

Speed of the Whippoorwill is another fine album featuring some more great tunes, including Company Blues, Rock Pile, and one of my favorites, Lonesome in Caroline.

This was the second time we saw Chatham County Line at Jammin Java after first reading about the band in Bluegrass Unlimited. This time, their set was fairly short but was still enjoyable. They played before a second band, The Waybacks, performed. At the beginning of their set, The Waybacks experienced several minutes of technical sound difficulties with amplification of their plug-in instruments. Perhaps if they opted to play around an old-fashioned single mic, the problem would have been avoided.