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CHANGE DESPAIR: Suwanne Springfest 2000
By J. D. Edwards (May, 2000)

After last year's Springfest at Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park, I didn't think the lineup could possibly improve. Many of my all-time favorites in the tiny confines of a gorgeous outdoor setting produced enough memories for two lifetimes. I quite simply could not have dreamt up a more perfect festival. Yet somehow Magnolia Music and Entertainment managed to top themselves this year in terms of talent, retaining the best of 1999 while adding several bluegrass legends to the bill.

The music kicked into gear early on Friday so we arrived just past noon. We tried not to miss any music but after setting up camp and eating lunch, we came at the end of a fiddle workshop with Vassar Clements, Tara Nevins (from Donna) and Edward Hunter (from Blueground.) Two outstanding workshops followed, one with Norman Blake on guitar and one with Guy Clark and Verlon Thompson on songwriting. As with the previous Springfest, the workshop stage proved the most intimate and reciprocal setting at the festival, providing ample opportunity for audience inquiries and performer anecdotes.

The main stage heated up later that evening so we took advantage of the down time by cooking a hot dinner. Several familiar faces from the workshop stage warmed things up with early evening sets by Norman Blake and Guy and Verlon. Norman is an authentic champion of old-time blues and Americana music which still came across loud and clear on the larger main stage. (Though it is dwarfed by some of the smaller stages at Merle Fest.) Guy's set was a tighter, slicker rendering of mostly his songs and stories culminating with Steve Earle's wistful "Ft. Worth Blues."

In contrast to the two mellow songwriter sets, Friday night wrapped up with two upbeat party sets. First, Vassar Clements rocked the oak grove with a totally different sound than the previous year. This year, he featured a bluegrass/country band with pedal steel, banjo and mandolin as the backdrop for his wailing fiddle. While I enjoyed last year's jazz big band, this proved a welcome homecoming for the Florida native. Heretical traditionalists Blueground Undergrass took the main stage home that evening as I bobbed back and forth between their set, Donna the Buffalo's Zydeco Experiment on the dance stage and my own campsite. The first day proved nothing short of exhausting with a majority of the music yet to come.

Saturday was the day that I wished I could split myself into three people. Fortunately, I brought two tape decks and ran myself ragged transporting them from stage to stage. For the obsessive audiophile, this festival is extremely kind, throwing out soundboards for all the main stage sets and wherever their equipment permits on the other stages. Again, much of the early action took place on the workshop stage with an assembly of five of the finest songwriters in acoustic music today.

First, Verlon Thompson and Jim Lauderdale shared their sharply contrasting talents and voices and their take on today's Nashville music scene. Both were quite deferential to Music City, as the questioning seemed to dig for some dirt that neither of them seemed willing to dish. However, Verlon awed everyone (including two women who vowed to duke it out over who was his number one fan) with his clean southern drawl, masterful guitar picking and clever humorous songs. Meanwhile, Jim impressed many first-timers to his music with his mysticism, romanticism, spirituality and a powerful soulful voice that at times called to mind a countrified Van Morrison.

Then the small room packed in amid the stuffy humidity for a world-class songwriting summit featuring Peter Rowan, Tim O'Brien and Darrell Scott. Unfortunately, the three spent more time fielding questions than actually playing their songs. But how many opportunities does one have to hear the real stories behind the songs? Anyway, the only flaw was in the scheduling, as they should have allotted these giants far more time than fifty minutes. Nevertheless, it was quite a thrill to hear Darrell's mandolin on Peter's songs or Peter's harmonies on Tim's songs.

Many folks ran out towards the end of this set to make it over to the main stage for Doc Watson's early set. As usual Richard Watson accompanied his grandfather, and the two picked the hell out of some blues-inspired "Docabilly" music. Guy and Verlon followed with another main stage set, accompanied by Darrell Scott on mandolin and vocals for the entire set, although Darrell should have thrown in some of his first-rate songs. Troubadour Norman Blake wowed the crowd again, elevated this time with the musical adrenaline of Tony Rice's guitar work.

Doc and Richard reemerged with their second main stage set of the day and more flatpicking magic. And Darrell Scott and Tim O'Brien followed with a great collaboration celebrating their brand new release, Real Time. After that, Suwannee veteran Peter Rowan took over the main stage with his Texas Trio and the incomparable Tony Rice. And Donna's Zydeco Experiment closed things out Saturday night with their infectious Cajun groove music that left people dancing back to their campsites well after one a.m.

These breathtaking twelve hours of main stage sets without a dinner beak were enough to exhaust even the most charged festival fan in and of themself. But this fan was running back and forth between the main and dance stages, unable to enjoy any set in its entirety. The dance stage cooked hard Saturday evening with a fruitful coupling of Donna and Jim Lauderdale, a two hour extravaganza billed as Vassar and Friends and a Blueground Undergrass closer that went well past midnight. And then there were those late night campfire jams that were rocking into full swing at the Bill Monroe shrine as I trudged back to my campsite for some much-needed sleep.

Sunday's action was confined primarily to the main stage (thank heavens!) Darrell and Verlon served as our morning coffee with some lessons on crafty songwriting. Nashville mainstay Jim Lauderdale had the unfortunate honor of following that classic combination, but his evocative song-styling and rich voice still rang true for his only main stage appearance. And then came the icing on the cake as Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys brought their chapter of the history of bluegrass music to the stage.

Ralph, the greatest living legend of bluegrass, introduced many younger fans to the traditions that he and Bill Monroe popularized more than fifty years ago. Unfortunately, their set was interrupted and ultimately shortened (if you call seventy-five minutes short) by the wicked lightning storm that rolled in from the panhandle. Actually, the storm prompted the cancellation of the rest of Sunday's sets, but we were still quite satisfied despite missing the much-anticipated combination of Rowan, Rice, O'Brien and Clements as well as Donna's last set and the closing jam. In a way though, we were somewhat grateful for the extra time and used it to get a jump on the long ride home.

Once again, Magnolia Music and Entertainment orchestrated one of the finest assemblies of talent anywhere. However, there was one major area of complaint that I would like to register which hopefully isn't a sign of things to come. For the first time this year, checkpoints were set up at each of the entrances to the main seating area, one from the campground and one from the day parking and workshop stage. All bags, backpacks and other items were subjected to intrusive searches every time concertgoers passed through the checkpoints (especially from the day parking.) One of the security personnel even went so far as to say "you don't have any water in that bag, do you?" as I passed through in the early afternoon for the day-long festivities.

Would festival promoters prefer that penniless patrons dehydrate in the scorching Florida sun on the outside chance that vendors miss the opportunity to charge five dollars for a bottle of water? It is absolutely ridiculous that after paying admission and camping (advance prices which skyrocketed fifty percent in one year) that we're told we can't bring in a bottle of water or an apple or an orange to the main stage. That's right, no food whatsoever was permitted into the main concert area. One friend was harassed about her baby's snacks because vendors might have missed out on a small profit.

This practice reeks of greedy profiteering, and it appears as though opportunistic vendors are to blame, possessing the necessary clout to precipitate such an unwarranted search, not to mention the incentive. (My apologies to those legitimate vendors who simply wish to cover their festival costs, not turn a profit and undoubtedly outnumber their parasitic counterparts.) I just wish that organizers and greed merchants understood that after springing for tickets, gas, food, and lodging to get there that not everyone is a walking wallet. Now if only the aggressive and surly panhandlers perched outside the main entrance could realize this as well.

Anyway, I didn't allow the new policy to affect my good time, and without going into too much detail, we all found ways around the ridiculously strict guidelines and enjoyed ourselves as much as humanly possible. I can only hope that the unwelcome change is not a coming trend with Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park as I consider it one of the most beautiful outdoor venues around and was looking forward to many fantastic festivals in the future.