Springfest on the Suwannee - Part One
Just over a week ago I was shivering in the cold North East after 3 weeks on the road with Altan and a journey that gave us all a short but very real blast of winter. Today I have some color in my normally pasty white knobbly knees and a weekend of great tunes running through my head.

I first went to the Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park last October for Magnoliafest and if you read my review of that you see that I fell in love with the place and the festival itself. So I headed south once again to Florida with a mixture of excitement and a little fear that Randy and Beth's other event Suwannee Springfest couldn't live up to that first great weekend.

I needn't have worried. All the signs were good as we rolled into camp on Friday morning. The weather was very warm and sunny and those at the gate who welcomed us and gave us our press credentials could not have been cheerier.

Last time round we opted for the designated quiet camping area near the river. This time we decided to be among some of the more boisterous festival goers and camped inadvertently beside a campsite known as Slopperyland. This was to prove to be very noisy and very musical with a full band playing right through both Friday and Saturday nights until the sun came up. It certainly made for two sleepless nights but at least they were very musical and fun.

The main reason to be there was the music and so after setting up camp we made a beeline for the main stage to say hello to some old friends and hear some great music.

We arrived back there in time for lunch and a lovely set of tunes and songs from Valla Turner Williamson who's laid back band was the perfect start for me as it included all the elements of what make this festival great. Good tunes, great musicians, melodic well written songs and a warmth that was obvious through each note they played.

I then headed into the cool interior of the music hall for a fiddle workshop featuring Darol Anger, Vassar Clements and the very talented Tania Elizabeth from Canadian band The Duhks. Sometimes these unrehearsed workshops can fall apart a little but in this case the generations of talent had a lot of music to share with us and they did it with great style.

From Tania who at 20 is a mere youngster, to Vassar who is in his 70s and is one of the great icons of American roots music, they all had a story to tell and a tune or two to play and even those of us who don't know one end of a fiddle from another came away a little wiser.

I wasn't going anywhere after that workshop as next up on the Music Hall stage was Darrell Scott who is fast becoming one of my all time songwriting heroes. Darrell and his young band Matt Mangano and Luke Bulla on bass and fiddle gave us a full hour of his best songs from the Dixie Chick's hit Long Time Gone to Banjo Clark. The young band who are both members of Wisechild augmented Darrell's amazing guitar, banjo and mandolin playing and his powerful voice. Twice on Friday Darrell managed to sum up what I feel about this festival as well. At this first show he said that it was a very giving festival and later on the main stage he said that he sees it as a very healing experience with it being one of the first spring events after a long cold winter.

Then it was back to the main stage where The Larry Keel band were doing their thing and being as exciting and talented as they always are. As I walked towards the stage they were in the middle of a powerful rendition of Water of Love, the old Dire Straits song, more than ably sung on this occasion by Acoustic Syndicate front man Byron McMurry.

As if my legs were much younger than they are, I almost skipped back to the Music Hall where my real all time songwriting hero Guy Clark was holding court with his long time musical partner Verlon Thompson. It doesn't get much better than these two great songwriters when they are in top form like this.

It was a short walk back to the main stage for me where I decided to root myself for the rest of the evening. Backstage people were having dinner and catching up on old times. I sat with Vassar Clements and 14 year old Josh Pinkham, a mandolin wizard who is taking the music work by storm. It was incredible to be in this company and chat about music and last night's great jam. By the time I had finished meeting and greeting old and new pals it was time for more Darrell Scott who showed us that his afternoon set was just a warm up for the main stage.

Then it was the turn of Laura Love. Laura is a bit of a musical whirlwind and she and her raucous talented band of merry troubadours got the growing crowd on their feet in the amphitheater. Laura also had the longest and most varied line of fans as she signed autographs at the merchandise tent with a happy smile until the last one had left and it was time for the amazing Psychograss.

Psychograss are Mike Marshall, Darol Anger, David Grier, Todd Phillips and Tony Trischka. They are a veritable superband, a word I dislike but in this case there really is no other way to describe the combined talents in the group. Their set was filled with great jazzy bluegrass and contemporary instrumentals, interspersed with humorous banter and camaraderie.

This was all too much for my head which had been listening to this amazing music all day and so I opted to miss the excellent band The Gourds in favor of trying to catch up with some sleep ahead of Saturday's long day of fun. The attempt at sleep was fruitless as you will read next week but even tiredness couldn't tarnish the wonderful sights and sounds I was to encounter the following day.

With all that great music the highlight of the day for me was still the amazing Darrell Scott and his songs. He is now firmly implanted in my top five favorite artists of all time.

Next PART TWO