Czech Bluegrass Documentary Project News

Last summer, when I went into the studio in Prague to help with the recording of Druha Trava's CD Shuttle to Bethlehem, I ended up hanging out and traveling a bit with Lee Bidgood, an American fiddler and mandolinist who teaches at East Tennessee State University, which has a Bluegrass, Old-Time and Country Music Studies program -- and his colleague from ETSU, the documentary filmmaker Shara Lange.

Lee did his PhD on Czech Bluegrass (we met in 2004 at the Caslav Bluegrass Festival in CZ) and he and Shara are making a documentary film on Czech Bluegrass music and musicians -- I am thrilled to be onboard as a sort of consultant or production assistant....

The film now has a web site -- you can click HERE to find out information, see some video, hear some music and find out more about the project, screenings, events, etc.

One upcoming event is a concert August 8, in Johnson City, TN, at which Lee and fellow musicians will perform Czech translations of bluegrass classics as well as original material by Czech bluegrass musicians, in both Czech and English.

Here's a clip I took of Lee jamming late a night with Lubos Malina, of Druha Trava.

During out brief travels last summer, we also visited Marko Cermak, the godfather of five-string banjo playing in  CZ, at his cabin in the woods. 

Interviewing Marko Cermak. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

According to his own and other accounts, Cermak, who was active in the Czech tramp music scene, built his own long-necked, five-string banjo by studying photographs taken of Pete Seeger at Seeger's seminal 1964 concert in Prague concert. Cermak went on to become one of Czechoslovakia's first banjo virtuosi.

Marko Cermak. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

Among other things, Cermak founded one of Czechoslovakia's first American-style country and bluegrass groups, the Greenhorns. The Greenhorns became extremely influential by playing Czech language versions of American folk songs, copying arrangements they heard on American Forces Radio.  In doing so, they, and similar groups, brought these songs firmly into the local musical tradition, fostering a total assimilation of many songs into the Czech repertoire. 

After visiting Marko, we went on to spend the night at the home of banjoist and banjo-maker Zdenek Roh, near Jihlava, where I had visited the previous year with Lubos Malina and Robert Krestan of Druha Trava.

Zdenek Roh. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

French Festivals!!

It was at Equiblues that I photographed (but alas did not buy) this iconic Heritage Authentic T-shirt. Photo (c) with Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Wow, a whole month has gone by since I said I had a lot of catching up to do .... which means I have even more catching up to do!

But -- it's a good moment to do so, as three of Europe's best Country/Western/Etc festivals are beginning -- all three of them in France, one weekend after the next: the Country Rendez-vous in Craponne; the La Roche Bluegrass Festival in La Roche sur Foron; and Equiblues in St. Agreve.

I've been to all three in the past -- I posted from Craponne and La Roche.   Each festival is quite different, and it would be fantastic to be able to spend three weeks in France going from one to the next and taking them all in. This year, though, it looks as if I will only be able to make it to Equiblues -- which combines concerts, line-dancing and a "scene" with a rodeo.

COUNTRY RENDEZ-VOUS, CRAPONNE

Country Rendez-vous  Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

The annual Country Rendez-vous in Craponne got under way last night, with a five-band set including  ERIK SITBON & THE GHOST BAND (France), CROOKS & STRAIGHTS (Croatia!!), THE STEELDRIVERS (USA), THE TURNPIKE TROUBADOURS (USA) and TWO TONS OF STEEL (USA).

Country Rendez-vous is probably the most prestigious of the dozens of country music and western scene festivals that take place in France each year. Most of the bands are from the U.S., and the Festival's savvy director and guiding spirit, Georges Carrier,  travels to the U.S. each year to make contacts and see bands. The Festival also has representatives on the ground in Nashville and Austin.

A couple of festival-goers at the Country Rendez-vous, 2007 Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

LA ROCHE BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL

The La Roche Bluegrass Festival is one of the biggest and friendliest of the scores of bluegrass festivals that take place each year around Europe. This year there are 30 bands from 14 countries. All the concerts are free, and there are lots of street events in the lovely town of La Roche. The festival also entails a band contest.

EQUIBLUES, ST. AGREVE

If all goes well, I will make it to Equiblues for the first time in some years.

Different from the other two festivals, it combines country music with a full-fledged rodeo -- there is lots of line-dancing and a colorful "western market" scene. Equiblues was one of the first European western festivals I attended, and I am eager to see it again. I still have a special bottle of Equiblues wine that I purchased the first time!

Line dancers at Equiblues. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

A lot of catching up to do...and maybe an Italian western fest?

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Extraordinary. I realize I haven't posted here for more than a month! It's not for lack of wanting to... just for lack of time. Or maybe a surfeit of ... laziness perhaps? Mental laziness at any rate, as I feel as if I've been running around, very busy, doing many other things...

Right now I'm in the middle of a working trip that has taken me so far to Spain, Slovakia, Austria and now Hungary (Budapest) -- but for other matters, not the imaginary wild west... I still have a few stops to make -- but, I'm trying to figure out if I can manage to hit the Valsassina country festival in northern Italy: it's the first edition of it, apparently, and it's one of the few such festivals in Italy at all.  But it's rather out of the way for me -- up near Lecco, in the mountains above Lake Como north of Milan...

I've been to just one other western festival in Italy -- the Western Games that used to be held near Rome -- and I'm eager to see the northern Italian take. There's another country festival in Italy June 29 -- at Voghera, where there is also a wild west theme park. (But I'll be in Czech Republic so will miss it.)

According to the information on the web site http://www.countrymusicnetwork.it/ the festival was "strongly desired and promoted" by the Volonteers of the local parish of St. Alessandro di Barzio and suported by the "friends of the horse" association in the Valsassina.
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The object is "the diffusion of  American Country culture in a festival of colors, emotions and traditions to relive the scenes and breathe the hottest atmospheres of the villages of the Far West."

There is a charitable aspect to the festival, which is also somewhat rare in the scene -- all proceeds are to go to a new parish elementary school.

As I have observed, most -- or at least much -- of the imaginary wild west scene in Italy centers on horses (and cowboy action shooting) though I understand there is also a line-dancing scene in the north. There are scattered bluegrass bands and musicians, too. (The info on the Valsassina Festival says that every night of the event there will be live music and "the legendary LINE DANCE" with instruction.)

It looks like country music may be catching on, though, to judge from the schedule of the Silverado country band, which is playing at both Voghera and Valsassina -- as well as a lot of other gigs and little country fests, across northern Italy.

American Journeys -- First big festival of the season in France

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

There must be 40 country western festivals in France each year.... the season is about to kick off with American Journeys -- the first big festival of the summer season, June 1-2 in Cambrai, near the Belgian border.

The line-up includes a variety of types, from rockabilly to country to bluegrass rock, and there are stands and other atractions. Oh, and line-dancing of course; this is France after all.

Oh, Those Czechs...

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Oh, those Czechs.... I love this! "Kovboj z Teplic" by Kamil Střihavka and No Guitars. 1995

Cowboy hat smuggler caught in Norway.....

By Ruth Ellen Gruber


Hmmmm.

The English-language Swedish news site The Local reports that a smuggler was caught trying to take 500 cowboy hats over the border into Norway....(oh, along with tobacco and booze):

“This is our largest seizure of cowboy hats,” said Morten Nystuen of the Kongsvinger customs to the Glåm Dalen newspaper.

“We’ve had to confiscate clothes before, but never cowboy hats,” he told the paper.

The driver was reportedly a Polish man who was travelling across Sweden’s (wild) western border from Arviken towards Norway’s capital Oslo on Tuesday night.
When officials searched his car, they uncovered some 12,400 cigarettes, 20 kilogrammes of tobacco, 144 litres of beer and 32 litres of wine.

Ray Benson talks in Germany to Czech Interviewer...

Ray Benson in France. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Ray Benson and Asleep at the Wheel have been touring in Europe for 35 years.... They first played in then-Czechoslovakia in 1988, when the country was still under communism and before it split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Ray reflects on this experience in an interview with my Czech friend Petr Mecir, who is a passional country music fan and runs a country music web site. They spoke in Mannheim, Germany, where Ray was playing as part of a big touring International Country Music Festival that had big concerts in England, Germany and Switzerland.

"Oh, the western everything, you know, the cowboy image is very big and we know about Karl May, the author in Germany. And we've been playing, of course, for 35 years and coming to Europe whether it's the UK, Czechoslovakia and Switzerland especially. They know and they seem to like it. The western swing, I think, came as one of the last kinds of country music there, it was like bluegrass and the songs, folks like Jim Reeves and now they're getting into western swing. First time we came 35 years ago a Dutch interviewer said we were a jazz band cashing on country music (laughs). They had no idea what the hell we were, so we put on cowboy hats to make it in the country."

Well, at shows in Europe you can see those European cowboys wearing denim shirts and leather suits with fringes. They appreciate the traditional music, so western swing should be exactly what matches the musical taste here.

"We played in Denmark a couple of years ago. They had a big cowboy festival and they were all dressed up and they said 'play more of your cowboy country, not so much 'Chu Chu Boogie' and your jazz and swing stuff.' They didn't like that so much, but I think they progress."