12 September 2008 - 16:09America’s Got Talent

Jerry Springer, David Hasselhoff, and those two other judges (whoever the hell they are) don’t know what they’re missing.  The show they are on, America’s Got Talent, gets all the pop star wannabes.  I went to Buena Vista, Virginia last weekend for the Rockbridge Mountain Music & Dance Convention, and witnessed some real talent.  I don’t need the crooning vocals and the incredible high notes.  I don’t need the posing dancers with technical proficiency.  Just give me the Green Grass Cloggers and a back-up band that includes the best old-time musicians alive.

Two days camped in out with a few hundred equally rabid old-time music musicians and dancers and fans sure adjusted my attitude.   I almost forgot I had a job.  When I’m at a festival, I’m about as “in the moment” as I can ever get. Bob and I arrived mid-afternoon on Friday night, not knowing what Hurricane Hannah might send our way.  We set up our tents, and when Susan arrived, we had a marvelous 10′x20′ tarp roof to our campsite that we hoped would stand up.  As it turned out, we just got rain, steady but not torrential, and which came straight down, instead of sideways.  We went to the square dance at the big pavillion, but realized that when you dance that exuberantly on concrete, you pay for it in the morning.  The little dance pavillion down in the campsite had a plywood floor; not ideal, but still better than concrete.  Skeedaddle played there at 11:00 p.m.  Bob and I did the swing until it was time to crawl into the dome tent with the air mattress that fills almost the entire floor.

The next morning (okay it was a little bit into the afternoon), the Ukulele Summit happened right in our campsite, mainly because I’m the one who called for it.  Everyone had a song to share, and some techniques, and some laughs.  We played Hawaiian tunes under the direction of Hugh Crumley, were treated to the fine song stylings of Anastasia Maddox and Susan Bunn Rosen, and even Bob sang something (”Bow Tie Daddy” from Frank Zappa). Bob accompanied my singing of “The Vatican Rag” and we all joined in on “Burning Down the House” by the Talking Heads.  Bet no one has done it with 4 ukes and a Hawaiian slide guitar before, although the Belligerent Brothers have done it with a fiddle, banjo, and a marimba.

The afternoon was filled with exciting performances, which I caught on video.

The Green Grass Cloggers kicked it up for their 37th year reunion.  For a group that is mostly in their fifties, they were in great form.  They were such iconoclasts in the early 1970s, when they decided to enter the “World Clogging Championship” at Fiddlers Grove in North Carolina.  Rodney Sutton told a little of the history of the group, and said that after they won it the second year, the rules were changed so that their style would be disqualified.  By that time, they’d become so popular that a number of them hit the road to perform at major folk festivals around the U.S. and Canada.  You can see their reunion performance on my YouTube channel

The Indian: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2sKyLAgmJo

Tea Cup Chain:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGt4iPIpIp0

Freestyle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ckj0zWRV7SY.

I’m not sure who to thank for the appearance of a trebuchet at the festival.  It provided over an hour of enjoyment to all who watched.  A trebuchet is a type of cataput that relies on a counterweighted throwing arm, in this case, an arm about twenty feet long.  Watermelons, water balloons, a rubber chicken, and a toy bass-playing polar bear were launched into the air.  If they had cleared the stratosphere, it could have been called a space program.  Instead, it was just plain fun.  Check this out on YouTube:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmY-CW6Wuco.

So, America does have talent, but the popular television show doesn’t begin to address the variety that’s out there.  That’s why I love to get out there and witness it for myself.