Woodstock Blue Grass Jamboree Apr 7, 2012

The Woodstock (Ga) Bluegrass Jamboree was held Saturday night. As usual it had two groups, The first group was The Bruce Weeks Family Gospel Band and the second, as usual was the Jot’em Down Boys group.

The Weeks family consist of a father, his two daughters, and his wife. They sung very inspirational gospel music and some down to earth homespun humor. The sisters sang beautifully. The daddy, which is probably the one named Bruce, said something about having a church in Jasper, Georgia, on Thursday nights. He talked very positive about the Christian religion, as he is a preacher I’m sure his services come loaded with good music.

The Jot-em Down Boys are wonderful musicians. They openly tell the audience they are trying to keep the art of Bluegrass music alive. I think each of the musicians consider themselves life long students of bluegrass. They take historical, scientific, and passionate approaches of their favorite medium. They play and give credit to other bluegrass artists. This Saturday night they played FOGGY MOUNTAIN BREAKDOWN by Earl Scruggs, who died last week. They put on a good show and you don’t know what will be said iwit or wisdom or played next – sometimes I think they don’t know either. It appears they have notes or a guideline for each performance – but can steer off course if the situation calls for it. It is hard to keep creative people in a box.

The attached videos are just samplings of what you missed.

Wait! I have a complaint! But first I want to complement what I am about to complain about. High up and behind the performing artists is a slideshow. The sideshow is a great collection of “Family of Man” type photos – working people who appear not to be making ends meet, most of the pictures was taken during the Depression and hard tilmes.. It was a bonus treat to be able to see those old pictures line up in single order, one at a time pass by for your viewing as the music played. But this past time it must have been decided that if one picture at a time was good, 3 to 5 pictures would be even better. Not so! A single picture at a time packs a good punch. Multi-pictures in the same frame only waters down or weakens each picture. And some of the groupings of 5 pictures had an oval center picture in the center which overlapped a little of each of the other four. I noticed that some of the overlapping covered crucial parts of the photograph in some instances. But, who am I to complain?