Pete’s Word

I recently ran across a six year old article in Philadelphia Weekly on a very famous country music park in SE Pennsylvania, “Sunset Park”, which hosted country music shows in the 50s and 60s. This was back when there was still country in country music.

For a dollar, one could sit on a plank bench during a balmy afternoon or summer evening and watch “package shows” by people such as Bill Monroe, Hank Snow, Merle Travis, The Stanly Brothers, and The Stoneman Family, all performing from the Sunset Park stage two or three hours’ drive from Nashville. This was the time before BG festivals, with a mixture of various styles of country music just like you could hear over the radio in those days. It didn’t happen just in PA of course. For example, there were similar shows in the county park off of Hwy 33 between Ventura and Ojai, though you weren’t going to get the variety of big stars that venues closer to Nashville featured…

We’ve reprinted the entire article with added photos, most of which were taken at Sunset Park. ***Click Here*** for the article.

-Peter

I was just going through some photos from last year and found this picture of my birthday cake. It tasted at least as good as it looked, since there was hardly any varnish in the frosting, but lots of good chocolate and whipped cream.

A great birthday cake!

Anyone else have some good cake photos?

-Peter

I happened to visit the YouTube.com website today and came across a very special set of two films/videos made by a Virginia TV station of the world’s first multi-day bluegrass festival at a little township named Fincastle Virginia (near Roanoke). It was produced by a bluegrass fan and promoter Carlton Haney and held on the first weekend of September, 1965. My friend Mayne Smith had invited me to drive back East to attend, but I was starting grad school at UCSB and couldn’t make the trip (it would leave a bad impression on my botany professors if I missed the first week of school!).

But that festival is legendary today. Many of the greats of bluegrass did attend, along with the kids that are considered greats now. Bill Monroe and his band the Blue Grass Boys were there, of course, along with the Stanley Brothers, Don Reno, Mac Wiseman, Benny Martin, and many, many others. It was a wonderful idea for promoting the music, and Monroe, by all accounts, was especially thrilled. The films as shown on YouTube are faded, a little irregular, with dropouts, etc., but to me, they are worth gold. For those of you who may never have had the chance to see these greats in their prime, here they are. And for those of you (like me) who remember, here’s a chance to get a glimpse of the real stuff – with the hair on – as it used to be. Click on the links below to watch bluegrass as it was designed to be played. Each clip is about eight minutes long.

Part one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSHzgaCqM-o

You can see part two here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3nSC965fE4

Notice how much fun Monroe is having with all his musician friends. He was always very responsive to musical “prodding” by fellow performers, and it’s a lot of fun to watch the interchange.

-Peter