Noppet Hill Bluegrass: the anti-Woodstock (7/23/99-7/25/99)

by Seth Rogovoy

(LANESBORO, Mass., July 25, 1999) - A small slice of the weekend-long Noppet Hill Bluegrass Festival gave a concertgoer pause to reflect on the huge disparities between this local, grassroots effort and that other music festival a few hundred miles to the west garnering national headlines this past weekend.

One took place at an abandoned air force base, the other at a decommissioned family farm. The fans at one camped out on blacktop, at the other in a freshly-mown hayfield. One was all electric, the other all acoustic. The music at one was almost exclusively taken from the past year's pop charts, while the music at the other rarely if ever gets any radio airplay. The stage at one was inaccessible and surrounded by a fence and burly security guards, while at the other fans could (and did) walk right up to the lip of the stage, snap a photo and say hi to the performer -- and there wasn't even a fence keeping fans away from the backstage area (and none was needed).

One was a corporate-sponsored event attracting nearly a quarter-million people, the other a down-home effort by a couple of farmers trying to keep the farm out of the hands of developers by attracting a crowd about one-hundredth the size of that at Woodstock '99. To be sure, festivalgoers in Lanesboro baked like lobsters just like those in Rome, although an occasional breeze wafted across the hillside at Steele's Family Farm on Saturday afternoon, offering momentary relief from the sweltering heat.

But you get the picture. In no insignificant way, Noppet Hill '99 was the anti-Woodstock, down to the relatively clean port-a-potties, in sharp contrast to reports of sewage overflowing at the Rome, N.Y., concert site.

Of course, the gentle, timeless sounds coming from the stage at Noppet Hill couldn't have been more unlike the contemporary, juiced-up rock and hip-hop beats at Woodstock. Fiddles, banjos, dobros, acoustic guitars and stand-up basses, along with sweetly-harmonizing human voices, were the tools of choice here of a dozen or so bands carrying on the tradition of Bill Monroe and the Stanley Brothers.

That tradition was epitomized by the Gibson Brothers, who understandably fled upstate New York this weekend and took sanctuary here in the Berkshires, where they garnered enthusiastic applause for their plaintive harmonies on vintage country numbers by the Carter Family and old-time prison songs like "My Yesterdays Look Better Every Day." This young group on its way up the bluegrass ladder represents the future of the tradition, having just been signed to an independent label owned by Ricky Skaggs, and from the sounds of them, they have a good chance to become the next Nashville Bluegrass Band.

Fans of traditional bluegrass were also treated to a bit of history in a performance by the Goins Brothers Bluegrass Band, especially since Melvin Goins lured brother Ray out of retirement for this gig. The two West Virginia natives are the veritable incarnation of bluegrass history, having played with the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers and Bill Monroe himself. Their group played classic, hard-hitting bluegrass, with lots of banjo cutting through the vocals on country staples like "Salty Dog."

And representing bluegrass's vital present were headliners Laurie Lewis and Her Bluegrass Pals, as noteworthy for their virtuosity as they were for the basic and unfortunate novelty of featuring two women in their lineup, much less one being the leader. But it is unlikely that there will ever be a better argument for shutting down bluegrass's old-boy network than Laurie Lewis, who puts it all together in one spiffy package as a dynamic singer, fiddler, songwriter, bandleader and entertainer.

Lewis and her ensemble, featuring mandolinist/vocalist Tom Rozum, banjoist Craig Smith, guitarist/singer Mary Gibbons and bassist Todd Phillips - all of them bluegrass royalty on their own - were a swinging, tight unit, their playing full of dynamic energy and spontaneous invention. Lewis's high, lonesome vocals were fittingly warm and elastic, and she immediately established a natural rapport with the crowd, seemingly like an old friend by the time her all-too-short afternoon set was over.

In its third year and with a mostly-new lineup, Noppet Hill seems to have firmly established itself as a destination point on the vital summer bluegrass festival circuit as well as a highlight of the Berkshires' own frantic summer schedule.

Search by Artist Name Album Title