FEATURE ARTICLE
Music Foundation building bridges via a festival
by Seth Rogovoy(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., May 1, 1997) -- All eyes will be on the National Music Foundation in Lenox this weekend, as the controversial organization attempts to cast off its problematic image in favor of a new reputation for itself as a good neighbor, by presenting the Berkshire Music Festival, which begins on Friday and runs through Sunday.
According to organizers, the festival -- the highlights of which include an Emmylou Harris concert and a showcase featuring about 50 local performers -- is intended to celebrate the musical riches already present here in the Berkshires while leveraging the foundation's muscle as a tourist attraction. Along those lines, the foundation has worked hard to market the festival as a major event by joining forces with regional print and electronic media as well as corporate sponsors in the local tourist trade, and by advertising the festival in New York and Boston.
The festival was also seemingly designed in order to jump-start the foundation's potential role as a catalyst in the region's cultural and economic life. Through the sale of $50 sponsorships, local venues including restaurants, bars and inns, can sign on as "Festival Friends," whether or not they provide live music. Such businesses have been included in ads running throughout the last few weeks in area newspapers. Those venues presenting live music during the weekend under the festival umbrella are included in a special "music map" that runs elsewhere in this issue.
"With so many venues providing musical platforms, the weekend will provide a fantastic opportunity for fans to hear all types of music in all types of surroundings, from intimate lounges to theaters, museums and churches," said Gloria Pennington, foundation president, in a press release.
Back in February, the foundation solicited demo tapes from local musicians wanting to be a part of the all-day showcase that takes place on Sunday in the Berkshire Performing Arts Theatre on the music center's campus.
"We expected twenty to thirty applicants for the showcase, and had over eighty," said Thomas J.^Heany, program manager at the foundation. About 50 of those applicants were chosen for the showcase by a committee comprised mostly of their peers, including local musicians David Grover, Hilda Banks Shapiro, Steve Murray, Mike Schiffer, Bob Salzman and Charlie Tokarz.
"The purpose of the showcase is to throw a spotlight on local musicians, celebrate their talent and draw the attention of local residents and visitors to the great musicians we have here," said Heany. The foundation has also invited music industry representatives to observe the showcase. Heany described receiving "positive responses" from Atlantic Records and publishing companies BMI and ASCAP, as well as from the Jerry Lembo Entertainment Group, a multi- purpose talent agency.
From the point of view of local musicians, the festival marks the first time that the foundation has interacted with them in any concerted fashion. "The festival is both an opportunity to give local music and musicians a higher profile in this area as well as an opportunity for the foundation to open lines of communication with the local arts community," said Carl Bowlby, a music teacher and a singer- songwriter who has been chosen to perform in the Sunday showcase. "It also provides the foundation with a vehicle through which it can introduce itself to local people from all walks of life. It's really pretty much a win-win situation for everyone involved."
Bowlby's hopeful comments are echoed by other musicians. "From what I see, it appears that /{the foundation/} is making a gargantuan effort to help the local music scene and local musicians," said Tim Hunter, a member of the Great Barrington-based, folk-rock group, Free At Last, which has also been chosen to showcase on Sunday. "I think that the first and most important thing that the festival accomplish is to acknowledge just how much talent we have right here in our midst. It is also an excellent opportunity for local musicians to get to know each other and their work."
Indeed, bringing together over 50 local musical acts in one day in one venue is unprecedented. And while it is unlikely that many people will stay the course over the 12-hour period the showcase is set to run -- and some have questioned the musical value of brief, 15-minute sets -- the gathering of local talent has been met with widespread enthusiasm.
What's left to see, of course, is how the public responds to what is being offered. While a number of previously-scheduled musical events throughout the weekend -- including Friday night's show by the alternative-country band From Good Homes and neo-hippie rockers Ominous Seapods at the Studio in Pittsfield -- are flying the festival's banner, the keynote event takes place on Saturday night, when country singer Emmylou Harris performs at the Berkshire Performing Arts Theatre at 8.
While Harris herself does not boast any particular Berkshire connection other than having played the same venue twice before, in November 1989 and in July 1991, her presence is a reassuring one to those who wondered just how the foundation defined "the perpetuation of the American musical tradition" in its mission statement after a 1996 summer series full of slick Las Vegas acts with little or no musical integrity or originality.
No one can argue with the choice of Harris as a representative of the best of the American musical tradition. Indeed, in her ability to draw on the best of many genres, including country, folk, pop, rock, blues and bluegrass, she is practically the living incarnation of that tradition. As Pennington put it in an earlier interview with the Eagle, "Emmylou has always drawn on many kinds of American music for her inspiration and has never been afraid of crossing lines between musical genres. So having a festival that celebrates all types of music, we couldn't ask for anyone better."
A late addition to the festival lineup are two Friday night shows by Joey Dee and the Starliters at Thelma's Roadside in Great Barrington. The foundation was Dee's brainchild, and the man behind the "Peppermint Twist" will perform a dinner show at 6 and a dinner/dance show at 9.
About 30 individual singer-songwriters and two- and three-person acoustic ensembles will perform in three separate "song circles" hosted by David Grover in the Sunday Showcase, starting at 11 am and continuing until about 3:30 pm. Then, beginning at approximately 3:45, the stage will be turned over to about 20 bands, each of which will perform for about 15 minutes. If all goes according to schedule, around 10 pm there will be what in Berkshire musical terms amounts to an event of semi-historic proportions, when the surviving members of Shenandoah -- the long-running Berkshire band founded by David Grover and the late David Carron in the early-'70s that variously included Terry "A La Berry" Hall, Dan Velika, Steve and Carol Ide and Rob Putnam, and which toured for many years throughout the world with Arlo Guthrie -- will reunite on the BPAT stage to play for about an hour.
Admission to the showcase is $10 for adults and $5 for children under 12 and seniors. Those sporting "Believe In Music" buttons, however, will be admitted free. These buttons are available from those businesses listed in the "Festival Friends" ads.
"The purpose for this arrangement," said Heany, "is to encourage people to spend some time in the shops, inns and restaurants in the area. Each `Friend of the Festival' can distribute them as they choose -- the only stipulation is that they can't charge for them." Businesses may give them away free with a purchase or give them away outright.
Foundation officials are fond of referring to "next year's festival" as if it is already a foregone conclusion. For example, Heany said, "Next year's festival will probably be organized very similarly to this year's, with improvements based on this year's experience. Long- term, we'd like the festival to be an annual event that involves the whole county, one that everyone can participate in and take pride in.
"Ultimately, the length will grow, depending on what our experience tells us. It could be a ten-day event, encompassing two weekends, or it could run on several consecutive weekends. We'd like it to have an international reputation for both the quality and the variety of the music that's presented.
"It should include more than just performances. For example, there could be lectures and seminars, schools could create special music- related projects for students, we could present instrument building workshops, and on and on. It should encourage both amateur and professional music-making."
As for Foundation Chairman Dick Clark, he won't be able to attend this year's festival. "He was already scheduled to be in Dallas," said Heany.
[This article originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on May 1, 1997. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1997. All rights reserved.]
Seth Rogovoy
rogovoy@berkshire.net
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