A premier northern California focal point for the preservation, enjoyment, instruction and performance of bluegrass music is in San Benito County, where the Good Old Fashioned Bluegrass Festival takes place the second weekend of August every year in Tres Pinos.
The 31st annual festival, Aug. 7-10 at the San Benito County Historical Park, featured more than 20 headlining bluegrass bands on the main stage, scores of performances on four smaller stages throughout the park’s grounds, instructional and informational workshops for musicians and enthusiasts of all ages and countless informal campground jam sessions over the long weekend.
Organized by the Northern California Bluegrass Society, the Good Old Fashioned Bluegrass Festival’s roots are in Tres Pinos. The event started at Bolado Park, and a few years ago moved next door to the Historical Park—an appropriate backdrop for a celebration of a folk music genre that rose to popularity in the 1960s and traces its origins to older styles of Appalachian and rural American music.
“We like the historical park element—that fits with bluegrass,” NCBS President Mike Hall, of Redwood City, said at the Tres Pinos event on Aug. 9. “And there’s a lot more trees here than other places—people like to camp in the shade.”
Hall has been a key organizer for the annual local festival since it started in 1994. While larger audiences might be familiar with big bluegrass names like Billy Strings and Molly Tuttle, the focus of the Good Old Fashioned Bluegrass Festival is on local and regional performers and their fans.
“People come from all over California, most from the Bay Area and the Monterey Bay area. All our bands (on the main stage) are from California—no bands from Nashville, no bands from New York,” Hall said.
About 1,000 people attended this year’s festival—including volunteers and performers. Many are from Hollister, Gilroy, San Martin, Santa Cruz and other nearby communities.
“It’s fun, it’s friendly and we like bluegrass music,” Hall said.
That kind of enthusiasm naturally attracts interest from a younger crowd, and festival organizers welcome such participation. The festival includes a “Kids on Stage” venue, where children can spend the weekend learning new songs or how to play for the first time. The youngsters then get a chance to play on the main stage in front of the entire audience on festival Sunday, Hall explained.
“We have home grown musicians” on the lineup, he added. “We have people on our stages who are just above starting out. And we have very accomplished bands playing on the main stage.”
The festival schedule this year also included a series of workshops and group lessons scattered throughout the Historical Park grounds. Bill Amatneek, a musician and historian who played bass on the iconic David Grisman Quintet’s debut album, led a workshop Aug. 9 on the life and career of Tony Rice.
Rice was “an extremely extraordinarily talented” bluegrass guitar player, Amatneek said. The author of “Discovering Tony Rice,” Amatneek delivered a multimedia presentation in Tres Pinos on the guitarist.
“I started studying his life to do this book, and interviewed people important in his life,” Amatneek said.
This was Amatneek’s first year attending the Good Old Fashioned Bluegrass Festival, but the lifelong bluegrass performer and enthusiast felt right at home.
“I’ve bumped into old friends here. It’s a wonderful venue for people getting together and playing the music they love,” he said.
Some might say the best part of the bluegrass festival is the countless impromptu, informal jam sessions that can pop up at any moment throughout the venue grounds, from early morning until late in the evening. Guitarists, fiddlers, bassists, banjo players and singers gather in circles amid tents and camper trailers—holding the rhythm together while taking turns playing solos and singing verses.
Such jam sessions are integral to bluegrass culture and key to improving musical skills, or learning new ones, according to Hall and others.
Members of the bluegrass band Alan Bond and Skedaddle were seen practicing at one such jam session on Aug. 9. The band performed twice at this year’s festival, including on the main stage on Sunday.
Bond, a Gilroy resident, has been attending the Tres Pinos bluegrass festival since the 1990s and has played in bluegrass bands for nearly 50 years. Bond and one of his bandmates, Judy Forrest, said they appreciate the Good Old Fashioned Bluegrass Festival for its focus on local and regional acts, as well as its commitment to keeping younger attendees interested and engaged in the music.
“The only way to keep the music going is encouraging younger people to play,” Bond said.
