Wintergrass

Wintergrass, Tacoma's annual bluegrass festival, starts this Thursday the 19th and will run through the 22nd.

Kim Ruehl, writer for Americana rag No Depression and Roots correspondent for Sound writes: "Wintergrass takes place in downtown Tacoma, WA. The performances are spread over a couple of hotels and a nearby church. Friday and Saturday mornings are workshops galore on everything from overcoming stage fright to mastering Old Time fiddle. The hotel lobbies are replete with impromptu jams.

This is a Bluegrass music festival, but there is a lot of appreciation for Old Time Music. A lot of the jam sessions include people playing Old Time tunes. Many of the performers are old school bluegrass, though there are occasionally some Old Time bands and some contemporary country/folk singer/songwriters. Performers include well-known legends as well as local and regional newcomers."

One group performing this year is "old time string band" The Tallboys. They're well-practiced musicians, a fun band to see live and really bring an "old-timey" feeling to their set. If you've heard of them, you know they're kind of a fixture on the NW folk circuit: they're the house band for the Tractor's bi-monthly square dancing night (highly recommended, every other Monday), and vocalist Charmaine Slaven is an organizer of - and performs at - NW Folklife.

Charmaine has the unique ability to buck dance (a kind of folk clogging/tap dance) and play guitar at the same time. It's really interesting to watch. She teaches clogging workshops pretty regularly, and will be offering one this year at Wintergrass on Saturday at Collings Church at 11:15am.