Winter Festival of Acoustic Music Recap
If you’re looking for a festival to go to in February, Linda Lowe Thompson & Joe Morgan’s Winter Festival of Acoustic Music in Irving, Texas is the place to go! Workshops began at 9 a.m. on Friday, February 8th, and festival participants had a wide array of classes from which to choose. There were concerts being held in the chapel at the First Methodist Church throughout the morning and afternoon — I enjoyed listening to performers such as Guy George, David Moran, Joe Morgan, Dana and Daniel Hamilton, and their friend Bobby Duke. The Wright family (minus Lloyd) arrived Friday evening for a good solid 24 hours of jamming. Christie Burns — one of the headliners at the festival — recorded part of our jam session Friday night. You can view a clip of this on her blog: http://dulcimergirl.wordpress.com/2008/02/09/old-time-jam-at-winterfest-feb-2008/. I had the great pleasure of meeting Christie and her husband Butch Ross — they have a great talent for taking traditional tunes and as Christie said, “making it different — not better, different.” I also really enjoyed some of their original compositions — especially Christie’s “Confused Waltz.” Karen Mueller and Janita Baker were headliners as well, and they were wonderful as usual! Lastly, I had a blast playing on stage with No Strings Attached. Their fourth member Pete was unable to attend, so Karen Mueller and I did our best to fill in! During their second set, closing out the festival on Saturday evening, they had Karen Mueller on guitar, autoharp, and mandolin; Guy George on his soprano sax; Butch Ross on mountain dulcimer; and me on fiddle and hammered dulcimer. It was definitely a fun group to play with, and it was an honor to play on stage with such talented musicians. Check out the Winter Festival’s web site for the 2009 dates and headliners. http://www.lssds.org/wfest.htm