The Portable Community: Place and Displacement in Bluegrass Festival Life 9781138496378, 9781351022064

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The Portable Community

This book explores the various ways in which individuals use music and culture to understand and respond to changes in their natural and built environments. Drawing on over 15 years of ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, and participant observation, the author develops the thesis that the relationships, networks, and intimate forms of social interaction in the “portable” community cultivated at bluegrass festival events are significant cultural formations that shape participants’ relationships to their localities. With specific attention to the ways in which the strength of these relationships are translated into meaningful sites of community identity, place, and action following devastating local floods that destroyed homes and businesses, displacing residents for years, The Portable Community: Place and Displacement in Bluegrass Festival Life sheds light on the strength of such communities when tested and under external threat. A study of the central role of arts and music in grappling with social and environmental change, including their role in facilitating disaster relief and recovery, this volume will appeal to scholars of sociology with interests in symbolic interactionism, the sociology of music, culture, and the sociology of disaster. Robert Owen Gardner is Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Linfield College, USA.

Interactionist Currents Series editors: Dennis Waskul, Minnesota State University, USA Simon Gottschalk, University of Nevada Las Vegas, USA

Interactionist Currents publishes contemporary interactionist works of exceptional quality to advance the state of symbolic interactionism. Rather than revisiting classical symbolic interactionist or pragmatist theory, however, this series extends the boundaries of interactionism by examining new empirical topics in subject areas that interactionists have not sufficiently examined; systematizing, organizing, and reflecting on the state of interactionist knowledge in subfields both central and novel within interactionist research; connecting interactionism with contemporary intellectual movements; and illustrating the contemporary relevance of interactionism in ways that are interesting, original, and enjoyable to read. Recognizing an honored and widely appreciated theoretical tradition, reflecting on its limitations, and opening new opportunities for the articula­ tion of related perspectives and research agendas, this series presents work from across the social sciences that makes explicit use of interactionist ideas and concepts, interactionist research, and interactionist theory—both clas­ sical and contemporary. Titles in this series: Challenging Myths of Masculinity Michael Atkinson and Lee F. Monaghan The Drama of Social Life Edited by Charles Edgley The Politics of Sorrow Daniel D. Martin The Portable Community Robert Owen Gardner

The Portable Community

Place and Displacement in Bluegrass Festival Life

Robert Owen Gardner

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Robert Owen Gardner The right of Robert Owen Gardner to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Gardner, Robert (Sociologist) author.

Title: The portable community: place and displacement in Bluegrass

festival life / Robert Gardner.

Description: [1.] | New York City: Routledge, 2020. |

Series: Interactionist currents | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019046797 (print) | LCCN 2019046798 (ebook) |

ISBN 9781138496378 (hardback) | ISBN 9781351022064 (ebk)

Subjects: LCSH: Bluegrass music–Social aspects. | Folk music

Festivals–Social aspects.

Classification: LCC ML3918.F65 G37 2020 (print) | LCC ML3918.F65

(ebook) | DDC 306.4/84242–dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019046797

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019046798

ISBN: 978-1-138-49637-8 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-351-02206-4 (ebk)

Typeset in Sabon

by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India

Dedicated to Mom and Dad.

Contents

List of figures Acknowledgments Introduction: The quest for community in bluegrass festival culture

viii

x

1

1 “Bluegrass breakdown”: A brief social history of bluegrass

music and festival culture

20

2 “What have they done to the old home place?”: Family,

home, and kinship in the “New” American West

37

3 Welcome home I: Building place in the bluegrass festival camp

69

4 Welcome home II: Performing place in the vernacular village

93

5 The portable community: Inclusion, intimacy, and simplicity

in bluegrass festival life

110

6 “The festival world is so much better than the real world”:

Performing self and identity in festival spaces

135

7 “We’ve got grit”: Community resilience, displacement, and

rebuilding after the flood

158

Conclusion: The quest for community and place in the New West

189

Appendix A: Methodological notes Appendix B: Festival performance as social drama: The

interactionism of Kenneth Burke Index

201

204

211

Figures

All figures listed below were taken by and are the sole property of the author. 0.1 Bluegrass band playing during the Freebox Fashion Show in

Town Park, Telluride Bluegrass Festival, Telluride, Colorado 5

1.1 Crowd gathered around the workshop stage, downtown,

Telluride, Colorado 29

1.2 The Telluride Bluegrass Festival situated in the San Juan

Mountains, Telluride, Colorado 31

2.1 “Stage 2” at the Walnut Valley Festival, Winfield, Kansas 44

2.2 Traditional bluegrass performed on the flatbed of an antique

truck at the High Mountain Hay Fever Bluegrass Festival,

Westcliffe, Colorado 46

2.3 Mountain dulcimer workshop 47

2.4 High Mountain Hay Fever Bluegrass Festival,

Westcliffe, Colorado 53

2.5 Bluegrass on the River Festival, Pueblo, Colorado 64

3.1 “Main Street,” Telluride Bluegrass Festival, Telluride, Colorado 73

3.2 Rollin’ R Farm themed camp at the Walnut Valley Festival,

Winfield, Kansas 76

3.3 Camper spreading and mapping out festival campsite at

RockyGrass during land rush 82

3.4 Camper marking off campsite “property” with caution tape 83

3.5 Doozies Domino Lounge themed camp entrance, Walnut

Valley Festival, Winfield, Kansas 90

4.1 Country Flub Plaza camp, including Sox Fifth Avenue,

Barnes and Yodles, and Nickels Fountain 98

4.2 Map of Wilkesboro Fire Department campground at

Merlefest in Wilkesboro, North Carolina 99

4.3 Walnut Grove RV campground at the Walnut Valley

Festival, Winfield, Kansas 103

Figures 5.1 Improvised cell phone charging station, RockyGrass,

Lyons, Colorado 6.1 Bumper stickers on the rear of a conversion van, Walnut

Valley Festival, Winfield, Kansas 6.2 The story of Chem Can Larry, aka, Larry Blue Boy

ix

128

136

149

Acknowledgments

In his book Art Worlds, Howard Becker describes the creative product of an artist requiring an elaborate behind-the-scenes network of support and coor­ dination for the finished project to see the light of day. While the work bears the artist’s (or filmmaker’s or musician’s) solitary name, the collective coordi­ nation of labor representing the throng of fellow artists, art show producers, curators, studio managers, volunteers, patrons, lighting directors, costume and set designers, funding agencies, philanthropists, dealers, suppliers, dis­ tributors, caterers, ticketing agencies, boosters, media, art critics, advertisers, fans, friends, and family is often hidden somewhere back stage, and therefore seldom considered in discussion of the artist’s work. An ethnographic study is no exception, which is why the ritual of acknowledging the individuals and communities whose hands and ideas have influenced this work is both necessary and important. Though the title page bears my name alone, I am indebted to an incredible community of individuals who provided me with mentorship, guidance, emotional support, love, inspiration, criticism, and feedback, only some of whom I can possibly mention here: The inspiration for this project came from my late parents, Thomas Gardner and Vallerie (Angell) Gardner, who were “called to heaven” far too early. They instilled in me the love of bluegrass music at an early age through our family’s long road trips through the Ohio countryside. Sitting together in the backseat of our passenger van, my brother John and I logged thou­ sands of miles listening to the high lonesome sounds of Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys, The Osborne Brothers, and Roy Clark and Buck Trent, on our eight-track cassette player. Those long drives shaped our musical paths and drove us to seek out those “brother duet” harmonies and make our own sweet music. My forays into the Colorado and Oregon bluegrass music scenes deep­ ened the ever-expanding circle of musician friends who played a formative role in my understanding of the social world of bluegrass and its culture of campground “picking.” I especially thank Caleb Olin and Kristina Peters for being my best friends, campmates, and family so many miles from home; Bob and Cindy Haxell for hosting our weekly jam sessions and invit­ ing me into your lives and community; Fred (and Linda) Doroshow for

Acknowledgments

xi

demonstrating boundless creativity and musical innovation; Steve Remmert for his songwriting inspiration; Dave Goldhammer for his rock-solid guitar picking; Jom Hammock for stretching me beyond the confines of tradition, Matt DiAmico, and Keith Marcoe for being the best jam mates a flatpicker could ask for; my fellow “Jampires,” Srinath Vadlamani, Brad Spangler, Dave Hoffman, Matt Miano, Ethan Clarke, Julie Q, and Dave Bangert who were always game for a late night feast of tasty jams, and the Visitors Crew, especially Mario Tomaino, Storm Shirley, Charlie and Heather, Sam and Megan, Team Sparkswied, Jeremy and Christy Running, Jason Gershuny, Laurelle, Mike and Kristen, Jeff Stroup, and Chris Bucci for taking me in and introducing me to the most eclectic and eccentric community of music heads in the Pacific Northwest. I want to extend my deepest gratitude to the folks on Planet Bluegrass, including Steve Szymanski, Craig Ferguson, Edie Gayle, Laura Larson, Brian Eyster, and countless volunteers for running the best series of blue­ grass festival events in the country and providing me with access and support at their music events throughout this project. Along the way, I encountered a slew of campground personalities, fellow musicians, and friends who made their mark on this work in one form or another: includ­ ing: Ernie “Erndog” Ernstrom, “Barefoot” Kenny, Terry, Brannon, and the rest of The Lazy String Gang, Jason Hicks, Telluride Tom, Curt Alsobrook, and the rest of the High and the Hog boys. I am thankful for the incredible array of instructors and mentors who taught me the art of guitar flatpicking and the musical nuances of bluegrass and old-time music, including “Dr. Banjo” Pete Wernick, Greg Schochet, Bryon Sutton, Peter Rowan, Martha Scanlon, Del McCoury, Dan Crary, Pat Enright, Tim Stafford, John Moore, David Grier, Chris Eldridge, Jim Hurst, Sandy Munro, Greg Stone, and Mark Heinemann. And a special thanks to the community radio stations, on-air personalities, and archivists whose pas­ sion for preserving this music filled the airwaves with the “ancient tones” of bluegrass music, including Buck Buckner (KGNU radio), “Pastor Tim” Christensen (Yonder Mountain archivist), and Chip “Uncle Chippy” Russell (KBOO radio). This project would never have developed without the generosity, intel­ lectual insight, and friendship of Garian Vigil, whose connections in the Colorado bluegrass scene and deep familiarity with bluegrass music and culture provided the perfect sounding board for my ideas. Garian also pro­ vided essential updates, local context, and logistical coordination after the Lyons, Colorado flood. And thank you to Elisabeth Sheff, Ross Haenfler, Lori Peek, Rebecca Adams, Timothy Dowd, Leslie King, Marilyn Jordan, and various other colleagues and anonymous reviewers who provided encouragement, theoretical insight, and invaluable feedback on earlier drafts of this work. I am eternally grateful to my professors and colleagues at the University of Colorado at Boulder for years of dedicated mentorship, support, and

xii Acknowledgments encouragement, including Joyce Nielsen and Leslie Irvine, who provided me with measured guidance, support, and theoretical insight throughout my graduate career. I especially want to thank Patti (“Ma”) and Peter (“Pa”) Adler, my academic “parents” for providing me years of close mentorship and friendship and inviting me into the Adlerian family. Your guidance allowed me to grow as a scholar and teacher and equipped me with the skills to successfully navigate the academic world. In the Department of Communication at University of Colorado- Boulder, Jerry Hauser intro­ duced to me the power of the written and spoken word through our stim­ ulating conversations about rhetoric and public discourse. He introduced me to the work of Kenneth Burke, whose ideas deeply shaped my thinking about the power of language to shape human action. And thank you, Bryan Taylor, for drawing my attention to the complex circuits of our cultural systems and providing me with an essential analytical toolkit. The Center for the American West at University of Colorado- Boulder expanded my knowledge of the “New” West, especially with the guidance of Patricia Nelson Limerick who graciously allowed me to audit her semi­ nar on the History of the American West. Our conversations deepened my understanding and appreciation of the complex regional relationships of place, history, and landscape across the modern West. And Guy and Heidi Burgess at the Conflict Research Consortium, who guided me through the difficult and often contentious terrain surrounding urban growth and devel­ opment across the Front Range region. I would also like to extend special thanks to my incredible colleagues in the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction (SSSI) who welcomed me into their amazing little corner of sociology and supplied the strong intellectual community that has fueled my work for the past two decades. Angus Vail provided me a welcome introduction to the Society; Simon Gottschalk, and the staff at the journal Symbolic Interaction helped me to express and hone my ideas in writing; Joe Kotarba, Chris Schneider, and Bryce Merrill whose mutual interest in music sociology brought us together and fueled our collaboration with Norm Denzin on a special issue of Studies in Symbolic Interaction; Maggie Cobb and Lori Holyfield, who share my passion for the sociology of bluegrass and folk music; and Melinda Milligan, David Altheide, Andy Fontana, Patrick Williams, Dennis Waskul, Philip Vannini, and countless others whose collegiality and genuine interest in my work inspired my long-term engagement with the SSSI. My colleagues at Linfield College, including, Amy Orr, Jeff Peterson, Hillary Crane, Tom Love, David Sumner, and Ron Mills, I cannot thank enough for their continued encouragement and intellectual inspiration on various stages of this project. To the Dean’s Office at Linfield College for generous travel support and faculty development opportunities. And to my undergraduate student researchers, especially John Christensen and Alana Thomas-Garcia, who assisted me with interviews and interview transcrip­ tions, and who expanded my understanding of music community through

Acknowledgments

xiii

their own connections to local music scenes, and to several years of students in my Community and Society and Music Subcultures courses who endured earlier, less polished drafts of my research and provided me with incredibly useful feedback. I thank you all. I also wish to thank Neil Jordan at Routledge (Taylor & Francis) for his astute guidance and flexibility as this manuscript developed and to Alice Salt for quickly answering all of my logistical questions. And to the series editors, Dennis Waskul and Simon Gottschalk, for shepherding and sharing my work through their excellent Routledge series Interactionist Currents. And finally, for their endless patience and enduring support and encour­ agement throughout this process, I would like to extend my very warmest hug of gratitude to my wife and partner, Jessica Wade, and to my daughter, Magnolia Jane Gardner. Thank you for understanding those long days and nights in front of a computer as I brought this project to fruition. I love you both more than words can convey.

Introduction The quest for community in bluegrass festival culture

As our caravan of vehicles left the Colorado Front Range, the familiar sights of Starbucks, stoplights, and sprawling rows of townhouses gave way to steep rocky canyons, wide mountain vistas, and sleepy old mining towns. As we entered the wide-open rangeland of ranches, rodeos, and cattle crossings and wound along Route 285 through the sleepy central Colorado towns of Bailey, South Park, Salida, and Buena Vista (pronounced “Bew-nah” by locals), I followed not-too-closely behind Caleb and Kristina’s loaded down red Ford pick-up truck. From the back, it resembled the teetering and tightly packed car Jed Clampett drove to California in the Beverly Hillbillies or perhaps the junk packed truck of Fred and Lamont Sanford from the sitcom Sanford and Son. Rather than heaps of scrap metal, the truck bed was packed full with sleeping bags, backpacks, tents, tiki torches, banjos, guitars, camping chairs, coolers, and pop-up canopies, spilling precariously over the tailgate of their weighted down vehicle. To protect the precious cargo from the elements, Caleb had covered and secured the items with several blue and green plastic tarps, whose corners eventually unraveled and flapped violently in the wind. As we passed through vestiges of the Old West to Telluride, a Mecca of the New West, the large, metal canopy poles stretched the length of his truck bed and hoisted up and over the cab like a witching stick, pointing us toward our final destination: The Telluride Bluegrass Festival. For bluegrass fans in the New West, few roads have more mystique than the breathtakingly scenic route through the San Juan Mountains toward the town of Telluride, Colorado. Roughly 10,000 “festivarians” travel each year and make the seven-hour-plus pilgrimage from areas across the Front Range of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains and beyond. The road itself is symbolic of the physical and mystical transition from the “real world” into “Brigadoon,”1 as one festivarian2 called it. Passing through the sleepy mountain towns of Montrose, Ouray, Ridgway, and Placerville, along the winding road into the San Miguel Valley, travelers traversed visible rem­ nants and artifacts of the Old West—ramshackle shacks, tumbleweed strewn roads, historic saloons, rusted mining equipment, and scarred mining

2

Introduction

landscapes—as they crossed over the threshold into an iconic cultural out­ post of the New West. Seven hours into our trek, we spiraled down the winding road through the rustic town of Sawpit. Sandwiched between the steep, red rock canyon walls, the town and narrow road passing through it quickly disappeared before the last sweeping turn into the valley floor. Suddenly, the mountains parted, revealing Telluride’s signature sight, iconic Bridal Veil and Ingram Falls, sandwiched between two snow-dusted mountain peaks. Entering the edge of town from the west, the road through the narrow canyon spits driv­ ers out into a vast panorama of red-painted mountains, aspen groves, and dramatic views of the San Miguel River valley. Situated at the end of a box canyon at 8750 feet in elevation, the one road in and out of town, State Route 145, makes the town of Telluride more of an ultimate destination than simply a stopover point on the way to someplace else. It is literally a “road home”3 for hardy residents of this defunct silver mining camp turned winter resort community. Nestled within this majestic mountain backdrop, the town is surrounded by enormous physical barriers, temporarily shelter­ ing those who enter from the politics and problems of the world beyond. Taking comfort that they are miles away from “civilization,” festival par­ ticipants seek refuge in this historic town that has become the ultimate play­ ground for the performance of New West culture. When we took our final turn out of the canyon, my passengers let out a collective “Whoa!” as the magnificent and awe-inspiring sight unfolded in front of us. The stereo, blaring the latest live bootleg from Yonder Mountain String Band, was muted as my shotgun passenger reached over to kill the sound. The carload of music and conversation came to a sudden and jarring silence. As our caravan slowed into a long line of traffic, I gently turned the radio volume back to a tolerable level while our car crept to a slothful pace behind the snaking line of SUVs, Volkswagen camper vans, and Subaru Outback wagons. Eventually, the familiar bright orange event signs began to appear alerting drivers and directing them to the various festival parking and camping areas: FESTIVAL PARKING AHEAD.

ILLIUM CAMPING NEXT RIGHT.

TOWN PARK CAMPING AHEAD.

MUST HAVE CAMPING PASS TO ENTER TOWN PARK.

In shocking contrast to the wide-open vistas we had just encountered, the

growing jam of cars heading for downtown Telluride was channeled into

several distinct lines, preparing for what initially seemed like a Gestapo

checkpoint. A conversation played out in my head as I scanned the car for

potential contraband: “Can I see your papers? They seem to be in order

… ,” I quickly discovered that Checkpoint Charlie was dressed in a tie-

dye shirt, torn cargo shorts, Birkenstock sandals, and orange-tinted Smith

Introduction

3

sunglasses. With a laid-back style that was one part California surfer and one part Grateful Deadhead, he greeted us: Checkpoint dude: “Heeeey there … How’s every-body doin’? Where you comin’ from?” Me: “Boulder” Checkpoint dude: “Boulder? Coool, man! Everybody got your tickets handy?” Me: (handing him our tickets) Checkpoint dude: “Oooh … You guys are in Town Park? Right on, brother! All-right … straight ahead. Have fun this weekend. Welcome home!” As our caravan passed through the initial ticket checkpoint en route to our final destination, we entered a completely different world than the one we had left behind earlier that day. Our caravan finally reached our destination as we pulled into the Town Park Campground, which for the other 51 weeks of the year functions as the town’s civic park. We were greeted by a host of campers that had arrived ear­ lier in the week and by that point, were already fully immersed in the life of the burgeoning tent city that housed nearly 1200 temporary festival residents for the third weekend in June. Passing through the well-established themed camps, we made our way down a bumpy dirt path through the maze of haphazardly strewn tents, vehicles, and pop-up shelters. Vibrant tie-dye tapestries and rain­ bow windsocks hung from the trees to declare camp entrances and demarcate personal campsites. The clunky plunk of banjos and the soft boom of upright basses could be heard from all directions and accompanied the crooning and slightly off-pitch mélange of vocalists trying to find their harmony. An avid banjo player, I could tell that Caleb was contemplating stopping his truck midcourse to join in the rather lively rendition of “Whiskey Before Breakfast” that echoed into our dust-laden vehicles as we rambled down the bumpy backroad through the primitive camping area. But, he carried on and led us to our camp. A bit disoriented by the seeming lack of discernable organization to the campground, we couldn’t initially find our friend Dave who had arrived a few days earlier to stake out a good spot in the shade. Luckily, we ran into another festival friend as he was making a beeline to the closest porta-potty. ROB: “Hey Erndog, what’s up. Have you seen Goldhammer’s camp?” ERNDOG: “Yeah, he’s down past the Mash Tent right before you get to Flamingo” ROB: “Cool, man. Where are you camped?” ERNDOG: “I’m on the other side (pointing), right next to Telluride Tom. You should see a big row of flags across the road—I’m right across from that in Camp Run-a-Muck. Look for the white V.W. camper—the one with the Disco Ball and Lava Lamp.” ROB: “So you brought the Love Bus this year?” (his beloved Volkswagen camper van)

4

Introduction

ERNDOG: “Of course! How could I not bring it to Telluride? Hey, stop by later. I’m cooking up a big feast. Salmon fillets and beef brisket. Y’all are welcome.” ROB: “Thanks Erndog, I’ll stop by in a bit.” ERNDOG: “Welcome home, man … “ (greeting me with a giant bear hug). We finally located the “Daves’ Camp,” hosted by three friends and bandmates who all happened to be named Dave, which would become our temporary home for the duration of the festival. We unloaded our cool­ ers, tarps, tents, backpacks, instruments, boxes of food, beer, jugs of corn whiskey, and portable stoves and wedged ourselves into the remaining open spaces surrounding the camp. During the several trips back and forth from our temporarily parked vehicles, I was showered with several more greet­ ings of “welcome home” from both familiar and new faces. As I crossed the wooden platform bridge back into the primitive section of the campground, children had already built makeshift hideouts underneath that would serve as their imaginary playground for the next several days. Before long, howls of “FESSTTIVALLLL!!!” rang throughout the campground originating from the direction of the Mash Tent, a major hub of social interaction and jamming in Town Park, which was followed by an explosion of cheers from all around. To remedy several hours in the car since my last bathroom break, I ven­ tured down to the line of blue porta-johns near the edge of camp. Before I got there, I poked my head into the Mash Camp to witness the commotion. A crowd of 40 or 50 men and women of various ages had gathered, hov­ ering around an enormous, fruit punch stained cooler. Holding their tiny paper cups in the air, they were all sharing in what I would soon discover was a time-honored festival ritual. Without advance warning, an unknown figure, a lanky, hairy man in a pink, woman’s one-piece bathing suit thrust a paper cup into my hands. “RUMBALLS!!!” he shouted directly into my face, slightly slurring his words as he commanded me to empty the cup. As I downed the potent mixture of fruit punch and rum, it revealed a stack of rum-soaked fruit at the bottom. He instantly invited me to refill it from the enormous blue cooler holding the ritual beverage commemorating this festi­ val homecoming (Figure 0.1). As I went for a second helping, I encountered a group of men in their 20s, instruments in hand. Adorned in particularly gaudy women’s clothing, the costumed string band, Cook County Bluegrass, included a guitarist in a flowered granny outfit, an upright bass player in a vintage prom dress, and a shirtless mandolin player wearing cut off jean shorts and a bright red 1980s woman’s power suit jacket, complete with shoulder pads and a string of white pearls. Noticing that most everyone around me was wearing some­ thing outlandish, I soon discovered that they were all dressed in preparation for the evening’s Freebox Fashion Show, a Town Park Campground tradi­ tion. Each year before the start of the festival, well-initiated festivalgoers

Introduction

5

Figure 0.1 Bluegrass band playing during the Freebox Fashion Show in Town Park, Telluride Bluegrass Festival, Telluride, Colorado.

walk into downtown Telluride and scavenge the town’s “free box,” a large donation bin with everything from the practical to completely impractical, including winter clothing, shirts, ties, ski pants, tennis shoes, and sport coats to bikini swimsuits, old skis and snowboards, wedding and prom dresses, and high heeled shoes. After raiding the box, participants create makeshift costumes which they prominently flaunt during the evening’s festivities, which usually commence after the ceremonial downing of the rumballs. After my long overdue visit to the porta-potties, I returned to camp to empty the rest of my car and assist Caleb and Kristina with assembling our camp and tidying up the space that would serve as our weekend home. There my friends and I nestled in for the evening and prepared ourselves for what would be a marathon of live music and all-night campground pick­ ing over the next four days, including our favorite main stage musicians like Sam Bush, Leftover Salmon, Bela Fleck, Peter Rowan, Blue Highway, and Yonder Mountain String Band. Wandering through the campsite, I was received with more spirited greetings of “welcome home,” which led me to ponder its dual meaning. On the surface, it was a friendly message of arrival to our final destination; a sign that we were indeed entering a quite welcome and comfortable place to call our temporary home. Miles and mountains away from our busy schedules, work, projects, and other responsibilities; it also signified a deeper, symbolic meaning: for an increasingly rootless and mobile segment of the population, it truly was “home.” Though tempo­ rary and fleeting, it was a place where they could let their hair down, cele­ brate time-honored traditions, and dance in the Colorado sunshine. For the

6

Introduction

droves of festivalgoers who cleared their calendars and made their yearly pilgrimage to Town Park, this was their portable community; a social space where they could experiment with novel forms of intimate, communal life, bask in the sounds of bluegrass music, and renew their longstanding festival friendships with their extended fictive kin. At its core, this book is about the interactional process through which individuals come to understand and respond to changes in their natural and built environments through the rituals and resources of culture. Specifically, it examines how a subset of acoustic music fans living in the American West in the early 21st century grappled with cultural modernization, urban sprawl and development, environmental degradation and disaster, and a perceived erosion of communal life through their shared participation in bluegrass music and festival culture. This ethnography explores a particular constellation of cultural perfor­ mances staged in bluegrass music and festival sites across the American West. Throughout the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, Cascades, and beyond, fans both old and new are soaking up the Appalachian acoustic string band sound made popular in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s by pio­ neers like Bill and Charlie Monroe, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, The Carter Family, and the Stanley Brothers. After decades eking a marginal existence on the fringes of country and western music, mainstream exposure over the past two decades has propelled bluegrass and old-time acoustic string band music to the forefront of American musical consciousness. Introduced to contemporary mass audiences through films like O’ Brother Where Art Thou, Cold Mountain, Songcatcher, and The Broken Circle Breakdown, and crossover music acts like Mumford and Sons, Avett Brothers, and Old Crow Medicine Show, bluegrass and related forms of roots music have secured a solid reading on the American cultural radar and became increas­ ingly prominent fixtures in the rituals and traditions of the contemporary American West. What explains the growing fascination with bluegrass and old-time music? Why have fans and festivalgoers resuscitated and celebrated these timeworn traditions, especially in the American West? And why, especially along the Rocky Mountain Front Range are people flocking to bluegrass and acoustic music festivals, donning their mandolins, acoustic guitars, fid­ dles, and banjos to celebrate this novel extension of Appalachian folk cul­ ture? Far more than merely a passing fad or fashion, this renewed interest in bluegrass and old-time music signifies a larger cultural and social critique of modernization and urbanization and the subsequent decline of community life in the early 21st century. Each summer in festival campgrounds across the American West, festi­ valgoers descend upon isolated rural music parks to build temporary sites of meaningful and intimate social interaction over extended weekends and holidays. Designed to accommodate the thousands of fans traveling to these remote locales, festivalgoers use the campground space to erect elaborate

Introduction

7

tent villages, that emerge, flourish, and disband over a three or four-day period, only to be rebuilt again in the same place the following year (or perhaps at the next major event on the festival circuit). Bluegrass fans are initially drawn to the festival experience for the simple opportunity to listen to and play bluegrass music with others. However, the impulse to return, the commitment to participate year after year, and the motivation to build these extensive portable communities in the festival campground, I argue, reflects an elusive quest for intimate and inclusive community life in a rap­ idly changing sociocultural environment. Tapping the romantic imagery and symbolism of traditional folklife to confront contemporary realities of sociocultural change, the rise of bluegrass music and festival life reflects a symbolic response to feelings of social fragmentation and isolation in a postmodern world.

The search for portable community Though contemporary forms and associations of neighborhood and com­ munity life stray from those experienced in small towns and villages in late-19th and early 20th century America, people continue to long for the intimate social relations they once provided. The shift from industrial man­ ufacturing to a high-tech service economy coupled with the decentralization and privatization of civic life has ultimately changed the American social and cultural landscape. Traditional forms of community, emerging from the distinct economic, political, and social forces of early modernity no longer match the lives, careers, or lifestyles of geographically mobile populations and the open forms of identity and free expression these individuals demand. While some scholars lament community decline and seek to restore social relations to a golden age of pre-modern or early 20th-century American society, the rise of geographical mobility, social media, and the sprawl of urban and suburban landscapes has fundamentally changed how and where individuals cultivate community. As transportation and communication technologies liberated individuals from living their entire lives tied to a spe­ cific geographical locale, the mobility of the American population altered both the physical geography of American landscape and our relationship to the local community (Kotkin 2000). As newcomers have moved to the West, the sprawling physical geography of new suburbs have eschewed the tradi­ tional village “main street” in favor of privatized sites of mass consumption dominated by the automobile, making its characteristic intimacy difficult to replicate (Abbott 1993, Kunstler 1993, 1996). The rise of portable communities in the contemporary social landscape reflects the challenge that individuals face when seeking or cultivating authentic forms of community interaction in an increasingly commercial­ ized, privatized, and mobile world. Mobile and rootless individuals often pine for forms of community that mimic those of the past but require certain levels of anonymity, freedom of expression, and lifestyle diversity

8

Introduction

that elude neighborhoods of old (see Florida 2002). Found in settings as wide-ranging and diverse as bluegrass festivals (Gardner 2004), jamband parking lot scenes (Adams 1999; Adams and Sardiello 2000; Hunt 2013), football tailgating, NASCAR racing events, rodeos, countercultural festi­ vals like Burning Man (Chen 2009) or Rainbow Family Gatherings (Niman 2011), dog shows, comic book conventions, or perhaps even academic or professional conferences, portable communities emerge in the deeply inti­ mate settings that characterize recurrent, temporary events. While scholars like Mary Chayko (2009) limit their discussion of portable communities to those emerging from online and mobile forms of communication, I examine how these and other contemporary forces give rise to new configurations of social belonging in temporary, face-to-face settings. While portable communities emerge from the same social forces of geo­ graphical mobility that shape and are shaped by social media and online communication, they retain deep connections to geographically rooted com­ munities. Specifically, portable communities are distinctly: Mobile: They emerge and flourish quickly over a few days’ time and rely on the geographical mobility of their participants. While often anchored to a particular locale, these communities may travel from site to site, event to event along a touring circuit. Recurrent: Despite their temporary, ephemeral nature, portable communi­ ties emerge, disband, and return in the same or similar location, often at regular, planned intervals. While a year or more may pass between events, there is a durable sense of interactional stability from one gath­ ering to the next. Participatory: Members of these communities participate in the manage­ ment of the physical and social spaces that define them, and have opportunities to guide their evolution over time. Distinct interactional rituals emphasize norms of inclusivity and tolerance to invite communal engagement among veteran and new group members. Authentic: Participants experience their interactions within the community as genuine and meaningful. Interactions are not excessively contrived or controlled by bureaucratic norms or corporate interests, which allows a relatively autonomous spirit of non-bureaucratic self-organization (Chen 2009). Performative: Public in nature, interactions in these communities take place on a social stage and reflect the collective values of their membership. Through performance, social actors use their participation as a vehicle for expressing latent attitudes about contemporary community life. Building on these distinctive features, this book examines the portable com­ munities built in bluegrass festival campgrounds as a vital outgrowth of contemporary life in the modern American West. Beyond mere nostalgia for a bygone past, festivalgoers responded to these changing contexts and

Introduction

9

contours through their careful planning and cultivation of novel spaces for communal interaction. Anchored in the symbolic interactionist, rhetorical, and cultural studies traditions in sociology and communication, I exam­ ine bluegrass music and its festival culture, a vital symbol of traditional Appalachian cultural life, as a screen on which contemporary audiences project their anxieties about a palpable loss of community life in their home environments. In the pages and chapters that follow, I explain how the portable communities cultivated within bluegrass festival sites provide a symbolic site of resistance to these cultural trends and cultivate a spirit of collective resilience in trying times. In a world fraught with environmental risk and political turmoil, this book provides a timely examination of the creative ways people use the resources of art and music to understand and respond to shared, public problems. This study unfolds across the backdrop of a “New” American West (Riebesame 1997; Limerick 2000), a social, cultural, and economic land­ scape characterized by record population growth, significant expansion of the information technology sector, the rise of extractive industries, and wide­ spread commercial and residential development. It is a landscape increasingly susceptible to human and climate-induced environmental disaster, including drought, forest fires, record heat, industrial pollution, and flash flooding. In the New West, rapid residential growth and redevelopment of urban social space has made it difficult for individuals to sustain rooted membership in local neighborhood life characterized by a stable sense of place.4 A century ago, attachment to a specific geographical location implied that individuals could rely on close-knit family, friends, and regular employ­ ment to keep them rooted firmly in place. Without deep roots, individuals were left to roam, ramble, or wander the countryside in search of work or shelter. To be mobile and transient, a person was often considered shiftless, untrustworthy, and unstable. Today, individuals who are geographically mobile are celebrated as a creative class of “seekers” (Adler and Adler 1999; Florida 2002), free from the fetters of family obligations, oppressive social or economic institutions, and potentially stifling forms of public life. High end service industries like medicine, finance, and government, high-tech industries related to computing, programming, and data storage, and other knowledge intensive industries have migrated to capitalize on the concentra­ tion of young “creative class” workers drawn to alternative lifestyle hotspots (Florida 2002; Kotkin 2000; Nevarez 2003), many of which are centered in the American West. It is in this shifting social and cultural landscape that I began my exploration of portable bluegrass festival communities.

My ethnographic path When I was a child, my family would travel throughout the Midwest in our 1978 silver Ford Econoline passenger van, packed to the gills with our modest pull-behind trailer in tow. While on the road, my mother and father

10 Introduction would often pull out their large case of eight-tracks and pop in one of sev­ eral bluegrass cassettes to provide the theme music to our journey. This was my first exposure to the music of Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass Boys, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys, The Stanley Brothers and the Clinch Mountain Boys, Jimmy Martin and the Sunny Mountain Boys, and Jim and Jesse and the Virginia Boys, as we rolled across the countryside. Our destination was usually one of several annual trapshoot­ ing tournaments in the region that drew in thousands of participants from around the world. Trapshooters and their loyal families and friends would often gather together at trap and skeet clubs in simple, on-site campgrounds throughout the duration of the weekend or weeklong competitions. Despite the rather primitive accommodations, families would arrive in their fully equipped pull-behind trailers and bus-like motorhomes to create vibrant, albeit tem­ porary, communities centered around the sport of trapshooting.5 Over a 20-year span attending events across the trapshooting tournament circuit, I recall how familiar the setting seemed from one year to the next, in both structure and interaction. Families would park their campers in the very same spots from year to year and once reserved, they had this temporary piece of property for the duration of the event and future events until they decided they no longer wanted it. This gave the campground setting a strong sense of community and continuity from one year to the next as I knew exactly where neighbors and family friends would be camping. In the eve­ nings, the adults would play poker and pinochle, sipping homemade wine while the kids played board games or endless hours of hide and seek among the adjoining campsites, far past our regular bedtimes. When we left to return home, there was always a sense of loss leaving these old friends (and a few new ones) behind, but I knew that we would be likely to see each other down the road at the next trapshooting event or at the same place the following year. Though I did not realize it at the time, these formative childhood experiences would sow the seeds of bluegrass fandom and an aca­ demic curiosity about portable forms of community well into my adult life. In the fall of 1997, I entered graduate school at the University of Colorado at Boulder to begin my doctorate work in sociology. As a budding fan, I was amazed at the expansive selection of bluegrass musical events that the region had to offer. Hosted at local cafes, restaurants, and pubs, any day of the week I could seek out informal amateur bluegrass jams or attend profes­ sional bluegrass performances at the various music venues across Boulder County, which emerged as a mecca for new acoustic and string band music in the mid to late 1990s. I spent many a winter afternoon and evening at local establishments like the Pioneer Inn, Acoustic Coffeehouse, Foolish Craig’s, The Stage Stop, The Jamestown Mercantile (aka “The Merc”), The Millsite, and Kaddy Shack to play bluegrass tunes at their lively amateur jam circles. Because the festival and jam circuit moves inside or further south for

Introduction

11

the winter, at the time I was not immediately aware of the extensive array of summer festivals that peppered the New West countryside. In the summer of 1998, I attended my first multi-day bluegrass festival, the RockyGrass Festival in Lyons, Colorado, where my father and I sat through three days of steady, torrential rain. I was immediately struck by the large number of fans who, having sought shelter under their blue tarps, rain parkas, or makeshift jackets from black plastic trash bags braved the unseasonably wet and cold weather to camp, dance, and jam in the festi­ val campgrounds. Initially puzzled by their willingness to endure the foul weather to keep the festival alive, I soon recognized that the bluegrass fes­ tival was an important and meaningful event in their lives. As a sociologist, I wanted to understand how and why the festival could generate such a strong sense of commitment and community among its diehard fans. Inspired by the amateur bluegrass jams and performances in the festival campgrounds, later that year I purchased an old Fender Jumbo acoustic guitar and began playing the few folk and bluegrass tunes I could muster. I soon met up with Caleb, a fellow graduate student from Kentucky who was an avid banjo player and longtime bluegrass fan. Over time, we honed our skills, took lessons, enrolled in several bluegrass jamming classes hosted by Pete Wernick (iconic “Dr. Banjo” from the band Hot Rize, who earned a Ph.D. in Sociology from Columbia University), and slowly progressed to the point where we were not completely embarrassed to play in front of others in a public setting. We started attending a weekly, local open jam in the quirky mountain town of Nederland just up the canyon from Boulder, where we were introduced to a vibrant network of amateur and professional musicians who were dedicated bluegrass pickers.6 Bluegrass music con­ sumed me as I found myself spending the majority of my leisure away from my graduate studies practicing old fiddle tunes, jamming at local cafes, and learning new songs for the bluegrass festival season. While my participation began as a diversion from the demands and rigors of my graduate work, I slowly began to see the bluegrass scene as thoroughly rich with sociological and ethnographic potential and used my access as an opportunistic research situation (Riemer 1977) to study its colorful, portable culture. I initially began formal work on this project through a set of course papers in Bryan Taylor’s graduate seminar on Cultural Studies. My initial goal was to explain the genre’s growing appeal in the Front Range region and to explore the mythic and symbolic foundation of the New West blue­ grass music revival. I developed these initial ideas into a formal project in Patti Adler’s two-semester seminar sequence in Ethnographic Methods by collecting observational data and interviewing a sample of participants in the local bluegrass music scene. From my initial observations and conversa­ tions with fellow fans and musicians, I began to see a consistent pattern of motivations that drove participants’ involvement in bluegrass music and festival culture.

12 Introduction At first, I entered the bluegrass scene strictly as an audience member of bluegrass concerts, festivals, and jam sessions and gradually assumed a research role of complete member (Adler and Adler 1987). However, it wasn’t until I established myself as a bluegrass guitar player or “flatpicker”7 that I was able to participate in impromptu jam sessions and become a part of the bluegrass musician networks first-hand (Kisliuk 1988). As I sharp­ ened my musical skills, I gained the respect and camaraderie of the more advanced players as well as local professionals who frequented the local scene. Membership in these networks allowed me, at times, to see and expe­ rience sides of the setting that a new or non-musician participant would not, including backstage areas of the formal performances and interactions with professional musicians in higher-level jam sessions. As my academic interest in bluegrass music and culture grew, I began to document my experiences and analyze my field observations more system­ atically. Across the Front Range and years later in the Pacific Northwest, I attended more than a hundred public open jam sessions, over a dozen instructional courses and instrument camps, and well over a hundred profes­ sional performances across the spectrum of acoustic string band music. I also attended over 40 regional bluegrass festivals representing both national and regional circuits. Through this participation, I encountered a familiar group of faces and personalities, many of whom were either “pickers” or loyal fans supporting the large cast of professional and amateur bluegrass performers. Since moving to the Pacific Northwest, I have spent the last 15 years as a regular festival attendee and casual picker at open bluegrass jams in the area. I have also returned to the Colorado Front Range several times to attend the RockyGrass Festival, most notably nine months after historic floods in September 2013 ravaged the town of Lyons and the Planet Bluegrass Ranch, the festival’s organizational hub and iconic home site which I discuss indepth in Chapter 7. Gathering observational and interview data through longitudinal participant observation (Agar 1996), I collected field notes and conversations periodically over this 20-plus-year span (see Appendix A for an extended discussion of my methods and analytical framework). In ethnographic research, it is customary to conceal the names of specific individuals, groups, geographical locations, or places. However, given the centrality of the concept of place in my study, I intentionally chose to pre­ serve the names of specific cities, festivals, music venues, restaurants, per­ sonalities, and locations to anchor the analysis in its natural socio-historical context as the dramaturgical “scene” shapes the cultural performances and meanings emerging from it in quite specific ways (Burke 1945; Goffman 1959). In some cases, rather than use pseudonyms, I chose to identify the actual names of certain people, especially for those who expressed a desire to be mentioned by name or those well-known public figures in the music scene whose identities would be difficult to mask. While written from an academic, sociological perspective, I’ve composed this book to appeal to a broad range of audiences, including academic scholars, researchers, policy

Introduction

13

makers, graduate and undergraduate students, and fans of bluegrass music. Though certainly some discussion of academic literature and historical con­ text is needed to frame my analysis and inform my findings, I have worked hard to restrain lengthy, technical discussions of research method and esoteric theoretical debates. For those interested in the finer details of my research, including theory and method, some of these headier discussions will be elaborated in chapter endnotes or appendices at the end of the book.

Moving forward Before going into the heart of this ethnographic study, I spend the first few chapters laying the groundwork for those that follow by contextualizing the rise of bluegrass music and festival culture in the New West. In Chapter 1, “Bluegrass breakdown”: A brief social history of bluegrass music and festival culture, I provide a brief history of bluegrass music that explains the emergence of the genre as a distinct cultural form that represented and responded to the social, cultural, and environmental changes taking place in 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s Appalachia. While many see bluegrass as a “tra­ ditional” cultural form, the music was a novel invention, assembled by Bill Monroe and his early bandmates from the fragments of musical influence that were circulating during its formation. Distributed through radio, film, and phonographic records, bluegrass documented and dispersed a conven­ tional representation of Appalachia and its people as deeply connected to the landscape, living a simple life circumscribed by church and family in isolated mountain hollows. It also chronicles the experience of a culture and a place that was deeply transformed by economic progress, mineral extrac­ tion, rail and highway development, and displacement. I trace this history to the growth of several key festivals in the American West that sprouted up in small mountain resort towns and Front Range communities in the 1970s, namely the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and the Rocky Mountain Bluegrass Festival (aka RockyGrass), and explain their persistence into the contemporary period. From this foundation, I construct a socio-historical narrative of “blue­ grass” as a cultural symbol by examining the bluegrass revival of the 1960s and its incorporation into popular culture to better understand its contem­ porary use and appropriation in a New West festival context. In Chapter 2, “What have they done to the old home place”: Family, home, and kinship in bluegrass music, I explain how the “high lonesome sound” of bluegrass gave voice to the Appalachian experience in exile as millions left their hollows and farms to seek economic stability in the factories further north. In the process, early bluegrass music constructed Appalachia as a hearth of inter­ personal warmth and relational simplicity, which appealed to those feeling displaced by suburban growth and development and longing for “home,” including sophisticated urbanites who pined for the perceived simplicity and authenticity of rural life.

14 Introduction I argue that the revival and rise of bluegrass music and festival culture provided performative spaces of “New West” cultural identity in which fes­ tivalgoers celebrated the mobility and freedom of the modern individual yet, remained deeply attached to ideas of home and community that often eluded them in the sprawling western landscape. Tapping into bluegrass as a vital though incomplete representation of Appalachian folklife and culture, I explain how participants in this growing festival culture in the West use the bluegrass aesthetic to organize their festival experience and respond to challenges in their daily environments. More than merely escapist enclaves, I examine the deeper political and rhetorical significance of these events and explain how festival participants use the cultural imagery of Appalachian folklife found in bluegrass to understand changes in their own communities and landscapes. In Chapters 3 and 4, I examine the portable festival camp as a vital site of place performance by examining the process through which they emerge, grow, and flourish into vibrant “vernacular villages.” I narrate the process through which participants reconfigure open fields and empty “spaces” into intimate and meaningful “places” by focusing on the distinct architectural and spatial forms constructed in the festival campsite. When building the typical bluegrass festival camp, participants progress through a series of dis­ tinct phases of development. In Chapter 3, Welcome home I: Building place in the bluegrass festival camp, I discuss the early stages of festival camp con­ struction by examining the work that festivalgoers put into planning their camp spaces, often months before the festival event itself. Pilgrimage to the festival site from miles away becomes an important and highly anticipated event in its own right, as it signals the transition between home or work life and festival life. In the days leading up to the festival, attendees congregate for land rush, which occurs when gates open and campers scramble to lay claim to their territory for the remainder of the festival. In Chapter 4, Welcome home II: Performing place in the vernacular vil­ lage, I examine the various performances of place enacted by festivalgoers in the festival campsite. I introduce and examine the next phases of place performance, including their transformation of undifferentiated space to a meaningful sense of place (Tuan 1977), their creation of mental maps rep­ resenting campsite layouts that endure from year to year, and the process of emplacement in which festivalgoers cultivate an intimate sense of extended kinship and home within the festival camp. I employ Gerard Hauser’s (1999) notion of vernacular rhetoric to understand how the “vernacular vil­ lages” constructed in the festival camp give rise to distinct social formations that reflect and embody a symbolic critique of cultural change. While the competition for coveted space can be fierce, festival participants structure the camps to maximize communal social interaction and cultivate intimate forms of association that they perceive lacking elsewhere in contemporary society. By reading the vernacular landscape of the festival campsite as a form of embodied rhetorical discourse, I demonstrate how campsite design,

Introduction

15

thematic organization, and spatial arrangements within the larger festival site promote relational intimacy and depth, including forms of communal interaction they found missing or threatened in their daily lives. I examine how these places emerge as geographical and symbolic anchors of the fes­ tival camp as a cohesive community, which persist beyond the weekend of the festival. While mobile, temporary, and transitory, these festival sites take on many of the characteristics associated with more rooted elements of traditional community life. In Chapter 5, The portable community: Inclusion, intimacy, and simplic­ ity in bluegrass festival life, I elaborate the various performances of place and community at the festival and in the various festival camps and further develop the concept of “portable community.” I explain how participants use the festival site to reconfigure their understanding of community and also critique larger trends of cultural modernization. Through this concept, I challenge conventional conceptions of community that assume a persis­ tent, residential rootedness in a specific, geographically bounded location where people work and solve problems as a necessary condition for commu­ nity formation. I argue that community does not only emerge but can flour­ ish in temporary settings and can be sustained over time by a geographically mobile and transitory population across festival locations. Across festival events, festivalgoers articulated a consistent vocabulary of inclusion, intimacy, and simplicity to explain the enduring appeal of the bluegrass festival setting. In this section, I elaborate these three primary motives. As a form of situated action, participants framed their involve­ ment as driven by a quest for intimate community, open and equal social relations, simple living, and authentic cultural expression; elements they found in short supply in their daily lives. While many initially explained that they attended because it was “fun” or that they “enjoyed the music,” when pushed further they articulated a deep desire to cultivate more meaningful and intimate interactions with other people in a space that was liberated from routine social constraints and conventions. Attracted to the open-air environment of rustic, rural music parks, ranches, and amphitheaters, and the perceived simplicity and authenticity of “unplugged” and “traditional” acoustic music, casual fans and amateur musicians sought out and worked to maintain these social spaces as a refuge from the outside world. In Chapter 6, “The festival world is so much better than the real world”: Performing self and identity in festival spaces, I explore how the festival camp provides an alternative space outside of “real life” in which partici­ pants break from their workday routines to perform an alternative sense of place and self-identity. First, moving beyond the process of physically building the festival campsites I introduced in Chapters 3 and 4, I examine how festival participants work to create and preserve a symbolic distinction between “real world” and “festival world.” I explain how the often rural, isolated physical geography of the festival site and the ritual nature of the pilgrimage to and from the site provide a symbolic break from daily life.

16 Introduction Rules, role responsibilities, and schedules are left behind in the “real world” as festival participants perform a world of play, fantasy, and carnival in the “festival world.” The structure and logic of the festival setting allows participants to reveal and express parts of their self that are often repressed or hidden from their work colleagues, neighbors, and family. By letting their “freak flags fly,” festivalgoers encounter a liberating social environment in which appear­ ance, style of dress, decorum, and behavior are guided by social norms that are less restrictive than daily life. Albeit temporary in duration, the alter­ native normative logic of festival life allows them to experiment with and stretch parts of their self that remain boxed in during other times of the year. I end with a description of the process of tearing down the camp and returning home and explain how this transition back to daily life cements participants’ distinction between “real world” and “festival world.” As the festival draws to a close, and the temporary tent city is dismantled, festi­ valgoers prepare for the return trip home. While rejuvenated, they often express a sense of loss or “post festival depression” as they re-integrate back into their familiar roles, routines, and responsibilities. In Chapter 7, “We’ve got grit”: Rebuilding community after the flood, I provide a concrete case study that tests some of the key arguments I make in this book. In particular, I examine the role of bluegrass music and festival culture in the recovery of Lyons, Colorado, a town ravaged by a 500-year flood event in September 2013. Lyons is the home of Planet Bluegrass, the organization responsible for orchestrating the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, RockyGrass Festival, and the Rocky Mountain Folks Festival, the latter two of which are hosted at the edge of town on their picturesque ranch. During the flood, 20 feet of water cascaded down into the property, inun­ dating the stage, destroying most of the outbuildings, submerging the fes­ tival campgrounds, and ultimately threatening the future of this significant cultural institution, the town, and the vibrant arts scene that grew around it. Shortly after the flood made its dramatic impact, town residents were urged to evacuate, in many cases leaving behind their personal possessions, pets, musical instruments, recording equipment, and other important items. Those living in the most damaged areas of town spent months in temporary housing waiting out the long recovery process and navigating a bureaucratic maze to return home. At the time of this printing, many continue to live in temporary situations with the dream of returning to their former town and resuming their normal lives and vocations. The town is home to a significant number of artists, artisans, and musi­ cians and related arts and music institutions, which played a crucial yet underexplored role in providing symbolic resources to cope with the flood’s impacts and to communicate the stories of those impacted. More pragmati­ cally, these same individuals and subcultural networks were crucial in mobi­ lizing people, resources, and relief after the storm. However, it is these same artists, artisans, musicians and institutions that are the most vulnerable

Introduction

17

in the post-flood recovery as many struggle to rebuild their homes, locate affordable housing, or manage to stay afloat financially. Given these chal­ lenges, the future of the vibrant arts culture in Lyons is precarious and uncertain. This flood event has served as a test case of sorts by challenging the strength of portable community connections formed though the festival events hosted at Planet Bluegrass. Residents have used the familial intimacy embedded in bluegrass music and associated with the festival site as well as the tight social networks formed there as critical resources in the rebuilding and recovery process. They have turned to music as a means of coping with rapid and profound environmental change and have used the financial and social anchor provided by Planet Bluegrass to stabilize the community in uncertain times. In the next chapter, I provide a brief history of bluegrass music and fes­ tival culture to better understand the symbolic role of bluegrass music and its role in shaping festivalgoers meaning-making practices. In particular, I explore the progression of bluegrass music after its emergence in the mid­ 20th century and explore the circulation and appropriation of the symbol “bluegrass,” especially as festivalgoers used it to make sense of cultural and environmental change in the contemporary American West.

Notes 1 A Broadway play about a mysterous and mythical Scottish village that appears for only one day every century. 2 Festivarian is a term used to identify describe the fans of bluegrass music who attend several-day-long festivals. As festival lore has it, it was created by merging the terms festival and Rastafarian, and describes the scene’s laid back fan base and relaxed festival atmosphere. 3 The title of a familiar “newgrass” song by the band The String Cheese Incident. 4 Shifts in the national and global economy over the past several decades have led to an exodus of US manufacturing, especially in the northeast and upper midwest, leading to population declines in these regions while the west and south have experienced significant population gains. Demographers find that during periods of rapid economic change and restructuring, including periods of reces­ sion and unemployment, geographical mobility in the United States increases, especially among young adults, with the most dramatic increases among indi­ viduals with college degrees and those without children (Benetsky et al. 2015). Broader demographic changes such as the postponement of childbearing until later in life and the increasing proportion of married couples without children has allowed individuals greater freedom to move, decoupling from their places of birth, which traditionally provided them a stable geographical locale throughout the life course. 5 Trapshooting is a competitive sport that involves using a shotgun to break clay targets propelled into the air by a spring-loaded machine 6 Picker is a generic term for bluegrass musician as with most instruments the strings are picked or plucked with fingers or picks. 7 Flatpicker refers to the particular playing style made popular by bluegrass guitar­ ists like Doc Watson, Clarence White, and Tony Rice, where individual melody notes are picked with a flat, plastic or tortoise shell guitar pick.

18 Introduction

Works cited Abbott, Carl. 1993. The Metropolitan Frontier: Cities in the Modern American West. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press. Adams, Rebecca G. 1999. “Deadheads: Community, Spirituality, and Friendship.” Paper Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association. Chicago, IL. Adams, Rebecca G. and Robert Sardiello, eds. 2000. Deadhead Social Science. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Adler, Patricia A. and Peter Adler. 1987. Membership Roles in Field Research. Qualitative Research Methods Series, 6. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Adler, Patricia A. and Peter Adler. 1999. “Transience and the Postmodern Self: The Geographic Mobility of Resort Workers.” The Sociological Quarterly. 40(l): 31–58. Agar, Michael. 1996. The Professional Stranger: An Informal Introduction to Ethnography. San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Benetsky, Megan J., Charlynn. A. Burd, and Melanie A. Rapino. 2015. Young Adult Migration: 2007–2009 to 2010–2012. Washington, DC: US Census Bureau. Burke, Kenneth. 1945. A Grammar of Motives. Berkeley, CA: University of California Chayko, Mary. 2009. Portable Communities: The Social Dynamics of Online and Mobile Connectedness. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Chen, Katherine. 2009. Enabling Creative Chaos. The Organization Behind the Burning Man Event. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Florida, Richard. 2002. The Rise of the Creative Class: And How Its Transforming Work, Leisure and Community in Everyday Life. New York, NY: Basic Books. Gardner, Robert Owen. 2004. “The Portable Community: Modernization and Mobility in Bluegrass Festival Life.” Symbolic Interaction. 27(2): 155–178. Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Hauser, Gerard A. 1999. Vernacular Voices: The Rhetoric of Publics and Public Spheres. Columbia, SC: South Carolina Press. Hunt, Pamela. 2013. Where The Music Takes You: The Social Psychology of Music Subcultures. San Diego, CA: Cognella Academic Publishing. Kisliuk, Michelle. 1988. “A Special Kind of Courtesy: Action at a Bluegrass Festival Jam Session.” The Drama Review. 32(3): 141–155. Kotkin, Joel. 2000. The New Geography: How the Digital Revolution Is Reshaping the American Landscape. New York, NY: Random House. Kunstler, James Howard. 1993. The Geography of Nowhere. The Rise and Decline of America’s Man-Made Landscape. New York, NY: Touchstone. Kunstler, James Howard. 1996. Home From Nowhere: Remaking Our Everyday World for the Twenty-First Century. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. Limerick, Patricia Nelson. 2000. Something in the Soil: Legacies and Reckonings in the New West. New York, NY: Norton. Nevarez, Leonard. 2003. New Money, Nice Town: How Capital Works in the New Urban Economy. New York, NY: Routledge. Niman, Michael I. People of the Rainbow: A Nomadic Utopia. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press.

Introduction

19

Riebsame, William E., ed. 1997. Atlas of the New West: Portrait of a Changing Region. Center of the American West, University of Colorado at Boulder. New York, NY: Norton. Riemer, Jeffrey. 1977. “Varieties of Opportunistic Research.” Urban Life. 5(4): 467–477. Tuan, Yi Fu. 1977. Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

1

“Bluegrass breakdown”

A brief social history of bluegrass music and festival culture

Bluegrass music emerged from a melding of musical forms circulating within the Appalachian mountain region around the turn of the 20th century. A novel invention at its inception, what came to be known as “bluegrass” by fans, performers, and the recording industry in the 1940s and 1950s grew out of traditional folk melodies and songs brought to Appalachia by settlers from the British Isles, Scotland, and Wales. Early pioneers of the genre like Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys, The Stanley Brothers and the Clinch Mountain Boys, and Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys blended these traditional sounds with church gospel vocal styling, and musical elements borrowed from popular modern styles as varied as blues, jazz, swing, big band, ragtime, and minstrel music. Over time, bluegrass evolved into a distinct, original form of “traditional” American string band music that flourished in the upland South and industrial cities of the North in the mid-20th century and continues to be performed and recorded by musicians around the world today. Adhering to this original formulation, traditional bluegrass is played exclusively on acoustic stringed instruments, including the five-string banjo, fiddle, mandolin, guitar, upright bass and occasionally the Hawaiian reso­ nator slide guitar or Dobro.1 Country music sociologist Richard Peterson explains that the distinctive bluegrass sound consists of “the extremely fast ensemble playing of acoustic stringed instruments with the individual instru­ ments—including the human voice used much like an instrument—exchang­ ing solo choruses” (Peterson 1997: 213). Vocal arrangements include three or four-part vocal harmonies that are characterized by a “high lonesome” falsetto tenor, often sung with a distinct nasal twang characteristic of Appalachian and southern regional dialects. Modeled after the primitive technology of its time, traditional bluegrass bands rely on minimal sound amplification or manipulation, and often choose to perform by circling around a single microphone to fully capture the tonal dynamics of the group. Soloing performers step up to the mic and propel their instruments and body to the forefront of the band to pro­ ject above the backing musicians, who must retreat quickly to their place in the circle after their break. Much like a jazz combo, each player takes

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center stage during their solo performance and delivers his or her unique improvisation of the melody. While there are notable deviations from this model today in performance style, instrumentation, and sound technology, the traditional formula crafted by the early bluegrass string bands continues to anchor assessments of “real” or “authentic” bluegrass music among per­ formers and audiences alike.

Old time string bands and “hillbilly” music Before the emergence of bluegrass, early Appalachian string bands tapped into a large stock of traditional folk tunes, ballads, and lyrical conventions that were brought to the region by settlers of Scots-Irish heritage. These immigrants brought instruments and melodies from their homeland in the British Isles and passed along the traditional repertoire through familial net­ works and community performances in the Appalachian highlands. Often these musicians learned the large stock of traditional songs shared by their mother or father, or perhaps a fiddling relative or neighbor who performed traditional tunes at barn raisings, community festivals, church socials, pie suppers, picnics, or barn dances (Rosenberg 1985). Over time these “aural traditions” became firmly established in Appalachia and emerged as emblem­ atic of the region’s social and cultural life. Socially and geographically iso­ lated from the cultural influences of the burgeoning metropolis beyond, many of the established musical styles, songs, and melodies remained rela­ tively intact and sheltered from the modernizing influences of urban culture well into the 20th century.2 However, as commercial and economic develop­ ment burst into remote mountain communities, the region’s people encoun­ tered forces that forever changed their social and cultural worlds. In the early part of the 20th century, Appalachia became a hotbed of mineral and resource extraction, namely in the form of coal and timber. The mining operations, textile mills, and heavy industry in the larger regional centers pulled economically strapped landowners and farm workers down from the highland areas in search of stable employment. Extensive rail lines were also built through established villages and hollows to link these regional centers of commerce and to haul out the buried riches that lie beneath the mountain soil. Both developments introduced city dwellers and hill country residents to previously unfamiliar cultures and influences. As the hammers of African-American rail workers began to ring through the mountain highlands, their work songs reverberated through the hills as they laid the first rail lines into remote mountain hollows. The automobile and other forms of mass transit brought traveling minstrel and blues musicians to the region and introduced unfamiliar, syncopated African rhythms and instruments like the banjo. Over time, these influences shaped Appalachian folk traditions to create an altogether new synthesis of musical forms. Post–World War I migration out of Appalachia and the decline in the family farm led many Appalachians to leave their home communities to

22 “Bluegrass breakdown” seek employment in the industrial areas further north. With the onset of the Great Depression, displaced musicians would often travel around from place to place in search of a stable income and to showcase their musi­ cal skills. Their audiences frequently sought out forms of entertainment to remind them of home and loved ones left behind or perhaps to grap­ ple with the harsh economic realities of the times (Roscigno and Danaher 2004). For many traveling musicians, factory or farm work was viewed as a “temporary expedient” when the music jobs played out (Peterson 1997: 111) as their preference was often to play music professionally over labor­ ing on the factory floor. To supplement their sporadic factory incomes, these musicians would often hire out their skills by playing local dances and house parties at which they could each earn four or five dollars a night. If these musicians gained enough exposure and recognition performing, they would often be hired in support of traveling comedy or minstrel shows, or perhaps used as advertising entertainment for traveling snake oil salesmen who ventured from town to town hawking their herbal tonics or patent medicines. Over time, acts like the Monroe Brothers, Fiddlin’ John Carson and his daughter “Moonshine Kate,” Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers, Jimmie Rodgers, and the Carter Family gained admiration and became sought after by record and radio producers alike. When factory or farm work was sporadic, these early string bands would often travel from town to town by automobile and perform 15-minute slots at local radio sta­ tions, which would then be recorded and broadcast throughout the week. Though they would make barely enough money to pay for their food, lodg­ ing, and gas money for the next stop on their radio tour, they found that these radio programs were an excellent form of publicity that could land them future gigs or recording deals. Fifty-thousand-watt clear channel transmitters pumped the early country music sounds across the country into both the hustle and bustle of the met­ ropolitan city and remote mountain villages and hollows. During this time, the advent of country barn dance radio performances like the National Barn Dance featured on Chicago’s WLS radio or the Grand Ole Opry hosted on Nashville’s WSM radio, became popular forms of family entertainment showcasing these early string bands. These weekly programs provided many of the burgeoning professional musicians a stable and enjoyable form of employment.3 As their popularity rose, certain bands became nationally rec­ ognized as these programs reached network status (Cantwell 1984). Some even garnered enough national recognition to warrant cross-country excur­ sions to perform for audiences in other major cities. Intended initially to appeal to rural, working-class audiences, these pro­ grams were crafted by promoters as symbols of down-home community life as they often took on the feel of an extended family gathering. Described by folklorist Neil Rosenberg (1985) as “the dramatic equivalent of an idealized family ‘get together’” (57), these variety shows featured performances by

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prominent hillbilly string bands and polished semi-professional musicians, interspersed with skits and comedy acts. Pumped into the parlors and living rooms across the country, this cross-fertilization of mountain and city life provided a market for city dwellers who were fascinated with rural life and folk culture they never experienced directly as well as newcomers seeking to reconnect with a world and culture they left behind. Seeking new commercial markets, record producers began pursuing the “authentic” mountain sounds of Appalachian fiddlers and string band ensem­ bles to attract the growing number of displaced rural refugees who joined the droves of immigrants and working classes in the industrial workforce congre­ gating in cities further north (Peterson 1997; Rosenberg 1985). This growing market for rural Appalachian vernacular music, then referred to as “hillbilly” or “old-time” by record producers and radio hosts, referenced the diverse and wide-ranging mixture of religious, dance, popular, and folk music that began to seep slowly into national consciousness. In its formative years, oldtime music appealed mostly to blue-collar workers, farm families, and other members of the rural working class. However, many in the upper crust of metropolitan culture loathed the growing popularity of hillbilly music, “see­ ing it as a constant reminder of the rustic rural past contrasting sharply with the sophisticated and classy urban image to which they aspired” (Peterson 1997: 27). Even though record producers themselves also loathed this pain­ fully “lowbrow” music, a genre they perceived as culturally backward and “hayseed,” they found that this traditional mountain music was among the most profitable and sought after in their record catalogs and therefore contin­ ued to market it (Peterson 1997).

The birth of bluegrass: Music of longing and displacement In the fall of 1939, after breaking off his duo performances with his brother Charlie, Bill Monroe brought a new string band lineup to audition at the Grand Ole Opry. Immediately impressed with their reception, program pro­ ducers approached Monroe and his evolving band—the Bluegrass Boys— and offered them a permanent spot on the show. However, it wasn’t until 1945 when Monroe (mandolin) cultivated his legendary lineup featuring Lester Flatt (guitar) and Earl Scruggs (five-string banjo). Unlike anything lis­ teners had heard before, the syncopated three-finger picking style of Scruggs’ banjo playing, the lightning fast, streamlined ensemble playing, and their polished stage persona propelled Monroe’s band into the limelight. Bucking the hayseed stereotype of earlier hillbilly string bands, Monroe required his bandmates to dress in sharp formal suits, jodhpur trousers, and cowboy hats to create an image of stoic sophistication. Though no one was calling this music “bluegrass” at the time, the genre as we know it today evolved from this formative lineup. From its inception, the formal elements of the original “bluegrass sound” became synonymous with the characteristic template Monroe, Flatt,

24 “Bluegrass breakdown” and Scruggs established. It wasn’t until record executives and radio and con­ cert promoters needed a label for this novel form of American string band music—named for Monroe’s iconic backing band and his native home of Kentucky—that the name “bluegrass” gained cultural currency. Even today, fans, performers, and record and festival producers battle over the distinc­ tions between “real” or “traditional” bluegrass and its more progressive offshoots by assessing the extent to which a particular band conforms to the original Bluegrass Boy mold. The highly polished and streamlined musical style of early bluegrass music appealed to new urban audiences. It referenced the rural social and cultural world to which many displaced Appalachians longed to return with­ out resorting to parody or caricature in representing rural people or their cultural practices (Cantwell 1979).4 In this way, bluegrass resonated both with rural populations, urban émigrés who felt a longing for lost home, family, or love left behind when they moved to the city as well as city folks longing for authentic forms of culture and community in a rapidly changing world. As a popular entertainment of the time, the “universal” appeal of bluegrass songs symbolized for many the deeply held places, traditions, and ways of living that were fading from direct experience for those displaced from home and community. In the early 20th century, rapid industrialization ravaged the Appalachian frontier; entire mountain hollows and homesteads were plowed under to make way for extensive rail systems, or were laid bare by mining and deforesta­ tion. Hard economic times forced many family farms out of business, pushing many young men to travel alone to the industrialized North to support their families or perhaps, to “ramble” and experience the intrigue and mystery of city life. As acres of land holdings were sold to northern-based entrepreneurs and corporations for coal and timber extraction, miles of rail line were laid through existing towns and communities. These once isolated mountain hol­ lows became a hotbed of natural resource development and the places that mountaineers once called home were changing drastically day by day.5 As sociologists Vincent Roscigno and Bill Danaher so carefully demon­ strate in The Voice of Southern Labor, songs played by early string bands provided displaced mountaineers and mill workers a narrative through which they could understand and cope with their present conditions, the lyrics of which became the “voice” of southern labor around which the Piedmont and other textile strikes revolved (Roscigno and Danaher 2004). As a social outlet for disgruntled mine and mill workers, labor songs were often performed by impromptu string band groups at union meetings and other gatherings. Musicians like Bill Monroe got their start singing and playing in these informal groups, which provided a circuit of venues and events that allowed these musicians to make a basic living from their craft (or at least a square meal as many musicians were paid in kind with food, housing, or other supplies). Especially when working conditions and harsh Appalachian life sent droves of workers to the factories in the north for

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better pay and union representation, these informal social networks allowed these workers to play music on the side for extra money or to abandon fac­ tory and mill work altogether. As bluegrass listeners moved beyond the boundaries of Appalachia, radio transmitters, studio recordings, and touring musicians carried the music with them. To these new audiences, bluegrass music articulated a deep and generalized tension between the forces of urbanization and the values of rural life. Growing out of a set of ritualized social practices span­ ning the religious and cultural worlds of the Appalachian people, the nar­ ratives of bluegrass and old time music carried and conveyed important sentiments about the changing world and landscapes they encountered at home and beyond. Always oriented to the past rather than the present or future, bluegrass and its longing, pining themes and “high lonesome” sound reflected a region and a people nostalgic for a way of life that was being lost to modernization and industrial progress. While the religious and gospel songs spoke to the Baptist roots of the music’s vocal traditions, the secular themes of bluegrass often contained references to home, fam­ ily, failed romantic relationships, and economic hardship, reflecting both listeners’ and performers’ lived experiences of diaspora and displacement. As it drifted beyond the Appalachian frontier through countryside and city, bluegrass became a vital cultural symbol of a people and countryside in rapid transition.

Folk revival: The rise of the bluegrass festival As America moved into the tumultuous 1960s, the Vietnam War, civil rights movements, and the unfulfilled promises of modern living led a growing number of urban fans to “rediscover” bluegrass as an authentic expression of anti-modernization and resistance to cultural change. Starting with the folk music revival of the 1960s, bluegrass was appropriated as a symbol of rural American life and used as a window into the distinct cultural herit­ age of the Appalachian folk. Folklorist Horace Newcomb explored the uses and functions that these images perform when consumed by people outside of Appalachia. As a “metaphor for what is rural in America,” referring to “hillbilly lifestyle, wherever it happens to exist,” these images explore a region of the American mind rather than a specific place or region in American cultural geography…The larger populace has historically used Appalachia (and other rural areas) for that liminal ground on which to criticize its own values, to challenge the ‘acceptable’ way of life with other attitudes. (Newcomb 1980: 317) Folk revivalists took special meaning from the rural connotations of this early bluegrass and old-time music and used it to recapture value systems

26 “Bluegrass breakdown” and ways of life they feared were fading out of existence. Many revivalists work to preserve these traditional cultures because, in the words of Neil Rosenberg (1985): Mass media were overwhelming vernacular culture, engulfing folk groups in a homogenous culture which destroyed worthwhile local and regional traditions…They perceived deterioration in the social fabric and sought to halt it. They were cultural conservationists, believing that the greed and thoughtlessness on the part of the powerful had exploited and eroded the delicate patches of ‘small tradition’ which gave the nation its strength. (274) Folk revival revivalists felt not only that they were preserving a unique form of American cultural and musical history but were attempting to reclaim a past and a way of life that was on the brink of extinction from the homogenizing forces of mass urbanization and mass culture. Expanding upon a steady concert and radio circuit in the late 1950s and 1960s made possible through the expansion of interstate travel, the blue­ grass festival became an integral part of larger bluegrass music culture in the 1970s. Carleton Haney’s Roanoke Bluegrass Festival, the first multiday bluegrass festival hosted at Fincastle, Virginia, was modeled after the popular Newport Folk Festival, one of the first modern music festivals in America.6 Citybillies, salt-of-the earth-farmers, urban hipsters, and work­ ing-class mountain folk from around the region arrived, instrument in hand. They built small camps consisting of tents or pull-behind trailers, formed impromptu amateur jam sessions, shared food and conversation, and wit­ nessed the radio and recording legends of their time performing well-rec­ ognized and timeworn tunes. Though other, more commercially successful forms of popular music made their mark through television, radio, and record album sales, many bluegrass artists were shut out of the major mar­ kets in the late 1960s and 1970s, which forced them to create their own independent systems of production, distribution, and performance (Fenster 1995), including these first bluegrass festivals. Harkening back to old-time fiddlers’ conventions held across the upland South in the late 1800s, amateur and professional musicians demonstrated their musical skills and competed for prizes. As the modern bluegrass fes­ tival movement grew, the instrument competitions played second fiddle to the well-established main stage radio performers. However, interested in preserving the music and its fading culture, the festival organizers staged side-stage workshops on instrument building, vocal and instrument instruc­ tion, cultural and social histories of the music, as well as instruction in tra­ ditional forms of dance such as contra dancing, clogging, flatfooting, and square dancing.

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Since many of the early fans of the music were also amateur or profes­ sional musicians themselves, the informal ensemble jam sessions that would take place in the campgrounds before, during, and after the main stage acts became a signature ritual that set these events apart from the rock and folk festivals of the day (Kisliuk 1988; Cobb 2016). The success of these ini­ tial bluegrass festivals led others to begin promoting their own (Rosenberg 1985), often beyond the confines of Appalachia. The extended mobility of the American population and the migration of residents of the upland south both northward and westward created a fertile soil for growth of the early bluegrass festival circuit of the early 1970s. Explaining the growth of blue­ grass festivals in the 1970s, Rosenberg (1985) explained that: A combination of factors lay behind the growing awareness of and attendance at bluegrass festivals. Enthusiastic interest in camping and the marketing of recreational equipment, including fancy vehicles, had added to the resources of weekend campers. The interstate highway system, begun in 1956, had by the late sixties made it possible to travel long distances with relative ease on limited access highways, and fuel was cheap. This combination of recreational camping and its concomitant technology created a network of private and public recreational facilities catering to tourists on the road. By the end of the 1970s, the festival circuit had spread beyond the Appalachian and midwest regions to include a few scattered events in the Rocky Mountains and Northern Plains (Carney 1974). Shortly thereafter, improvements in transportation, interstate travel, and the appeal of the American West as a refuge from the crowded cities further west and east led promoters and festivalgoers to see the West as a premier setting to host and attend bluegrass festivals. Reflecting this trend, the Rocky Mountain region played host to a growing number of summer music festivals (Wolf 1999), many of which were headlined by bluegrass acts.

Bluegrass music and festival culture in the New American West The American West has been a region infused with mythologies of renewal, rejuvenation, and romantic escape and adventure; a place of discovery where rugged individuals forge new pathways into wild and uncharted landscapes. For those living further east, especially during times of social or economic upheaval, traveling or moving “out West” signified a newfound freedom from established roles, routines, traditions, and lifestyles where life could be started anew. As both a geographical and mythical region, the American West carries significant weight in the political, cultural, and environmental history of the United States. As a site of cultural memory, the American West continues to provide Americans with a national identity

28 “Bluegrass breakdown” rooted in the values of economic progress and expansion, rugged individual­ ism, and environmental conquest. Many pioneers drawn to the West were initially driven by the promise of a new start, drawn by the possibility of tapping into the riches buried deep beneath the arid, rocky soil. Even though Frederick Jackson Turner signaled the closing of the western frontier after the census of 1890, its mythos continues to live and circulate through the stories, songs, films, and narratives of the “New West,” providing a sym­ bolic anchor for both personal and regional identity. Characterized by their strong mythical character, the cultural imagery and stories of the contem­ porary American West enshrine the hopes, dreams, aspirations, and values that continue to influence the attitudes and behaviors of those that live and travel there (Rohrbough 1994; Nash 1999). The idea of a “new” American West is not new. It has been in circula­ tion for over a century to describe the closing of the western frontier and the emergence of an increasingly urban and suburban cultural landscape transformed by westward migration, resource extraction, the automobile, and leisure travel. Over time, the American West has endured waves of constant change, through cycles of economic boom and bust, environmental destruction and preservation, and population contraction and expansion. With each period of bust came an eventual boom that required new means of economic survival and a reinvention of regional identity. Implied in its “newness,” the New West signifies both a rupture with and reinvention of the “older” West that preceded it (Limerick 1997; Ribesame 1997). Though these transitions imply a break from the ills and ill fortunes of the past, these reinventions utilize symbolic resources of the past to grapple with the chal­ lenges of the present and envision landscapes of the future. Superimposed on a natural backdrop of vast panoramas, dramatic mountain vistas, strange and unfamiliar geologic landforms, and wide-open spaces, the West signifies a set of landscapes and a region where individual is pitted against nature in a quest for self-discovery and independence. Among the small, relatively isolated farming, ranching, and mountain communities, intermingle new waves of residents and travelers to the New West. Subject to the boom and bust cycles characteristic of its resource economy, many of these communities seeking greater economic stability have become tourist stops celebrating the West’s historical imagery. Advertising the “authentic” experience of faux Native American jewelry and artifacts, cowboy saloons, mining tours, Old West gambling depots, and ghost towns, these Old West relics co-mingle with cappuccino and espresso cafés, craft brewpubs, sushi and oxygen bars, cannabis dispensaries, gated condo rentals, Patagonia clothing shops, high-end art galleries, and Land Rover SUV dealerships. According to geographer William Riebsame, “The New West lifestyle has a lot to do with the flood of well-off newcomers and their consumption pat­ terns. Urban and suburban refugees come to the Interior West looking for salvation from the rat race; they appreciate the rugged landscape, the big

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sky, the mythical ‘Wild West,’ and opportunities to make money and spend it” (Riebsame 1997: 117). Since the late 1970s, the Mountain West has drawn on its winter resort communities to provide year-round cultural entertainment through the establishment of annual music, art, and film festivals. Having established a prominent place within the rituals and traditions of New West culture (Altherr 1996; Riebsame 1997), these festivals and celebrations provide a significant boost to the slow summer months in many winter resort commu­ nities and provide residents and tourists a vital source of culture that is often scarce in rural, western areas (Riebesame 1997). Prior to 1974, Colorado was only 1 of 13 states to have never hosted a formal bluegrass festival, with 4 of the remaining 12 states located in the western region including Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, and Utah (Carney 1974). However, in 1999, Colorado was host to the largest number of annual summer music festivals of any state in the country (Wolf 1999: 70), many of which were labeled and packaged as bluegrass festivals or featured bluegrass acts as their primary draw7 (Figure 1.1). Even though the entire region was among the last to begin hosting blue­ grass festivals (Carney 1974), over the last two decades, the American West has experienced rapid growth of bluegrass music and culture, and has become an epicenter for bluegrass music production, instruction, and per­ formance, including weekend-long summer festivals, formal and impromptu

Figure 1.1 Crowd gathered around the workshop stage, downtown, Telluride, Colorado.

30 “Bluegrass breakdown” open jam sessions, instrument camps, weekly community radio broadcasts, and both street corner and concert hall performances. Within these spaces, various sub-genres of traditional bluegrass, old time, folk, gospel, progres­ sive “newgrass,” and alternative country music coexist, with each style attracting a slightly different but overlapping crowd of both performers and audience members. A number of the West’s small towns and cities are home to a vibrant network of amateur musicians who gather to play informally in local coffee shops, restaurants, and music shops, at community gather­ ings, public fairs and festivals, and in parking lots before, during and after professional concerts. It is in these spaces where both professional and ama­ teur performers and audiences gather and co-mingle to watch main stage performances by well-known bluegrass artists and to share in amateur musi­ cal performance through informal and spontaneous jam sessions. In fact, throughout the intermountain West and West Coast, open jam sessions or “picks”8 can be found nearly every day of the week at local restaurants and cafés. These sites constitute a set of ritualized gathering places for both musicians and audiences to perform bluegrass music and culture. Suggestive of its growing appeal and influence in the region, individuals have assembled an impressive number of formal and informal networks that revolve around the culture of this distinctive brand of traditional American acoustic string band music. These networks and the resultant culture and lifestyle constitute what John Irwin (1973) refers to as a “scene.” As he explains, a scene is an explicitly recognized lifestyle; a “configuration of behavior patterns which is well known to a group of actors” (131). It hinges upon a set of non-instrumental meanings, understandings, and interests shared by those participating in the larger collectivity. Overlapping with the broader folk music, singer-songwriter (Cobb 2016), and Grateful Dead scenes (Adams and Sardiello 2000; Pearson 1987), many participants found their way to the bluegrass and traveling festival circuit through their experi­ ences touring with The Dead or similar Jamband music subcultures (Hunt 2012) featuring bluegrass-inspired bands like Leftover Salmon, String Cheese Incident, Yonder Mountain String Band, Infamous Stringdusters, or Greensky Bluegrass, who have successfully fused bluegrass with rock and electric blues styles. During the summer months, bluegrass fans from throughout the coun­ try (and world) converge on small, rural, western mountain communities in outdoor music festival parks, amphitheaters, and county fairgrounds to perform and celebrate bluegrass music and culture. The region becomes home to tens of thousands of people who travel there annually to par­ ticipate in the West’s growing summer festival movement (Wolf 1999). Turning from the louder, electrified sounds of rock and roll embraced in their youth (Kotarba 2002), many middle-aged fans were attracted to the relaxed, acoustic character of bluegrass and its family-friendly festi­ val setting. Waves of newcomers were exposed to the music through the multi-platinum, Grammy-winning soundtrack to the Coen Brothers’ film

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O’ Brother Where Art Thou, which featured a traditional folk and blue­ grass-inspired soundtrack. Others discovered bluegrass through Old and In the Way, a highly successful bluegrass side project led by the Grateful Dead’s iconic frontman Jerry Garcia in 1973. Some transplants found their path to bluegrass music through a yearning to reconnect with their family’s Appalachian cultural heritage, while others found their path to bluegrass through a relative or friend who introduced them to the music of Bill Monroe or the Stanley Brothers. Festivalgoers include college students and post-graduates, manual labor­ ers and tech industry programmers, young families with children and dedi­ cated elders well into their 70s and 80s. Many of the festival participants have entered careers or have made lifestyle choices that afford them a week or more of vacation during the summer months to travel from festival to festival across the summer outdoor circuit. The bulk of these participants are college educated or have advanced degrees and find employment in the region’s growing technology and financial sectors. Drawn by the abundant sunshine and relatively easy access to public land, and the region’s close proximity to amenities like camping, hiking, mountain biking, skiing and snowboarding, climbing, and other adventure sports, mobile “seekers” (Adler and Adler 1999) have flocked to the region in search of outdoor adventure and recreation and the vibrant live music scenes that accompany them (Figure 1.2).

Figure 1.2 The Telluride Bluegrass Festival situated in the San Juan Mountains, Telluride, Colorado.

32 “Bluegrass breakdown” The growth of these festivals and their associated festival culture are indicative of the mobility and economic freedom of many “New Westers.” Starting with the post–World War II migration westward and accelerated by consecutive waves of newcomers in the 1970s and 1990s (and into the 2000s), this latest round of New Westerners embarked on a “national vision quest” to create a new American Region, one that fits their lifestyles and desires for a new sense of place (Riebesame 1997). Unencumbered by the crowded urban areas and the religiously and culturally conserva­ tive rural settlements further east, they have headed “out west” to start anew in a fresh and relatively new region of the country. Many non-west­ ern natives make their pilgrimage “out west” for individual exploration, adventure, to be one with nature, and to enact or perhaps carve out a sense of independence. They experience the open, rural spaces of the New West as a land of escape and retreat, “a land not yet sliced into places” (Bauman 1996: 20). Though initially drawn to the West for its rugged individualism and its wide-open spaces, many transplants to the region long for a sense of community and kinship that eludes much of the Old West history and imagery, and the New West’s frantic and fragmented residential development, but find it in the “portable community” of the bluegrass festival scene. Though fans are initially drawn to the festival for the main stage perfor­ mances, the festival offers multiple nodes of activity, all of which happen simultaneously. The main stage music performances customarily start in the late morning and go well into the evening hours. Several, smaller side stages are often assembled around the periphery of the festival grounds to show­ case local and regional talent, workshops, or perhaps to feature impromptu duets or other unique configurations of well-known professional perform­ ers scheduled throughout the weekend. After the main and side stage acts have finished for the evening, amateur musicians form spontaneous jam­ ming circles throughout the campgrounds and parking areas circling the festival grounds, the most dedicated of which play until the wee hours of the morning. Occasionally, well-known professional musicians will arrive to the campground, instrument in hand, to join in the picking and singing, much to the awe of the amateur pickers and onlookers. While most festivals take place over a three or four-day weekend, participants will often arrive several days before the main stage performances begin and stay on-site or in satellite campground facilities designed to accommodate out-of-town attendees. Over the course of the week or two surrounding the festival, these primitive campsites evolve into elaborate temporary villages that become a significant draw to festivalgoers in their own right. Though designed to provide temporary accommodations for those attending and spending the night at these festivals, these camps often take on lives of their own. They are usually composed of a seemingly

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random assemblage of tents, pop-up shelters, canopies, recreational vehicles (RVs), pull-behind trailers, and passenger vans or busses connected with blue and green plastic tarps and arranged in a circular pattern around a shared communal space, in which participants share cooking, food, music, and conversation. At these campsites, participants carve a space within which they can gather intimately with other bluegrass fans and perform traditional bluegrass songs and fiddle tunes. While many participants travel to the region for one particular festival or to see a favorite performer on one specific day, dedicated fans spend their summer weekends traveling with tents or campers across the region to multiple events on the bluegrass festival circuit. “Pickers’ festivals” or what Maggie Cobb calls “musicians’ festivals” draw the most committed attendees, most of whom are skilled amateur or semi-professional musi­ cians (Cobb 2016) who seek out the opportunity to jam with neighbor­ ing campmates. In contrast to relative newcomers to the scene who often stay in single, standalone tents, dedicated festivalgoers tend to camp with large groups of friends and their extended “festival families” in elaborate, creatively themed “camps” assembled from collectively joined tarps, tents, and portable pop-up shelters. Newcomers often collect ideas from other veteran campers to make their temporary shelter or “camp” as comfort­ able and equipped as possible for the following year and, in many cases, get invited into the larger camps as space allows. The most casual and least committed attendees are often residents of the local community who simply visit for the day or stay in a hotel or condominium offsite, and return home after the evening main stage performances have ended. After the festival weekend ends, participants often create informal networks of communication via the Internet and continue face-to-face interaction at weekly jam sessions or concert performances. Through these interactional networks, groups of friends keep in contact and plan meetups at future festivals or jam sessions long after the tents and pop-ups have been stowed for the season. In this chapter, I provided a brief history of bluegrass music and fes­ tival culture as it traveled from its birthplace in the hills and hollers of Appalachia to the open, mountain landscapes of the “new” American West. In the next chapter, I explore the relationship between bluegrass music and cultural narratives of place. I argue that the rekindled interest in bluegrass and traditional American “roots” music in the New West draws heavily from the genre’s well-established links to Appalachian cultural memory and tradition. Confronting rapid and profound social and cultural change in their own lives, early bluegrass musicians represented Appalachia as both an idyllic, pristine place of interpersonal warmth and community while implicitly decrying the disruptive forces of modernization and urbanization that were forever altering it. Throughout its storied history, bluegrass music

34 “Bluegrass breakdown” has appealed to urban and rural audiences alike by articulating this ten­ sion between tradition and modernity, by representing rural Appalachia as a place untouched and uncontaminated by the forces of modern, urban life. As we will see, the symbol of bluegrass becomes a vital resource to listeners as they try to make sense of and respond to environmental changes in the emergent New West landscape.

Notes 1 Fans often debate whether bluegrass can include other instruments, such as drums, harmonica, electric bass, washboard, dulcimer, lap harps, or other instruments. Most staunch traditionalists return to the definition provided here as these instruments were the ones featured by the iconic Bluegrass Boy lineup as dictated by bandleader Bill Monroe. 2 Folklorists like Roscoe Holcomb, John Cohen, Alan Lomax, and Mike Seeger sought out, documented, and recorded many of these traditional musicians, songs, and musical styles, preserving their legacy for future generations. 3 The growing popularity of these radio programs also provided a new market for traveling musicians to perform as they traveled from state to state, as memorial­ ized in the Bill Monroe song “Heavy Traffic Ahead.” 4 Though often associated with rural Appalachian folk life, bluegrass music was a commercial form of popular music that appealed audiences who left seeking the economic advantages of the city or were displaced from their mountain hol­ lows and bankrupt farms during the Great Depression. As economic conditions worsened, many individuals left their home places in mountain communities to find work in the textile and steel mills in the larger regional towns. Others were forced to leave the mountain region altogether for the economic opportunities beckoning in the factories of cities like Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Indianapolis. 5 Drawn to the cities and towns by the fortune and prosperity that the new mills and mines were promised to bring, many of the mountain dwellers sold their land holdings and forever lost their homes and home places despite the promise of economic opportunity and wealth, a narrative that was memorialized in 1926 by Gastonia, North Carolina mill worker Dave McCarn’s “Cotton Mill Colic No. 3” (Wisnant 1983:7, Roscigno and Danaher, 2004). These narratives of displacement were carried on the work of later musicians such as John Prine in his song Paradise, folk songwriter Si Kahn’s Aragon Mill, and Norman Blake’s Last Train from Poor Valley. 6 Some historians and folklorists argue that Roscoe Holcomb pioneered the first bluegrass festival decades earlier as he showcased the music and folklife of the Appalachian people at daylong events. 7 Places like Vail, Aspen, Telluride, Pagosa Springs, Keystone, Silverton, Pueblo, Lyons, Grand Junction, Denver, and Durango (Colorado); Stevenson, Battleground, Winlock, Cashmere, Ranier, and Bellevue (Washington); North Plains, Bend, Fossil, and Portland (Oregon); Taos, Farmington, and Santa Fe (New Mexico); Hamilton, Montana; and Park City and Fountain Green (Utah), Grand Targhee, Douglas, and Casper (Wyoming), and Winfield (Kansas) are among the many sites in the New West where annual folk, old time, and blue­ grass music festivals have become a summer tradition. 8 Sites where regular and unfamiliar amateur bluegrass and old time musicians join to make spontaneous music under a traditional repertoire and standardized jam structure.

“Bluegrass breakdown”

35

Works cited Adams, Rebecca G. and Robert Sardiello, eds. 2000. Deadhead Social Science. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Adler, Patricia A. and Peter Adler. 1999. “Transience and the Postmodern Self: The Geographic Mobility of Resort Workers.” The Sociological Quarterly. 40(l): 31–58. Altherr, Thomas. 1996. “Let ‘er Rip: Poplar Culture Images of the American West in Wild West Shows, Rodeos, and Rendezvous.” In Wanted Dead or Alive, Richard Aquila, ed. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press. Bauman, Zygmunt. 1996. “From Pilgrim to Tourist – or a Short History of Identity.” In Questions of Cultural Identity, Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay, eds. London: Sage Publications, 18–36. Cantwell, Robert. 1979. “Ten Thousand Acres of Bluegrass: Mimesis in Bill Monroe’s Music.” The Journal of Popular Culture. XIII(2): 209–220. Cantwell, Robert. 1984. Bluegrass Breakdown: The Making of the Old Southern Sound. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Carney, George. 1974. “Bluegrass Grows All Around: The Spatial Dimensions of a Country Music Style.” The Journal of Geography. 73(4): 34–55. Cobb, Maggie C. 2016. “‘For a While They Live a Few Feet Off the Ground’: Place and Cultural Performance at the Walnut Valley Festival.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography. 45(12): 367–395. Fenster, Mark. 1995. “Commercial (and/or?) Folk: The Bluegrass Industry and Bluegrass Traditions.” The South Atlantic Quarterly. 94: 1, Winter. Hunt, Pamela M. 2012. “Examining the Affective Meanings of Interaction Settings in the Jamband Music Subculture.” The Journal of Public and Professional Sociology. 4: 1, Article 5. Irwin, John. 1973. “Surfing: The Natural History of an Urban Scene.” Urban Life and Culture. 2(2): 131–160. Kisliuk, Michelle. 1988. “A Special Kind of Courtesy: Action at a Bluegrass Festival Jam Session.” The Drama Review. 32(3): 141–155. Kotarba, Joseph A. 2002. “Rock ‘n’ Roll Music as a Timepiece.” Symbolic Interaction. 25(3): 397–404. Limerick, Patricia Nelson. 1997. “The Shadows of Heaven Itself.” In Atlas of the New West: Portrait of a Changing Region. Riebsame, William E., ed. Center of the American West, University of Colorado at Boulder. 151–178. New York, NY: Norton. Nash, Gerald. 1999. The Federal Landscape: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century West. Tucson, AR: University of Arizona Press. Newcomb, Horace. 1980. “Appalachia on Television: Region as Symbol in American Popular Culture.” In Appalachian Images in Folk and Popular Culture, 2nd ed. W. K. McNeil, ed. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press. 315–330. Pearson, Anthony. 1987. “The Grateful Dead Phenomenon: An Ethnomethodological Approach.” Youth and Society. 18(4): 4–18. Peterson, Richard A. 1997. Creating Country Music: Fabricating Authenticity. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Riebsame, William E., ed. 1997. Atlas of the New West: Portrait of a Changing Region. Center of the American West, University of Colorado at Boulder. New York, NY: Norton.

36 “Bluegrass breakdown” Rohrbough, Malcolm J. 1994. “The Continuing Search for the American West: Historians Past, Present, and Future.” In Old: West/New West: Quo Vadis. ed. Gressley, Gene. Worland, WY: High Plains Pub, 136–140. Rosenberg, Neil V. 1985. Bluegrass: A History. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Roscigno, Vincent J. and F. William Danaher. 2004. The Voice of Southern Labor: Radio, Music, and Textile Strikes, 1929–1934. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Wisnant, David E. 1983. All That Is Native and Fine: The Politics of Culture in an American Region. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Wolf, Peter. 1999. Hot Towns: The Future of the Fastest Growing Communities in America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

2

“What have they done to the old home place?” Family, home, and kinship in the

“New” American West

From its inception, bluegrass music has functioned as a symbolic screen upon which performers and listeners project their attitudes and anxieties about social and cultural change, a trend that continues to play out in festi­ val parks and amphitheaters across the American West. The nostalgic pining for home, family, and extended kin expressed by early bluegrass musicians resonates with contemporary fans and festivalgoers seeking a stable sense of place in a rapidly changing region. In the sections that follow, I exam­ ine the concept of “place” as it is constructed in bluegrass and traditional Appalachian music by analyzing the cultural and social context surrounding the music’s emergence. Festivalgoers explain that their interest in the music is, in part, linked to its symbolic associations with Appalachian culture and folklife as it evokes an aesthetic of rural mountain life stripped down to its basics—an authentic alternative to mass consumer culture. As Erving Goffman and Kenneth Burke both suggest, the “scene,” or the background setting of social action, provides a larger “context of situation” (Malinowski 1923) that guides and orients social actors and the meanings they make through interaction. To understand the emergence of the “port­ able community” as a social form, I highlight the backdrop of rapid urban growth and development in the American West in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Paralleling the meteoric rise of bluegrass music and festival culture, the growth and development of the region provides a contextual backdrop to a distinct set of cultural practices that flourished along the Colorado Front Range in its bars, cafes, and festival campgrounds, and created a sta­ ble sense of place in a quickly changing region.

Music and the cultural construction of place Music and place are inextricably linked. Music of any type or genre has a distinct capacity to transport listeners to places across time and space that are not immediately accessible through direct experience. Specific genres of music, especially folk traditions associated with distinct social or cul­ tural groups, communicate a strong sense of nationalistic, regional, or local identity and a sense of place across geographical boundaries. To outside

38 “What have they done to the old home place?” audiences, calypso music conjures images of the laid back, festive imagery of island life in the Caribbean while Flamenco transports listeners, tem­ porarily, to a street side café in Grenada or Seville, Spain. Even individual instruments like the traditional Andean panpipe (Turino 1993), or the sitar and tabla drum featured in Indian classical music evoke strong images of landscape and place tied to a specific area of the world. The relationship between music and place also features a temporal dimension. Both sonically and lyrically, music appeals to listeners by taking them places across time whether they be places in history, places rooted in personal memory, or perhaps imagined communities in our collective, cultural memory (Bennett and Rogers 2016; Brandellero et al. 2014; Hartje-Döll 2013). As a musical and cultural timepiece (Kotarba 2003), music genres like rock and roll, big band, or oldies can transport baby boomers several years or decades back to the sounds, experiences, and politics of their youth. Cultural theorist Simon Frith (1996) argues that music has the special capacity to “define space without boundaries,” which makes it the “cultural form best able both to cross borders … and to define places” (125). Given the portable, sonic qual­ ity of music, it not only defines places in the popular imagination but also can literally cross borders as sounds and soundscapes travel beyond their place of origin. Through musical border-crossing, the earliest forms of communica­ tion and cultural exchange through migration and travel brought together new and unfamiliar musical forms, allowing them to take root in regions of the world they had never gone before. In the United States, successive waves of immigration deposited layers of musical influence that changed the sonic landscape with each passing tide. Immigrants brought bundles of old songs, traditions, and instruments to celebrate the musical heritage of their homelands and shared them with extended family, friends, and neighbors. Musical reminders of “home” became particularly important to newcomers as they grappled with the push of cultural exile and the pull of assimilation in an unfamiliar world. This process was accelerated as the development of domestic mass transit via train and automobile infrastructure in the late 19th and early 20th centuries led to greater mobility of not just people, but also their cultural traditions, across geographical boundaries. In his book Dangerous Crossroads, George Lipsitz (1994) argues that popular music has a strong relationship to the poetics and politics of place and provides a context for understanding how social change alters our inter­ actions with specific locales and landscapes. For Lipsitz, popular music offers a way of starting to understand the social world that we are los­ ing—and a key to the one that is being built. Anxieties aired through popular music illumine important aspects of the cultural and political conflicts that lie ahead of us all … through music we learn about place and about displacement. (3–5)

“What have they done to the old home place?”

39

This relationship between music and place is clearly demonstrated through anthropologist Kelia Diehl’s (2002) ethnographic study of the Tibetan dias­ pora in Dharamsala, India. She explains how traditional music became a critical resource for exiled Tibetans to retain their attachments and memo­ ries while displaced indefinitely from their cultural homeland. Over time, this relationship became complicated as newer generations who lived most of their lives outside of Tibet were urged to celebrate and remember a place they only knew indirectly, a tension that was reflected in their Tibetanized appropriation of rock and roll, blues, Bollywood, and hip hop. Their use of popular and globalized cultural forms allowed them to articulate their unique and “hybrid” relationship to Rangzen, a Tibetan word mean­ ing independence or freedom, as well as their complicated relationship to “home” as simultaneously northern India, their place of birth, and Tibet, their cultural homeland (Diehl 2002). Functioning as vital repositories of cultural memory, popular and folk music genres orient and organize human relationships to particular places in particular ways by framing our actions and attitudes toward these places. In the words of Kenneth Burke, music, like literature, serves as “equipment for living,” symbolic resources that provide “strategies for dealing with situations” in our daily life and society (Burke 1941: 296). When mean­ ingful places endure rapid and profound change or when a group of peo­ ple encounter displacement from their homelands, performers and listeners turn to music and its vast storehouse of cultural memory for support and comfort and to make sense of their changing worlds. Much like the rise of technobanda music in the United States and Mexico (Simonett 2013), music provides an “empowering force” (88), allowing its listeners to reconstruct their relationships to place, reflect on their relationships with the present, and articulate their dreams for the future by reviving traditions of the past.

The construction of Appalachia in traditional bluegrass music Before the rise of bluegrass in the 1940s, Appalachian string band music tapped into a large stock of songs, hymns, ballads, melodies, and musical styles passed along from generation to generation and from place to place. The vast collection of traditional Appalachian and Scotts-Irish folk tunes circulating within the Appalachian region took on different shapes as they were performed and incorporated into the unique cultural landscapes of different, isolated mountain hollows and communities. Each distinct region provided its own unique interpretation of these traditional songs and musical styles, which branded the music performed there with a distinct fingerprint of place. In these geographically and socially isolated communities, particu­ lar banjo or fiddle styles, modes and methods of harmonizing, and vocal stylings melded with secular and religious influences to create distinctive musical forms that mirrored the cultural environment and landscape fos­ tered there. Even particular fiddle or banjo styles became synonymous with

40

“What have they done to the old home place?”

particular regions or even individual mountain villages, like Earl Scruggs three-finger banjo style that was associated with western North Carolina, or the old timey sounds of the Carter Family and the Stanley Brothers, which became synonymous with isolated pockets in eastern Virginia. As such, these unique musical traditions became strong markers of place and tradi­ tion within Appalachia as they articulated a rootedness and connection to its culture, people, and landscape. While the movement of people from place to place increased cultural contact and exchange throughout the 19th century, the immigrant and slave labor used to build roads, bridges, and rail lines across the United States brought peoples and cultures into greater direct contact, forever altering the physical, human, and musical landscape in the process. With each strike of the hammer, work songs rang through remote mountain valleys and across grassy plains, altering the regional soundscape of the cities and towns their crews passed through. The advent of radio technol­ ogy at the beginning of the 20th century ushered in a new era of musical border-crossing as sounds and cultures a world away could be transmit­ ted directly into the living rooms, parlors, and imaginations of captivated listeners, exposing them to new and unfamiliar songs, rhythms, and melo­ dies. These distinct musical traditions carried with them a representation of the people, places, and cultures of the world, including parts of their own country with which they had little previous contact. Rural dwellers were now exposed to the refined urban sounds of classical and opera, vaudeville, and early jazz while urbanites encountered the folk and “hill­ billy” music of the rural hinterland, each painting a picture of the people and places they represented. Today, dedicated fans and casual listeners of traditional old-time and bluegrass music explain that the music’s enduring appeal is linked to its historical associations with Appalachian community life. A vital repository of American history and folklore, the region is, as Alan Batteau (1990) rec­ ognizes it, more a literary and political invention of the urban imagination than a geographical discovery. He argues that the Appalachia of fiction, journalism, pop culture, and public policy is driven more by the needs and interests of urban outsiders, drawing on the “imagery and motivations that a generation ago transfixed an affluent society that sent legions of poverty warriors into the hills.” (Batteau 1990: 196). For Batteau, Appalachia is a symbolic resource that is often deployed in the public sphere as social drama. It is evoked as a point of distinction and moral superiority to more “sophisticated” and “cultured” urban audiences or employed as a critique of economic and social modernization. In his excellent book Creating Country Music: Fabricating Authenticity, music sociologist Richard Peterson (1997) links the enduring popular attraction to Appalachia and its musical traditions to the virtues attached to the “unspoiled” and isolated people of the region. Idealized and celebrated as “purely” American, listeners often perceive the Appalachian folk and

“What have they done to the old home place?”

41

their cultural life as authentic and insulated from corrupting influences of modern city life. Peterson (1997) writes The concept of Appalachia as pristine remnant of a bygone natural environment peopled by British American stock, unspoiled by the mod­ ernist thrust of urbanization and industrialization, was a self-serving contrivance of the latter third of the nineteenth century. Descriptions of the region were used either to highlight the improvements of civilization or to show its depravity in despoiling pristine nature; to identity its resi­ dents as noble relics of Elizabethan England or debauched by contact with the wrong outside influences. (215) As a contested construction of American popular memory, Appalachia has been represented as a mythical region frozen in time; a place where genuine folk community, guided by traditional homespun family values, and rooted to place, thrived and flourished. For contemporary audiences, the tradi­ tional imagery evoked by bluegrass and old-time music reinforces the idyllic simplicity of the Appalachian folklife in stark contrast to the perceived com­ plexity and inauthenticity of contemporary mass culture. Listening to a few notes of the fiddle, mandolin, and five-string banjo played together summon the symbolic imagery of Appalachian life and culture in the minds of those who hear it, what Bill Monroe often referred to as the “ancient tones.” As a symbolic resource, fans and festivalgoers tap into this imagined cultural landscape on which they project and overlay their own particu­ lar needs, interests, and fears. Bluegrass historian Robert Cantwell (1984) writes that the people and landscape represented in and through early coun­ try and bluegrass music constitutes an “imaginary country” which listen­ ers have used for decades to critique the perceived ills of modern life and lifestyles. For Cantwell, Appalachia is “a country of imagination. The only region from which country music has ever really come.” He explains, Situated in a historical fastness that prolonged national meditation has engendered out of the old rural South, where traditional music, whose very nature is to assimilate and transfigure, according to its own slowchanging aesthetic, the sounds of the civilization around it, had freed the past from Time, setting it forth into an imaginary country in which innumerable epochs and ways of life thrive together … The evocative and often archaic sounds of rural music and rural voices also made their way into the urban imagination, where, catapulted over vast distances and decisively severed from its cultural setting, it could evoke a fresh response, one which might partake of the listener’s own desires and fan­ cies, and permit him (sic) to accept and even relish what he (sic) might otherwise reject. (Cantwell 1984: 18, 44)

42 “What have they done to the old home place?” Cantwell explains that when performed outside of its native cultural setting, Appalachian music decouples from its historical and geographical moor­ ings to meet the interests and desires of listeners in new social contexts. Appealing to audiences beyond the rural countryside, Richard Peterson explains that early country string band music provided a “rustic alternative to urban modernity … It was country to their city, the unchanging past to the rapidly changing present” and conjured images of “a place uncontami­ nated by urban-industrial society and peopled by unchanging descendants of Daniel Boone-like old-time folk …” (Peterson 1997: 55–58). In its denial of the present (Fenster 1995), traditional bluegrass songs construct a set of narratives about early American culture, what musician John Hartford referred to as “three minute word movies,” articulating the experiences, emotions, stories common in late-19th and early 20th century Appalachian life. Mark Fenster (1995) argues that the resonance of these iconic images stems from bluegrass being far more than just a musical style. Bluegrass is for many a point of identification, a music that would seem to express something ‘authentic’ about emotional attachments to fam­ ily, home, and traditional Appalachian culture as well as a source of ‘affective alliances’1 among fans, jam session partners and professional musicians. (81) By bringing together communities of musicians and fans, bluegrass con­ stitutes a complete cultural experience rooted in seemingly “timeless” folk traditions that stretch back into the early Appalachian frontier and beyond: The entire notion of “the folk” rests on a simplified, nostalgic vision of the culture and economic conditions of 20th century Appalachia … The traditions of bluegrass may be more the result of modern (as opposed to premodern) forces, but they are substantive traditions nonetheless, with bluegrass festivals, recordings, and amateur jam sessions repre­ senting meaningful practices in people’s lives. Bluegrass “traditions,” could then be dismissed as mere nostalgia for a time that never was, but such a dismissal fails to recognize the complex process by which mod­ ern, commercial forms of culture reconstruct and rearticulate the past. (Fenster 1995: 84, 85) For Fenster, claims of the music’s inherent authenticity rests on a self-refer­ ential appeal to the music itself: “The reenactment of tradition in contem­ porary bluegrass music attempts to deny the present … by constituting its traditions as an authentic past and by basing this authenticity on the prac­ tice of bluegrass itself” (Fenster 1995: 85). In his book review of Robert Cantwell’s Bluegrass Breakdown, folklorist Mayne Smith (1984) argues that others who feel exiled from home, place,

“What have they done to the old home place?”

43

or region often appropriate narratives of displacement found in bluegrass music to deal with their own generalized experience of anomie. Smith writes: There are many who see bluegrass as a product of exile from the coun­ try—deriving not from rural life but from a yearning for it, and with its audience made up largely of people who share a romantic nostalgia for country living, whether or not they have ever experienced it. (36) For individuals living “outside of Appalachia,” bluegrass music also “rep­ resents Appalachia as a place where the past is attainable in the present” (Sweet 1996: 34). Viewed from a temporal and spatial distance, these musi­ cal images simultaneously create and tap into the rich, idyllic landscape of the Appalachian frontier and provide an ironic counterpart to the perils of modern urban and suburban living. With its “gaze fixed wistfully upon old times,” Robert Cantwell (1984) explains, bluegrass music is the perfect expression of an economically ascendant, but culturally uprooted, people, reinterpreting the rural ethos, to which it has no intrinsic connection, in politically and socially conservative terms more typical of the suburban tract than of the coal company town or moun­ tain farm. (7, 8) Though country and bluegrass music “was born of the trauma of rural peo­ ple’s adjustment to industrial society,” Tony Scherman (1994) argues “that fight has been fought … Severed from its working-class origins, country music is becoming a refuge for culturally homeless Americans everywhere” (Scherman 1994: 55, 57). Though I debate whether the struggle over adjust­ ment to industrial society has already been fought, bluegrass music contin­ ues to provide listeners feeling socially or culturally displaced a temporary refuge to cope with and make sense of changes in their local environments.

Aesthetics of tradition, kinship, and family By constructing a strong relationship to place through its historical connec­ tions to Appalachia and it related folk traditions, bluegrass music conveys a transposable and adaptable aesthetic of tradition, kinship, and family that festivalgoers and promoters tap into to construct a vital sense of homespun community. For smaller festivals featuring regional and more traditional bluegrass acts,2 stage setups are commonly decorated to look like a country barn scene with barn loft façades, idyllic mountain or frontier themed backcloths, with hay bales, horses and saddles, wagon wheels, and antique farm implements placed around the stage to create the look and feel of a rural, country setting. Instrument and song workshops or evening square dances

44 “What have they done to the old home place?” frequently take place in barnlike structures or in the case of the Walnut Valley Festival, an outbuilding that the county uses to display arts and crafts and cooking competition exhibitions during the Cowley County Fair. These backdrops give these festival rituals scenic and symbolic contiguity with rural life (Figure 2.1). Other traditional festivals tap into a rural, pioneer aesthetic through the display and demonstration of traditional folklife exhibitions in tents or buildings adjacent to the main stages. Some of these folklife festivals feature “reenactors” in period dress demonstrating folk arts and crafts like wood carving, whittling, “limberjack” doll and toy making, butter churn­ ing, sorghum and apple butter making, blacksmithing, Dutch oven cooking, or primitive arts like toolmaking or fire-starting with flint rock or wood sticks. Festival advertising taps into this aesthetic by describing the setting on festival fliers or full-page ads in the genre’s major trade publication, Bluegrass Unlimited. Through the use of phrases and words like: “down home,” “homecoming,” “old-time,” “old fashioned fun,” “rustic,” “rural setting,” “family friendly,” “country style,” or “traditional,” including those that feature scheduled breaks in the main stage music for “supper” or communal “pot luck dinners,” these ads highlight the intimate, bucolic atmosphere cultivated there. In an annual festival issue for the magazine (Bluegrass Unlimited 2002) which listed 534 different festival events across the country, page-sized advertisements invited attendees with welcoming descriptions of the festival grounds, activities, and featured bands. For example, a two-page spread for The Dahlonega Bluegrass and Folkways

Figure 2.1 “Stage 2” at the Walnut Valley Festival, Winfield, Kansas.

“What have they done to the old home place?”

45

Festival in Georgia features craft demonstrations and traditional program­ ming for kids. It reads: A FAMILY FESTIVAL: Jack Tales and storytelling including puppets and marionettes; marble shooting, tug of war, jump rope, and tradi­ tional folk games for the young; DOC JOHNSON’S TRAVELING MIRACLE MEDICINE SHOW—authentic historical medicine show including magic and humor; simulated mountain moonshine still and historical interpretation; gold panning with Dahlonega’s veteran gold panners; and more! (14, 15) By reviving and preserving music and folk traditions, these festival ads memorialize Appalachia and its associated values, practices, and traditions, by idealizing an aesthetic of rural, mountain folk culture that they feared to be lost or buried by cultural and economic modernization. At the more progressive end of the spectrum, non-traditional festi­ val lineups are anchored by larger, nationally known “newgrass” and “jamgrass” acts.3 Here, local artisans sell handmade jewelry, luthier built stringed instruments, patchwork dresses, hemp clothing, hand woven tex­ tiles, framed photography, paintings, modern folk art, and various other handmade arts and crafts. Regardless of the size or scale, the emphasis on handmade over mass produced or imported goods highlights the impor­ tance of the folk aesthetic to festivalgoers who seek to support and pre­ serve the artist’s craft while walking away with something unique. These artisans also equip festivalgoers with the appropriate festival wardrobe, as large floppy straw hats, batik and tie-dyed t-shirts, festive sundresses, and sandals sold at the festival adorn many of those in attendance, while most others are likely to be outfitted in modern, practical outdoor gear com­ monly found at retail stores like REI. At some festivals, the most dedicated attendees perform tradition through the careful selection of clothing styles and instruments that offer a more historically rooted presentation of self. Recently, while attending the Portland Old Time Music Gathering, some of the more dedicated attendees channeled the aesthetics of the 1920s by wearing period shoes and work boots, derby hats and ascots, overalls and suspenders, long, ruffled gingham dresses, and cuffed trousers or riding pants as either a solitary accent or a complete ensemble. Others fashioned their hair, long beards, and long, waxed mustaches to match. Jack, a seasoned veteran in Portland’s old-time music scene, explained that the connection between the music and clothing styles worn by some musicians and fans were “less of an attempt to reenact or appropriate the past and more a sign of respect to the tradition” by align­ ing their dress with the aesthetic sensibilities of the music’s origins. This cul­ tural process of linking values with subcultural style, cultural theorist Dick Hebdige refers to as homology (Hebdige 1979). At the Gathering, attendees

46 “What have they done to the old home place?” could learn about the various music and dance traditions like flatfooting or clogging, square and contra dancing, sacred harp and shape note singing, banjo frailing techniques, instrument making, and informal jamming in the hallways of the venue spanning a number of genres, including Irish, Celtic, old-time fiddle music, Cajun, and Texas Swing (Figure 2.2). In a similar vein, amateur pickers and professional musicians often demand that bluegrass and old-time music be played on period or faith­ fully reproduced period instruments, the gold standard of which for blue­ grass is the pre-WWII Martin D-18 or D-28 guitar, the pre-WWII Gibson RB-Grenada Banjo, and the 1920s Gibson “Lloyd Loar” F-5 style mandolin as these were the specific instrument models used by the early pioneers of bluegrass.4 Given their monetary and symbolic value, acquiring, displaying, and playing these iconic instruments constitutes a variant of what the late French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu called cultural capital (Bourdieu 1985), in this case subcultural capital (Grazian 2003, Thornton 1996), collective assessments of status and symbolic authority in a cultural scene. Fellow jam participants will often crane their necks to get a look at the headstock or peek through the sound hole where the maker’s name is usually displayed, which often serves as a marker of the seriousness or skill level (if not the financial status) of a musician. At a recent neighborhood jam that takes place weekly in the middle of a large traffic circle on the east side of Portland, I encountered Jack, a longstanding local guitar player and who vaguely remembered me from my

Figure 2.2 Traditional bluegrass performed on the flatbed of an antique truck at the High Mountain Hay Fever Bluegrass Festival, Westcliffe, Colorado.

“What have they done to the old home place?”

47

sporadic attendance at previous jams. He asked quizzically, “I’ve seen you here before, right?” As I reintroduced myself to him, he responded “well, I apparently can’t remember your name, but I could never forget that guitar.” Discussions like this usually leads to a lively discussion about the various choices of tonewoods, models, and makers available on the market today, some of which are sold at the festival mercantile booths. Ironically, despite the rejection of mainstream consumer culture, festivalgoers still fetishize certain commodities like handmade, luthier-built instruments. During my first RockyGrass Academy, I was seated in a circle of the intermediate guitar workshop when one of the guitar instructors looked out across the display of instruments on the laps and knees of his students. Given that his full-time gig away from the festival was running an acoustic instrument store in a nearby mountain resort town, he had some strong opinions about his students’ choice of instrument. He exclaimed, “Wow! You all have some really impressive guitars out there. I’d actually love to have a few of those myself. But it looks like some of you need to upgrade to an American made guitar.” The instructor’s distinction had less to do with blind patriotism or his support for American industry and more to do with authenticity, given his implicit assessment of the inferior tone and crafts­ manship of Chinese made guitars which often rely on mass factory produc­ tion and cheaper, laminated tone woods. While bluegrass can technically be played on any brand or model of stringed instrument, those that deviate from the established makers and models are occasionally met with mockery or mild derision for their inauthentic choice in instruments (Figure 2.3).

Figure 2.3 Mountain dulcimer workshop.

48 “What have they done to the old home place?” In his book Blue Chicago, David Grazian (2003) presents a wonderfully thick description of the processes clubgoers and musicians go through to assess authenticity in urban blues clubs. He explains that assessments of authenticity are a collective accomplishment represented through a “slid­ ing scale” that hinges on the ability of a place or event to conform to an “idealized representation of reality” based on a set of expectations or ste­ reotypes “regarding how such a thing ought to look” and feel as well as the “credibility or sincerity of a performance” (11, 12). At its root, authenticity is not an inherent quality or attribute of something but a collective assess­ ment of “the things we value in the world” (12), which are “manufactured, bartered, sold, and consumed within a symbolic economy of authenticity” (17). In the bluegrass world, fans and festivalgoers engage in endless debates about the authenticity of the music, individual bands and musicians, their performances, and their instruments based on their devotion to longstand­ ing traditions or expectations of performance called for by the situation. As Grazian argues, arguments and assessments of authenticity “often emerge during historical moments when the meaningfulness of traditional ways of life seems challenged by the force of modernity and its by-products …” (40). By comparing performances to the formal characteristics of the music estab­ lished by pioneers like Bill Monroe, or to longstanding traditions rooted in the Appalachian countryside, festival promoters, musicians, and fans use this aesthetic of tradition and authenticity as both a measuring stick and a compass to navigate their way through shared understandings of place and belonging in what they perceive to be a quickly changing, and rootless world. The narrative construction of place through bluegrass music becomes one of many beckoning worlds (Nusbaum 1993: 215), and thus provides listeners a romantic alternative to the perceived ills of modern urban and suburban life, wherever they may be. In the New West, the aesthetic of “simple” rural living, and traditional folkways associated with bluegrass provides listeners an idealistic alternative to development, urban sprawl, and perceived loss of community associated with parts of the urban and suburban New West landscape. With its always-already nostalgic orienta­ tion, bluegrass music merges this imagery quite seamlessly with the positive attributes of the region: the natural splendor, wide-open spaces, mountain landscapes, and the “wildness” commonly associated with the rural West.

Bluegrass music and the growth of the New American West A term coined to encapsulate the legacy of the Old West in the context of the present, “The New West” captures the experience of “a postmodern west in which old and new combine to create something different” (Riebsame 1997: 12). In a New West setting, the artifacts, narratives, and landscapes of the western past collide with an often-contradictory present forcing con­ temporary spins on old stories and memories. As historians Simon Schama

“What have they done to the old home place?”

49

(1995) and Patricia Nelson Limerick (2000) point out, our memories of the West and western places resemble the soil in its often-visible sediments, lay­ ers, and strata. As new layers are built, remnants of the old are covered up incompletely, leaving their traces between sprawling new developments at the edges of zoning boundaries. Mining shafts, ramshackle cabins, ranches, mining machinery, farms, historical markers, prairie preserves, and open space coexist with a world inhabited by Wal-Mart Supercenters, strip malls, tract housing developments, high-tech campuses, and ski towns showcasing million-dollar trophy homes. The “Newest New West” (Limerick 1997) refers to the reinvention of cultural and regional identity that emerged after the bust of the mining and mineral extraction industries in the late 1960s and 1970s, which paved the way for a tourist and outdoor industry boom. Demographers and urban planners trace these transformations to migration patterns that began in the early 1970s. This “fifth migration” represented a mass, voluntary migration of people and high-tech industry from the “decaying” and “crime ridden” cities of the east and south to the “wide-open” spaces of the west (Aquilla 1996; Wolf 1999). The fifth migration was into full swing by the 1990s, introducing massive residential growth and commercial development, national chain store shopping centers, and voyeuristic tourism fueled by summer trips to national parks and winter sporting opportunities in moun­ tain resort communities. Western geographer William Riebsame (1997) explains that the story of the New West is “about a region’s transformation into something resembling the rest of the country: a landscape of shopping malls, cookie-cutter subdivisions, and the same old social and economic problems” (12). It represents a region confronting the introduction of the homogeneous and “bland American culture that appears to make every place like every other place” (12). Increasingly viewed as a “geography of nowhere” (Kunstler 1993), the contemporary American West is a site of struggle over regional identity fueled by its storied past and a quickly urban­ izing present. Residents and tourists often seek the New West as a refuge from the rampant modernization and sprawling commercialization of urban land­ scapes “back east” and further west in California. They view it as the last stronghold of authenticity and unspoiled natural splendor. But how do they respond when they arrive to realize that it is the fastest growing and urban­ izing region in the country and resembles much of what they thought they were leaving behind? Charles Wilkinson (1997) argues that the contrast between the idyllic West carried in our imagination is most acute when migrants realize they are part of the problem they are trying to avoid: Migrants, fleeing the urban rush, move to the Rockies only to find that their numbers and values have begun to infuse slow-paced mountain towns with the chic and high speed they sought to escape.” (Wilkinson 1997: 18)

50 “What have they done to the old home place?” In much of the New West, urban growth and development have arrived unexpectedly on the doorsteps of metropolitan planning districts and rural, small town communities, leaving them ill prepared to manage the droves of migrating settlers. Neat, tidy rows of tract housing, condomini­ ums, and gated “community” apartment complexes sprouted up overnight, and lined the once open and free roaming prairie countryside. In his book Magic Lands, John Findlay (1992) argues that these transformations had two distinct consequences on the West. On the qualitative side, the shape of the western city was being transformed in ways that made it less legible and distinct as well as less conductive to the formation of community and the enrichment of culture. On the quantitative size, the growth of urban and suburban areas became so rapid and uncontrolled that it denied their inhabitants any stable sense of place, regional identity, or attachment. The new shape of suburban communities became “communities” in name only as their rapid growth kept these regions from developing a shared identity and an enriched cultural life for its residents. The annexation of townships and open spaces “catered to Westerners fondness for uninhibited growth,” but quickly “became injurious to residents’ sense of community,” because a landscape of suburb after suburb made people unsure where the city began and ended (Findlay 1992: 32). Geographer Pierce Lewis (1995) traces these developments to the for­ mation of automobile centered “galactic cities,” dispersed residential and commercial nodes that float in a disconnected orbit in lower density rural areas around a city or regional center. Characterized by big box chain devel­ opments and rows of identical tract housing, these areas often emerge at the crossroads of state and national highways in a series of rings outside of or between more compact urban areas and flourish in western cities like Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Denver with ample land to sprawl. Findlay contrasts this newer form of development with earlier, conventional forms dominant in the 19th century, which might be pictured as a magnetic pole that kept particles in a tight orbit around a distinct nucleus. In the newer portions of the western metrop­ olis during the mid-20th century, the particles increased in number too quickly to be held by the pull of the center. (Findlay 1992: 35) The institutional public and private gathering spaces characteristic of small town, and early suburban America relied on an already existing town square, central business district, and community parks and gathering places. In the New West, rapid growth resulted in galactic cities sprouting up in traditionally rural areas where the local towns and townships could not build up the community infrastructure quickly enough to accommodate the burgeoning subdivisions, shopping centers, condominiums, and apart­ ment complexes. These housing structures arose with limited spaces and

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51

structures for community activity and interaction, and therefore make it difficult for groups of residents to form a public around which shared identi­ fications with place and community identity can emerge. Consequently, the traditional town square, the community park, and the downtown historic district of many well established towns has become replaced with privitized “non-places” (Auge 1995) like the apartment complex courtyard, the stripmall or indoor shopping mall, and the chain store coffee shop, leaving few authentic, noncommercial civic spaces for retreat, community gathering, or public discourse. The growing appeal of bluegrass music and festival culture in the New West is linked symbolically by an overlapping backdrop of mountain landscapes and histories of development and displacement shared by the Appalachian and western frontiers. Mirroring the disruption of communi­ ties and “hollows” during the development of the Appalachian frontier, the western frontier is currently experiencing rapid change in its own physical and cultural landscape. Like turn of the century Appalachia, the western frontier entered national consciousness as a site of vast and vital economic and mineral resources. Industry leaders along with the federal government, military, and entrepreneurial pioneers looking to stake their claim in the West’s vast riches ventured into this region under the banner of national progress and expansion. However, this seemingly endless frontier would soon become the fastest-growing region in the country. According to the 1800 census, 94% of residents in the United States were living in rural areas. By 1890, this number had declined to 60%, while in 1990, this figure plunged 26%. However, this “metropolization” of the United States did not occur in all areas in uniform fashion (Greenwood 1985: 922). In the period ranging from Frederick Turner’s unofficial “closure” of the western frontier in the 1890s until the 1940s, the Rocky Mountain and Pacific Rim regions became the most quickly urbanizing region of the United States. In fact, in the 1940s, 19 of the 25 fastest-growing metro areas in the country were situated in the American West (Abbott 1993), a growth trend that continues into the present day. Before World War II, although “little more than half of all westerners lived in cities”, (69) today 90% reside in metropolitan areas. According to Frey, [t]he fastest growing counties via domestic migration are located in the Southeast and Rocky Mountain West, and in smaller and nonmetro­ politan areas. The latter counties tend to attract itinerant professionals and the soon-to-be burgeoning elderly population, but many of them also attract “would-be suburbanites.” The latter have shown especially strong tendencies to leave both inner and outer suburbs of densely populated “high immigration metropolises.” The 30 counties with the highest domestic migration rates in the 1990s are emblematic of new destinations: smaller places and nonmetropolitan counties in fast-grow­ ing states like Colorado, Utah, Texas, and Nevada. On the list are also

52 “What have they done to the old home place?” suburban counties of metropolitan areas that lie in “domestic migrant magnet” regions. (1998, 3, cited in Goetz 1999) Migration patterns in the New West reflect the growing desire among mem­ bers of a mobile subset of the population to seek out its environmental and lifestyle amenities, easy access to outdoor recreation, and career opportuni­ ties in the high-tech industry. Motivated by similar longings, dreams, and aspirations of those origi­ nally drawn to the American West, contemporary residents and settlers of the New West also seek refuge from the rapid urbanization taking place elsewhere in the northeast, midwest, and California (Goetz 1999). Historian Richard Aquila (1996) links the popular identification with and migration toward the New West to the continued, mythical appeal of the Old West. Aquilla argues that the mythic West “provided a clear national identity dur­ ing rapidly changing times” (196–7) for many Americans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The mythic imagery of the West also served as a “psychological safety valve offering idyllic, rural settings and vicarious thrills for those working and living in urban areas” further east (196–7). Dissatisfied with the urban decay, crime, and fragmentation of commu­ nity ties, Easterners and mid-Westerners were drawn to the post-war West because it carried with it a “vision of the U.S. as a pastoral, idyllic nation that promoted opportunity, freedom, and justice for all” and thus “con­ tinued to appeal to Americans experiencing the urbanization, industriali­ zation, and alienation of modern times.” (Aquilla 1996: 196–7). In much the same way that the imagery and mythology of Appalachia provided a symbolic glorification of rural ways of life, the West continues to provide similar inspiration for those living outside of its borders. The mythologies and images of the wild, open, endless Old West, however, fly in stark con­ trast to the growth and sprawling development characterizing the urban and suburban New West where newcomers tend to settle (Figure 2.4). The growth and popularity of the region in the early 1970s introduced new people, cultures, and lifestyles to the West, and thus displaced both physically and spiritually many native Americans and western settlers from the spaces and places they once resided. At the end of the 20th century, these previously “wide-open” landscapes of sagebrush prairie and sprawl­ ing range land were becoming increasingly populated with shopping cent­ ers, office parks, and suburban developments along the Front Range and plains, creating a nearly continuous strip of suburban and exurban devel­ opment from Laramie, Wyoming to Pueblo, Colorado. In once defunct mountain towns and emerging resort communities across the intermountain West, cities like Telluride, Aspen, Vail, and Steamboat Springs in Colorado and Grand Targhee and Jackson Hole in Wyoming, have become a mag­ net for economic development. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, high-end resort hotels, winter recreation parks, 35-acre ranchettes, and million-dollar

“What have they done to the old home place?”

53

Figure 2.4 High Mountain Hay Fever Bluegrass Festival, Westcliffe, Colorado.

vacation homes peppered these previously sheltered landscapes. Isolated towns that one held comfortably a few hundred or few thousand residents now faced encroachment by adventure tourism, and large-scale commer­ cial and residential development. Much like the Appalachian settlers of old, the residents of the West were finding their communities, towns, and landscapes changing rapidly and displacing certain prominent markers of regional landscape and place identity. Though the world of the New West is far different than the ones inhabited by both the rural and urban communi­ ties making up the social world of early bluegrass audiences, contemporary fans continue to use bluegrass music as a mythical escape from the perceived ills of modern living. Chris, an amateur mandolin player that attended the weekly jam at a local café explained to me that bluegrass functions to preserve elements of the western landscape, despite the fact that much of it is changing due to urban growth: Bluegrass has this strong connection to the landscape—mountains, creeks, and valleys—and it tries to preserve this. It creates the feeling and imagery of people sitting on their front porch, with the sun going down, surrounded by mountains, and I think a lot of people that like it dial into this rural imagery and feeling. In this way, contemporary listeners continue to use bluegrass music and culture as an attempt to preserve an entire way of life that is threatened

54 “What have they done to the old home place?” to be lost to the forces of modernization. Dave, a semi-professional guitar player in several local bluegrass bands and native of the Front Range region concurs. After picking a few tunes in his creekside cabin, nestled in a steep mountain canyon just outside of town, Dave pulled his long curly hair into a ponytail and explained that bluegrass paints a picture of a way of life that we are losing and that’s a rural way of life … I mean a real rural way of life where people live and connected to a place and stay there their entire life. And their work is connected to that place in a meaningful way. This (sense of) place for them isn’t just wanting to vacation there or having a vacation home in the mountains. Bluegrass may be an illustration of people trying to make that connection in other ways but I think society has gone down this path where we have abandoned true rural life, with people living close to the land and con­ nected to their place and their people. That’s what people find important about that rural feeling and imagery in bluegrass (emphasis his). For Dave, bluegrass provides a way to create and preserve both a sense of place and tradition, especially for those who are either rootless and seek­ ing a reliable sense of place or fearful that these landscapes are in danger of being irrevocably lost. Caleb, a banjo and fiddle player who was liv­ ing in Colorado at the time argues that in the West, people’s attraction to bluegrass lies in the fact that many of them are not native to the region. He explained that in his native Kentucky: Traditions have been established and have been in place for a very long time. But here, this area is so new, evidenced by the fact that there are few old buildings or houses. Consequently, people are trying to seek out and find new traditions but in fact they are looking inside of old ones. It’s sort of a Norman Rockwell fascination with a pastoral image of a past that never really existed. A lot of these people who are living in cit­ ies who may have roots in the mountains or in the hills or country yearn for an aspect of that lifestyle and idealize it. It’s some sort of idealization of the past where they imagine a harmonious family sitting together on their front porch. For Caleb, bluegrass provided a symbolic linkage to home and place he left behind in his native Kentucky. He lamented: We really don’t have a culture and we really don’t have a regional iden­ tity these days, especially those of us living in the suburbs. I think peo­ ple find some comfort in bluegrass or Appalachian or just some sort of folklore in general. Although he and other fans may not be able to experience first-hand the strong sense of home and place evoked by early bluegrass music, by listening

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to and participating in the culture, individuals transcend their surroundings by entering its mythical universe, even if only temporarily. Caleb’s statement reflects a sentiment shared by many residents who have left the sprawling urbanization of the Front Range region of the Rocky Mountains to seek refuge in avowedly slower, simpler communities and towns peppered among the surrounding foothills and canyons. In stark contrast to the hustle and bustle of urban settings and the isolation and homogenization of suburban life, the mythical images painted by bluegrass music provide a site of meaningful identification and comparison for those dissatisfied with their current relationships to place, and provide an out­ let to a “simpler” and “more authentic” communal life. In this light, the sense of place constructed discursively through bluegrass music becomes one of many beckoning worlds (Nusbaum 1993: 215), and thus provides a romantic alternative to sprawling development, traffic jams, and pollution. Through bluegrass, fans and festivalgoers carve a discursive space of resist­ ance to a generalized decline of face-to-face community by reconfiguring the meaning of place, home, and family. They use the music and its nostalgic folk-cultural aesthetic as a symbolic means to “respond to human longings, yet mediate and manage them in ways that diminish many associated dis­ comforts” (Pratt 1989: 64).

The longing for home and family As bluegrass emerged as a cultural form, musicians wrote songs that refer­ enced the physical geography of home places or markers of landscape that filled the Appalachian countryside. An impressive repertoire of standard instrumental fiddle tunes bears the names of particular places, landscapes, or geographical features. Songs like Salt Creek, Jerusalem Ridge, Clinch Mountain Backstep, Daybreak in Dixie, Ashland Breakdown, Shenandoah Valley Breakdown, Roanoke, Sugarloaf Mountain, Big Sandy River, and Foggy Mountain Special memorialized the feelings and emotions associated with a particular regional geography and landscape through melody, tone, and tempo. As such, they became markers of musical memory for these places each time they were played or passed along through aural tradition. Lyrically, early bluegrass musicians would perform the traditional reper­ toire of early folk songs and ballads brought with them from the British Isles to memorialize the places they left behind. Over time, musicians would adapt the songs’ melodies and overwrite old lyrics, verses, or choruses with new ones to develop unique songs of their own reflecting their evolving relationships to home and home places. Songs such as I’m Going Back to Old Kentucky, Eight More Miles to Louisville, Blue Ridge Mountain Home, Blue Moon of Kentucky, My Little Georgia Rose, My Old Kentucky Home, Cabin in the Hills of Caroline, and The Old Kentucky Shore describe the rooted social relationships to families, friends, or kinfolk they left behind, and express the emotional pains, joys, sorrows, or longings they felt for these places. Melodically, these performers borrowed the phrasing and

56 “What have they done to the old home place?” instrumental style of the traditional folk tunes, and arranged them in ways that articulated a strong emotional attachment to landscape, family, and home. Themes of home, home places and a return to home abound in bluegrass music, particularly for those who involuntarily left, were displaced by eco­ nomics or natural disasters, or perhaps exiled from their community for one reason or another. Nostalgia for the “old home place” or the “little cabin home on the hill” (usually with a mother and dad or a lover or spouse waiting faithfully behind), became a common theme in bluegrass songs, often reflect­ ing the wandering lifestyles of musicians. In a contemporary context, their lonesome pining for home and family resonates with listeners today who may feel similarly displaced by forces that threaten a stable relationship to place. For centuries, festivals have served the function as homecoming events for community members, friends, family to gather back together, perhaps after a long growing season or after spending long winter months apart. Members who have left the community temporarily due to employment, military service, schooling, travel, agricultural field work, or other outside obligations use seasonal festivals as opportunities to return, plug into their network of kin, share food and drink, and catch up while reminiscing about days or festivals gone by. Though their encounters may be brief and epi­ sodic, the festival setting gives rise to a predictable yet emotionally charged set of interactions that are deep and meaningful to their participants, so it makes sense that they describe their relationships through the language of “home” and “family.” The annual Old Time Fiddlers Convention held in Galax, Virginia is described by eighth grade English teacher Rex Gearheart as “more than just an outdoor party. It’s a renewal of old friendships and the kindling of new ones.” Described by many as a “family reunion” or “homecoming type event,” many well established festivals like Galax, Telluride, RockyGrass, or Targhee have been happening for 25 or more years, which over time attracts a core group of returnees and festival veterans who interact with each other as an extended family of fictive kin. Gearheart writes: Fellowship cannot be excluded from any description from a Galax Old Time Fiddler’s Convention. Folks who see each other once a year bring and exchange gifts, stories, and songs. These pilgrims, though acquainted only by one week in August, embrace as if they were long lost relatives. In his description of the festival, Gearheart articulates its scene through the traditional folk aesthetic discussed above: Galax is for mountain music lovers the epicenter for fellowship, food, and fun. It’s a place and time for rejoicing in the music and culture that the folks in attendance love and pay homage to. This music is

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their ancestry, soul mate, spiritual guide, and devotion. It brings out nostalgia in participants and bystanders, and awakens ghosts of the mountains, which possess their bodies and force them to tap their feet and holler out loud … (it’s a) gathering that resembles a cross between Woodstock and an old camp meeting, tie dyes and over-alls, cowboy hats and Dr. Suess top hats, bare feet and boots combine to provide a colorful mix of faces and places represented. Folks from nearly every state and even a few foreign lands are mystically drawn to camp in tents and old school busses beneath the hot summer sun and persevere, often through torrential downpours just to take fellowship in the music that has come to speak for the Appalachian culture. (Gearheart 2002: 49) In Bluegrass Unlimited’s festival guide issue (2002), an advertisement for an annual festival at Christopher Run Campground on Lake Anna, in Mineral, Virginia invites festivalgoers to “expand your festival family at this family festival,” compelling readers that “this is a must on your festival calendar.” Reflecting such advertisements, festivalgoers described their attraction to bluegrass music and culture as one rooted in the music’s living link to estab­ lished folk traditions and strong connections to home and family, including the extended “kin” networks they cultivated in the festival setting. These fictive kin relationships, chosen family like connections not rooted in blood or marriage, but in close friendship ties, take on many of the interactional features, emotional attachments, and commitments often associated with direct familial ties (Ebaugh and Curry 2000) and, thus, contribute various forms of social and emotional support. Several years ago, I met Fred, a graying, middle-aged, electrical engineer through Bob and Cindy, two musician friends who hosted a weekly, Monday night jam session in their cozy suburban, ranch-style home and shared a common camp with Fred and his wife at festival events. Each week, I would descend from my rental apartment in the Front Range foothills to play music with Fred in Bob and Cindy’s family room with a reliable cast of characters who would become my longtime festival jam partners, campmates, and fes­ tival family that anchored my participation in the local bluegrass scene. An eclectic guitar and mandolin player with a unique sense of style and rhythm, Fred provided a refreshing departure from the standard repertoire in his gui­ tar playing but still appreciated the simplicity of traditional bluegrass. A few years ago at RockyGrass, I arrived to their camp after making a pit stop at my camper van to gather my guitar, a sweatshirt, and a cold beer from my cooler. The Del McCoury Band, the festival headliner, had finished for the night, leaving several hours’ worth of campground jamming waiting to unfold. As I passed the bustling service road through the camp­ ground, dodging campers in the bouncing sea of headlamps, I arrived to find Fred leading the camp through a particularly killer version of “Deep Elem Blues” a traditional 12-bar blues tune made popular by the Grateful Dead.

58 “What have they done to the old home place?” As I tuned up my guitar and found a place to sit in the circle, I was greeted with a bottle of whiskey from Bob. “Here you go. It’s supposed to get cold tonight. This will keep your fingers warm.” I took a swig and could feel the sweet burn of the bourbon work its way through my body as Fred called out the next song. “Hey, let’s do Red Haired Boy,” a traditional Irish tune and bluegrass jam standard, “but not in any way you’ve ever heard or played it before. This one is called ‘Dead Haired Boy’” renamed to fit its Grateful Dead inspired feel. Fred demonstrated a few bars as he slowed down the tempo and put some swing and blues into the rhythm, as the other musi­ cians around the circle caught on and joined in. As the solo came back to Fred, we found him settled deep into the pocket of the rhythm, unaware that it was his turn to solo. As soon as he felt our eyes staring in his direction, he looked up. A bit disoriented, he quickly caught the melody and belted out a particularly soulful, bluesy interpretation of the lead. “Dead Haired Boy,” or as it eventually morphed, “Fred Haired Boy,” became a song that we played several times throughout the weekend. Sitting down together at his home in an older suburb of Denver, we dis­ cussed the growing interest in the music and its festival scene; he explained to me that the “universal” appeal of bluegrass was linked to its relatable lyrics, and pointed out why it elicited such broad appeal, especially among musicians: The lyrics tend to be very simple, and based on everyman’s (sic) com­ mon experience … lost love, a lost sense of home and place, a search for a simple, happy life; they tend to be universal human themes … This makes bluegrass so easy to relate to. Fred, whose gray beard and round glasses bear a remarkable resemblance to Jerry Garcia, the iconic, fatherly figure behind the Grateful Dead, explained that common themes running throughout bluegrass music—the disappear­ ance of the “old home place” or an uprooting from one’s home community or place of childhood—resonated with people’s experience living in today’s “soulless” and “community starved” society. For festivalgoers like Fred, bluegrass festivals provided a yearly place to camp with longtime friends and connect with a large and ever-growing community of “festival family” in his temporary and portable campsite home. Carlton, a tall, lanky guitarist and budding mandolinist from Texas who I had met at RockyGrass several years earlier, travels across the intermoun­ tain West attending festivals during his summer breaks from teaching high school. He explained how recurring themes of “home” or identification with “home place” serve to anchor listeners who might otherwise be root­ less or unmoored in a quickly changing society. He explained: Among the working-class people I’ve met in Texas, I think a nostalgia for ‘home’, some kind of lost innocence and a kind of simplicity is an

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important draw. The increased popularity of bluegrass is partly attrib­ uted to a lot of folks looking for some honesty and simplicity in a hur­ ried and complex world. For musicians like Fred and Carlton, the formal simplicity of bluegrass music and its lyrics was symbolic of a simpler time and place in our nation’s history which listeners turned to as a corrective for the increasing complex­ ity and isolation experienced in their daily lives. Joanne, a resident of Manhattan, Kansas who has attended the Walnut Valley Festival at Winfield for over 20 consecutive years sees it as one more way in which people are turning away from the cares of their daily lives to embrace a kinder, gentler time in our country’s past; a way in which they are seeking to balance the stress and pressure that they deal with every day. Sitting back in her mesh camping chair with a large, floppy sun hat beneath her camp’s enormous green tarp, Joanne explained that people are: rushing round and so damn overscheduled that they don’t have time to even say hello to each other anymore. In fact, we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation if it wasn’t for festivals like these … . I went to my first one twenty years ago and it was just a smack in the face how different it was from my daily routine. Katie, a registered nurse who travels seven hours from the Denver metro area every summer to attend the Telluride Bluegrass Festival concurred. She explains that the growing numbers of fans flocking to bluegrass are “try­ ing to find some kind of root system in today’s crazy world” or as Mark, a freelance writer from Michigan who attended the RockyGrass Academy yearly, mentioned: “living in such complicated times, and in high stress, high energy environments, people are looking for something simpler. People are looking for a better sense of roots and home and find this in bluegrass.” Those who have a working knowledge of the social history of bluegrass music see their participation as intimately linked to its evolving traditions and enduring narratives of displacement, lost home, and longing for place. Seeing bluegrass music as “particularly well suited for people who are displaced or seeking a sense of family or home that they left behind else­ where,” Kristina, a therapist who lived in suburban development not far from Boulder was drawn into the festival life with Caleb, her banjo and fiddle playing husband. She explained that many geographically mobile and rootless fans tap into these musical themes, especially those living away from their families and homes further east. She explains, “There are a lot of displaced people in the West, a lot of transplants. I believe the interest in bluegrass out here is about finding a common way to connect with people,

60 “What have they done to the old home place?” because a lot of them are people who left their home for one reason or another” when they moved to Colorado and other parts of the West. Her husband Caleb explained that in their native Kentucky, bluegrass is just a part of the regional rural culture. Bluegrass is just a part of their life and culture. It’s just something folks always did and always knew as a part of their family traditions. But here (in the West), people seek it out intentionally. Most have no direct connection to rural life or Appalachian folk culture, but gravitate to it because its mountain music. It fits with the landscape here. He explained that newcomers to the West were often seeking links to home and place as both were often illusive to those whose shallow roots were not yet established in their new mountain environs. In his book Urban Tribes, journalist Ethan Waters (2004) explored a gen­ eration of his peers who often left home in search of new experiences, mov­ ing from one job and one city to the next, postponing marriage and children, and often living far away from their home towns and families. While it may seem that these individuals were rejecting a sense of rootedness of place and family life, through his interviews, Waters found that despite their mobile lifestyle, they longed for a stable sense of belonging and community that was evading them in their life as “seekers” (Adler and Adler 1999). They ultimately found it in their urban tribe, a diffuse network of friends who shared common interests. French sociologist Michel Maffesoli (1996) con­ tends that the social fragmentation and hyper-individualism defining postmodern society has led individuals to create new forms of belonging, what he describes as “emotional communities,” neo-tribal collectives character­ ized by “fluidity, occasional gatherings, and dispersal” (76). Established at the grassroots and designed to “re-enchant the world,” these tribes often contain a “secretive,” subcultural dimension (119) that evades widespread public scrutiny or awareness. They rely on forms of association sustained by the flux everyday life through informal and “open” friendship networks or “chains” rooted in proxemics: “so-and-so introduces me to so-and-so who knows someone else, and so on” (23). While characterized by “loose ties” (Granovetter 1973), the emotional intensity of these tribes provides a tem­ porary, portable surrogate for the strong social bonds and norms of mutual support traditionally formed through the family. The Yonder Mountain String Band, an influential, progressive “jamband” that took the New West bluegrass scene by storm, tapped into the aesthetic of home and family and further cultivated this idea through their dedicated tribe of fans. The band’s tightknit fan community adopted the moniker of “Kinfolk,” many of whom, like followers of the Grateful Dead, would tour with the band from show to show, recording and exchanging compact discs of live performances. Their Kinfolk Festival, held at the Planet Bluegrass Ranch in Lyons, Colorado intermittantly since 2002, has served

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as a welcome home party for the band and its fan community after spend­ ing months on the road. Several band members resided in nearby mountain towns, and the venue is where the band got its start after winning the 1999 RockyGrass Band Competition, so the event and Planet Bluegrass has taken on a special meaning for those close to the band. Fans would often communicate with each other between concerts and relive epic moments through online discussion lists and social media fan groups, which became a vital source of community in its own right. Active fans and tapers5 would also schedule “meetups” at shows, which over time became a vibrant and interconnected “crew” (Gardner 2016) that would attend shows collectively and often gather near the soundboard. They often secured prime space near the taper section or along the “rail” in front of the stage which allowed them clear access to the band. Much like a conventional family, the band and its fan base went through periods of stress and tension. The band suddenly rose from a loose band of misfit transplants not long before their meteoric rise to bluegrass stardom. Nearly overnight, they evolved from an informal jam group into a nation­ wide touring band whose name was synonymous with Colorado bluegrass. The most notable and public source of tension arose when in 2014, Jeff Austin, their iconic band leader and mandolin player, left the band to pur­ sue a solo career. For diehard fans, the news came as a tremendous blow, which several fans likened to a “going through the divorce of your parents” or “losing a close family member.” Austin’s departure divided its fan base leaving some to move on from the band, while others remained committed to supporting both the remaining band members and Austin in his solo career. One fan explained that the “divorce” was very real, and carried with it a “whole set of emotions from loss, to sadness, to bitter acceptance” and led to “a period of grief and depression because I felt compelled to choose sides and feared that my community, my family was coming apart at the seams.” Over time, these wounds healed and the band replaced Austin with two very accomplished musicians that took the band in a new direction. However, as with any divorce, there are still lingering episodes of bitter­ ness among fans who continue to debate the authenticity of the new lineup, squabble over which incarnation was better, or long for a time when their “family” was back together. Recently, Austin’s untimely death in 2019 led many estranged fans to set aside their differences to celebrate his life and music through a series of memorial events. Another prominent newgrass band, The Infamous Stringdusters, whose fan base overlaps with the Kinfolk, inspired a similar vocabulary of extended family. Out of their online discussion forums, fan group members created “The Jamily,” a mashup of jam and family used to articulate the spirit of community found among its dedicated fan base. The fan group took shape at a “The Boulder Smolder,” a meet-and-greet event which allowed fans to put a name and a face to their online persona. The fan group’s founder explained that the event was

62 “What have they done to the old home place?” inspired by the love that a few of the members experienced in the Kinfolk community, who wanted to transfer that into the “Dusters” fan-base … The Jamily encourages inclusion. We want participation and we want people to feel comfortable. We welcome anyone that loves good music and we love sharing everyone’s musical adventures. We support each other … through good and bad. We carry our Jamily brothers and sis­ ters in our hearts when they can’t be with us.6 Through their intimate fictive kinship ties and regular meetups outside of festival events, fan groups like the Jamily and Kinfolk provide festivalgoers with an expansive, portable crew of friends and acquaintances on whom they can rely to share tarp space and intimate interaction within the fes­ tival setting (Gardner 2016). The language of family, including the use of “brother” and “sister” to refer to fellow fans, infused their scene interac­ tions and provided a sense of relational authenticity that was in short supply elsewhere in their daily lives, especially for those transplants who lived far away from their places of birth.

The search for authenticity In Blue Chicago, David Grazian suggests that authenticity hinges on two related attributes: 1) “the ability of a place or event to conform to an ideal­ ized representation of reality … a set of expectations regarding how such a thing ought to look, sound and feel,” and 2) “the credibility or sincerity of a performance and its ability to come off as natural and effortless.” (Grazian 2003: 10, 11). In practice, however, he found that authenticity is always manufactured, and filtered through the patterns and performances of cul­ ture. Rather than an objective quality that is inherent in a thing, authenticity is an attribute of value projected onto it through a set of shared meanings. In the bluegrass festival world, festivalgoers saw bluegrass and the culture and scene that surrounded it as inherently more authentic than competing cul­ tural offerings, even as the genre experienced growth in its fan base. While some saw the inclusion of uninformed newcomers as an annoyance or bur­ den, most festivalgoers saw it as an opportunity to educate them about the music, traditions, and rituals of the scene. The latter group often indicated the rise in popularity of bluegrass was not a dilution of its authenticity, but a sign that more individuals are turning away from mass culture by seeking out more authentic forms. While some felt the renewed interest in bluegrass and old-time music was simply riding a temporary wave of interest linked to popular films like O’ Brother Where Art Thou, others indicated that the rapid growth of the genre is illustrative of a larger and more profound cultural shift. According to Elton, a Californian who found his way to bluegrass by tracing the musi­ cal influences of the Grateful Dead, there is a more fundamental change afoot. “I think the rising popularity is not just the ‘O’ Brother phenomenon.’

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I think it is a general paradigm shift in life philosophies toward more simplic­ ity in one’s lifestyle, consumption, et cetera.” Through conversations with his parents, Elton explained that he began to see the revival of bluegrass as a modern day return to the 1960s’ celebration of folk culture and grassroots community life cultivated by the hippie counterculture. Kent, an educational filmmaker from Texas, likened this revolt from mainstream cultural forms as synonymous to the cultural revolution witnessed in the 1960s. He argued that this reaction is especially pertinent in the American West and states I think the same kind of reaction to the world that I saw and experienced in the early 1960s may be taking place in the West: A reaction against the phony, pre-fab, commerciality of the world that would make one look around for a music and a lifestyle with a bit more honesty and reality built into it. Compared to these other forms of mass or pop culture, festivalgoers explained that bluegrass offered narratives more faithful and relevant to their own life experiences. Because it is experienced as a cultural form that speaks the voices of “the folk,” bluegrass music effectively transmits what one fan described to me as a “populist aura” to the music and culture. Festivalgoers explained that bluegrass articulates the common experiences of those who listen and participate in the culture, but unlike modern pop and rock music, it is imbued with “genuine meaning” and “soul.” Framing bluegrass in contrast to other more mainstream musical and cultural alter­ natives, Kristen, a Florida resident who travels to Colorado each summer for its rich array of bluegrass festivals, articulated this point. She explains its appeal to like-minded fans: “I think bluegrass music gets to the core of the soul. I think it is re-emerging because people want that raw, natu­ ral, meaningful music rather than the synthesized bullshit they get from the mainstream media … people want to go back to roots music” (Figure 2.5). Compared to the larger, mass-cultural context, attendees indicated that the bluegrass festival allows its fans to experience grassroots community and share in intimate communion thus providing an alternative to or escape from impersonal and hyper-commercialized cultural spaces. They indicated that their friends and jam partners share similar disdain for corporatedriven culture and found bluegrass attractive because, according to Kent, “it actively brings people together and gives them a way to be individuals in a world and culture that is homogenized.” Rocky, another RockyGrass attendee from Kansas explained the growth and rise of bluegrass in the New West as an alternative to the rampant materialism in our culture: I think the main source of growth of bluegrass as a genre in the West is coming from baby boomer types with the time and money to look for new sources of musical entertainment that gives them an emotional, perhaps spiritual anchor in today’s materialistic, un-soulful society.

64 “What have they done to the old home place?”

Figure 2.5 Bluegrass on the River Festival, Pueblo, Colorado.

Kent and Rocky both point out that since meaningful cultural outlets aren’t readily available in their local areas, many festivalgoers like themselves will travel, sometimes thousands of miles to seek out these opportunities. Ellie, a graduate student in Colorado finds this mobility as a relative privi­ lege to those who can afford it, and states that in the setting “you mostly have white, middle or upper class people traveling to these festivals from California and the East Coast.” She asks rhetorically, “Who else can take four days of work off, and say ‘I need community, I’m going to go travel and find community,’ and take a break from their life? That’s not going to happen for a lot of people” (ironically, some pointed out the lack of ethnic, racial, and class diversity in the bluegrass scene as key detractors from its authenticity). Mary, a 33-year-old accountant who drives over 12 hours from her home in Montana to attend a Colorado festival offers a similar explanation, and stated that “in a world of Internet yuppies, pervasive, plas­ tic media and the complete standardization of the American culture,” the rise of bluegrass in the West “is based on a desire to find something real and something honest,” two cultural resources she and Ellie feel are ever in short supply in the New West. The responses of these bluegrass fans counter Fiske’s claim that in mod­ ern, capitalist societies “there is no so-called authentic folk culture against which to measure the ‘inauthenticity’ of mass culture.” (Fiske 1989: 7) To be sure, there may be no “real”, “true”, or “original” folk culture that remains isolated from the throes of commercialization and mass marketing, but the

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fans of bluegrass music characterize and secure meaning from this music because they experience it as authentic through it, they can reclaim elements and expressions of traditional folklife they perceive missing in other masscultural forms. Even though the folk, old time, and bluegrass musical forms to which they are comparing mainstream cultural options were alwaysalready commercial when introduced to audiences through radio, record, and concert performances, they are significantly “purer” and less tainted by commercial forces than many mass-cultural forms. Illustrating Storey’s argument that distinctions between popular and other forms of culture imply an “absent/present other” with which popular culture is contrasted (Storey 1998: 18), bluegrass fans juxtapose their music with other mass mediated and mass marked forms which are perceived by fans as plastic, inauthentic, and sterile compared to the more “genuine” bluegrass sound.7 Defined in opposition to other, mass-cultural forms, namely commercial country, electric rock and roll, and pop music, bluegrass fans in the New West are drawn to the music as an alternative to cultural forms motivated by market-driven and consumer-driven capitalism. In this chapter, I traced the bluegrass symbol and signifier through the cultural and social history of bluegrass music. I explained how the cultural memories of Appalachian history constructed in and through the music have been used and appropriated in the New West to cope with the prob­ lematics of modern living, namely urbanization, suburbanization, and vari­ ous forms of cultural modernization and homogenization. By organizing the aesthetic of the bluegrass festival site, the nostalgic symbols evoked through bluegrass music aid in creating a site of authentic folk culture in which participants can reconfigure their attachments to place, home, and family in a temporary, portable community. In the following chapter, I examine the processual emergence of the bluegrass festival as undifferentiated spaces evolve into a distinct set of places where portable forms of community are cultivated. I argue that festivalgoers use the festival space, especially the campground setting, as a vital site of place performance where they enact the types of open community and intimate forms of interaction they seek to preserve and protect in a quickly changing world.

Notes 1 A term coined by Lawrence Grossberg. 2 Traditional bluegrass festivals tend to take place almost exclusively in rural areas, many of which are concentrated in areas east of the Mississippi River. 3 Progressive and “newgrass” festivals are increasinly popular, but are more con­ centrated among festivals hosted in the American West. 4 These rare, vintage instruments fetch a lofty sum to acquire with recent val­ ues on Loar mandolins reaching close to $200,000 and pre-war D-28s fetching $75,000. The inaccessible market for these instruments has led many boutique luthiers like guitar makers Dana Bourgeois and the late Bill Collings or man­ dolin builders like Stephen Gilchrist and Lynn Dudenbostel to create faithful,

66 “What have they done to the old home place?” detailed reproductions down to acquiring rare period and carefully aged tonewoods, including period carving tools, bracing, trim, stains and finishes. In fact, few D-28 or F-5 style mandolins produced for bluegrass players deviate far from the original specs of these instruments and promise “aged” or “vintage” tonal characteristics off the showroom floor. 5 Drawing from a longstanding tradition within the folk and bluegrass scene, ama­ teur “tapers” recieved open permission from the band to record live shows and distribute tapes, CDs, or digital files to members of the fan group. 6 Personal interview conducted by my research assistant, John Christensen. 7 Although many disagree about the folk/popular status of bluegrass music (Fenster 1995), the musical forms and traditions are rooted in folk performances and are experienced by its listeners and performers as possessing numerous ele­ ments of the life and lore of “the folk.” Despite raging debates between scholars of cultural studies concerning the relevance or accuracy of drawing distinctions and binaries between commercial and folk music (sources), these are distinctions that carry weight with the bluegrass fan.

Works cited Aquila, Richard. 1996. Wanted Dead or Alive. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press. Abbott, Carl. 1993. The Metropolitan Frontier: Cities in the Modern American West. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press. Adler, Patricia A. and Peter Adler. 1999. “Transience and the Postmodern Self: The Geographic Mobility of Resort Workers.” The Sociological Quarterly. 40(l): 31–58. Auge, Marc. 1995. Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity. New York, NY: Verso. Batteau, Allan. 1990. The Invention of Appalachia. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press. Bennett, Andy and Ian Rogers. 2016. Popular Music Scenes and Cultural Memory. London: Palgrave McMillan. Bluegrass Unlimited. 2002. Vol. 36, No. 7 (April), 53–71. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1985. “The Forms of Capital.” In Handbook of Theory of Research for the Sociology of Education, J. Richardson, ed. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 46–58. Brandellero, Amanda, Susanne Janssen, Sara Cohen and Les Roberts. 2014. “Popular Music Heritage, Cultural Memory and Cultural Identity.” International Journal of Heritage Studies. 20(3): 219–223. Burke, Kenneth. 1941. The Philosophy of Literary Form. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Cantwell, Robert. 1984. Bluegrass Breakdown: The Making of the Old Southern Sound. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Diehl, Kelia. 2002. Echoes from Dharamsala. Music in the Life of a Tibetan Refugee Community. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Ebaugh, Helen Rose and Mary Curry. 2000. “Fictive Kin as Social Capital in New Immigrant Communities.” Sociological Perspectives. 43(2): 189–209. Fenster, Mark. 1995. “Commercial (and/or?) Folk: The Bluegrass Industry and Bluegrass Traditions.” The South Atlantic Quarterly. 94: 1, Winter. Findlay, John. 1992. Magic Lands: Western Cityscapes and American Culture After 1940. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

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Fiske, John. 1989. Reading the Popular. Boston, MA: Unwin Hyman. Frith, Simon. 1996. “Music and Identity.” In Questions of Cultural Identity, Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay, eds. London: Sage Publications, 108–127. Gardner, Robert Owen. 2016. “Crews, Camps, and Communities: Place and Belonging in Jam Festival Scenes.” In Symbolic Interactionist Takes on Music (Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Volume 47). Christopher J. Schneider and Joseph A. Kotarba, eds. Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 21–43. Gearheart, Rex. 2002. “One Week in August.” Bluegrass Unlimited. 36(7): 49. Goetz, Stephen J. 1999. Migration and Local Labor Markets. Regional Research Institute, West Virginia University. https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rri:wholbk:22. Granovetter, Mark S. 1973. “The Strength of Weak Ties.” American Journal of Sociology. 78(6) (May): 1360–1380. Grazian, David. 2003. Blue Chicago: The Search for Authenticity in Urban Blues Clubs. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Greenwood, M.J. 1985. “Human Migration: Theory, Models, and Empirical Studies.” Journal of Regional Science. 25(4): 521–544. Hartje-Doll, Gesa. 2013. “United Through Music: Praise and Worship Music and the Evangelical ‘Imagined Community’.” In Christian Congregational Music: Performance, Identity and Experience, vol. 3. M. Ingalls, C. Landau and T. Wagner, eds. Farnham: Ashgate, 137–154. Hebdige, Dick. 1979. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Routledge. Kotarba, Joseph A. 2002. “Rock ‘n’ Roll Music as a Timepiece.” Symbolic Interaction. 25(3): 397–404. Kunstler, James Howard. 1993. The Geography of Nowhere. The Rise and Decline of America’s Man-Made Landscape. New York, NY: Touchstone. Lewis, Pierce. 1995. “The Urban Invasion of Rural America: The Emergence of the Galactic City.” In The Changing American Countryside: Rural People and Places, Emory N. Castle, eds. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 39–62. Limerick, Patricia Nelson. 1997. “The Shadows of Heaven Itself.” In Atlas of the New West: Portrait of a Changing Region, Riebsame, William E., ed. Center of the American West, University of Colorado at Boulder. New York, NY: Norton, 151–178. Limerick, Patricia Nelson. 2000. Something in the Soil: Legacies and Reckonings in the New West. New York, NY: Norton. Lipsitz, George. 1994. Dangerous Crossroads: Popular Music, Postmodernism, and the Politics of Place. New York, NY: Verso. Maffesoli, Michel. 1996. The Time of the Tribes: The Decline of Individualism in Mass Society. London; Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Malinowski, Branislaw. 1923. “The Problem of Meaning in Primitive Languages.” In The Meaning of Meaning: A Study of the Influence of Language Upon Thought and of the Science of Symbolism, 8th ed. C.K. Ogden and I.A. Richards, eds. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, p. 296–336. Nusbaum, Philip. 1993. “Bluegrass and Folk Revival: Structural Similarities and Experienced Differences.” In Transforming Tradition: Folk Music Revivals Examined, Neil V. Rosenberg, ed. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, p. 203–219. Peterson, Richard A. 1997. Creating Country Music: Fabricating Authenticity. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Pratt, Ray. 1989. “Popular Music, Free Space, and the Quest for Community.” Popular Music and Society. 13(4): 59–76.

68 “What have they done to the old home place?” Riebsame, William E., ed. 1997. Atlas of the New West: Portrait of a Changing Region. Center of the American West, University of Colorado at Boulder. New York, NY: Norton. Schama, Simon. 1995. Landscape and Memory. New York, NY: A. A. Knopf. Scherman, Tony. 1994. “Country: Its Story Is Over.” American Heritage, November. 38–57. Simonett, Helena. 2013. “Banda, A New Sound from the Barrios of Los Angeles: Transmigration and Transcultural Production.” In Music, National Identity and the Politics of Location: Between the Global and the Local, Ian Biddle and Vanessa Knights, eds. London: Ashgate, 81–92. Smith, Mayne. 1984. “Robert Cantwell’s ‘Bluegrass Breakdown: The Making of the Old Southern Sound’.” John Edwards Memorial Foundation Quarterly, SpringSummer, 33–38. Storey, John. 1998. An Introduction to Cultural Theory and Popular Culture. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. Sweet, Stephen. 1996. “Bluegrass Music and the Misguided Representation of Appalachia.” Popular Music and Society. 20(3): 37–52. Thornton, S. 1996. Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital. Hanover: Wesleyan University Press. Turino, Thomas. 1993. Moving Away From Silence: Music of the Peruvian Altiplano and the Experience of Urban Migration. Champaign, IL: University of Chicago Press. Waters, Ethan. 2004. Urban Tribes: Are Friends the New Family? New York, NY: Bloomsbury. Wilkinson, Charles. 1997. “Paradise Revised.” In Atlas of the New West: Portrait of a Changing Region, William E. Riebsame, ed. Center of the American West, University of Colorado at Boulder. New York, NY: Norton. Wolf, Peter. 1999. Hot Towns: The Future of the Fastest Growing Communities in America. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

3

Welcome home I Building place in the bluegrass

festival camp

As established in the previous chapter, the symbolic appeal of bluegrass is inex­ tricably tied to nostalgic images of home, family, and community embodied in musical representations of the Appalachian cultural landscape. Throughout the rich history of bluegrass music, the images of Appalachian life and cul­ ture organized the experiences of listeners and performers by contrasting their lived experience with a simpler and more genuine time and place in American history. Performed in a New West context, this symbolism takes on particular significance for droves of New Westers who seek out the bluegrass festival as a way to revive a fleeting sense of lost community and a disconnection to place by creating vibrant and intimate communal campsite villages. In this chapter, I describe the processual emergence of the festival camp in bluegrass festival campgrounds by drawing from various music events and settings across the New West. Through their festival experience, campers reconfigure open and undifferentiated festival spaces by transforming them into meaningful and remembered places (Tuan 1977). Framed through a folk and bluegrass music aesthetic, the temporary residents of these mobile, portable communities alter their everyday connections to place and regional identity through the recoding and reclaiming of festival space. I follow human geographer Michelle Duffy (2000), in asking “how does a musical coding of space help create a sense of place?” (Duffy 2000: 51). In her ethnography of the Australian “Top Half Folk Festival,” Duffy explains how similarly mobile, geographically dispersed mountain trave­ lers create an emplaced identity in their treks through the highlands of Australia in search of folk music. Like bluegrass, the folk aesthetic musical performances and festival experiences “gives meaning to and situates the music within a discourse of (folk) identity and belonging” (Duffy 2000: 63). Though held at different places in the Top Half region as promoters rotate the venue each year, participants cultivated a community comprised of residents, tourists, and transient adventure seekers all of whom shared identification as being a “Top Halfer.” In the New West bluegrass scene, the festival similarly marks out one’s identity as temporary resident of a particular town or themed camp, and reaffirms participants’ membership in the larger, dispersed group of “New Westers.” In lieu of rootedness and

70 Welcome home I life tied to locality, participants in each of these festivals exercise their geo­ graphical mobility and converge in spaces within which they express their attachments to “place as region.” (Terkenli 1995). In the New West, mobile and often geographically dispersed festival­ goers congregate each summer in small, rural, and often historically pre­ served mountain and country towns like Telluride (Telluride Bluegrass Festival), Westcliffe (High Mountain Hay Fever Festival), Pueblo (Bluegrass on the River Festival), Glenwood Springs (Sunlight Mountain Music Festival), Pagosa Springs (Four Corners Folk Festival) and Lyons, Colorado (RockyGrass Festival ), Laramie (Laramie Peaks Bluegrass Festival) and Grand Targhee, Wyoming (Grand Targhee Bluegrass Festival), North Plains, Oregon (Northwest String Summit), Stevenson, Washington (Colombia Gorge Bluegrass Festival), and Winfield, Kansas (Walnut Valley Festival). These bluegrass festival spaces exist alongside multiple other sites of openair music performance through a traveling festival culture that emerged in the late 1960s. These settings often operate through a set of environmental values “whereby culture and nature harmonize through music” (Leyshon, et al. 1995: 424), emphasizing the high mountain backdrop or remote rural landscape to give meaning and shape to the music and interactions per­ formed there. These live, open-air performances enable people to experience music in distinctive, localized ways (Smith 1994). For listeners, the surrounding natural landscapes and the acoustic sounds of the bluegrass festival harmonize in ways that construct a specific and identifiable sense of place linking regional geography with local culture. In this context, festivalgoers from the Mountain West and beyond constructed portable residential campground communities to which they shared intimate and meaningful interaction and established unique connections to place. In the New West, bluegrass festivals are performed away from city life in isolated, rural amphitheaters and music parks. Participants draw from the cultural imagery of bluegrass as discussed in the first two chapters, and use it as a symbolic resource in their search for more intimate and authentic attachments to place. The time and energy invested in the intentional plan­ ning and construction of these festival camps suggest that the participants are longing to create a specific type of environment that is unique and dif­ ferent from their routine, daily existence. In the sections that follow, I describe the festival campground setting in detail because it is the stage on which participants perform a sense of place, community, and identity discussed in the later chapters. As Erving Goffman (1959) explains A setting tends to stay put, geographically speaking, so that those who would use a particular setting as a part of their performance cannot begin their act until they have brought themselves to the appropriate place and must terminate their performance when they leave it. (22)

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The processes through which the festival setting emerges, and the phases through which it progresses are central in setting the interactional stage for festival participants and demarcating distinct phases of festival time. With each successive stage, and with each successive marker of festival time, par­ ticipants engage in a corresponding set of behaviors. Following Goffman, these markers guide actors in their definition of the situation and provide cues as to their expected behaviors. Drawing from Melinda Milligan’s (1998) study of place attachment in a university coffee house, I contend that the campground setting becomes the primary stage for intimate social interactions leading to meaningful attach­ ments to the festival site as a distinct and enduring place. Milligan describes how place attachment emerges through the meaning-making practices and relationships formed in relationship to the physical site of interaction. While Milligan’s work focuses on connections to place in a stable location, I estab­ lish the processes through which place is constructed and made meaningful in settings that arise and disappear in a few days’ time. Like Duffy, I realize there is “no simple linking of a bounded and identifiable group of people to a particular place,” and thus describe the bluegrass festival as an emer­ gent set of places with which participants’ relationships are “not fixed and unchanging, but multiple and shifting” (Duffy, 2000: 52).

Constructing place in the festival camp Over the course of weekend-long bluegrass festivals, participants drive from miles around, arriving to build an elaborate maze of campsites in open fields adjoining the festival site. Promoters and organizers provide these spaces to accommodate out-of-town visitors and attendees of the festival who plan to sleep in campers, trailers, Volkswagen camper vans, tents, or vehicles during its duration and their close proximity to the venue allows easy walkability from venue to campsite and back and a relatively free flow of pedestrian traf­ fic throughout the event. The proximity of on-site or adjacent campgrounds also allows festivalgoers the opportunity to return to camp throughout the day to rest, recharge, eat, sleep, change clothes, drink, smoke, or pick a few tunes before heading back to the tarp for the next main stage act. Sometimes the campground is close enough to hear the main stage music, so return­ ees will often linger for extended periods to rest and recharge as they wait for their favorite band to take the stage. Some larger festivals operate onsite radio stations to transmit the main stage audio throughout the various campgrounds to accommodate those who wish to remain at camp without missing the action inside the venue. Festivals that have been hosted in the same location for an extended period of time, usually ten or more years, attract a relatively consistent group of “core” or veteran members who camp in roughly the same areas and with the same group of campers. As each year of the festival passes, the campground gains more and more “residents” who return year after year

72 Welcome home I after having made new friendships and relationships with their campmates and neighbors. Because of this, competition for the campgrounds closest to the venue is high and passes are often sold out well in advance of the event. Tickets for on-site camping are often the most highly coveted and usually in short supply, which make them the most difficult to score. If there is high demand for camping and space is at a premium, festival organizers often arrange for more remote and therefore often less desirable “satellite” camp­ grounds which require a longer walk to the venue or the use of a shuttle bus. While the more dedicated, veteran campers seek out prime spaces in the on-site camps, newcomers or those seeking a quieter camp environment often opt for the more remote options. While the festival event may take place over a three- or four-day week­ end, the campgrounds often open several days early (sometimes for an addi­ tional fee), which allows campers the opportunity to set up and enjoy their temporary camps for a week or more. Each year, veteran participants build increasingly elaborate campsites and bring more modern conveniences to the festival site. Over time, as participants return year after year to assemble their camps in the same location, the look and feel of these festival camp­ ground spaces becomes increasingly stable and reliable from one year to the next. This continuity facilitates the building of a “traditional, small town village where everyone knows each other and looks after each others kids” as Chris, a longtime Telluride Festival attendee described it. Growing out of specific camp memories, those in charge of planning often construct their camp around a creative or humorous theme that organizes the selection of campsite décor. Once established and named, these themed camps become stable markers of festival space and nascent nodes of festival memory as these place attachments anchor participants’ festival experiences. Each year, these camp villages are planned, constructed, lived in, torn down, and planned and built again the following year. While transitory and fleeting, these settings provide festivalgoers with a stable, reliable sense of place that they have an active role in constructing and maintaining before, during, and after the event. Though on-site and satellite camping opportu­ nities are packaged by festival promoters as an experience to purchase and consume, the flexible and largely self-governing nature of the campground settings allows bluegrass festival participants to recover elements of individ­ ual sovereignty and creative license inaccessible though mainstream sites of consumer culture and public life. In many venues of American culture, “the consumer is content to receive an experience just as it has been presented to him (sic) by theorists and planners,” (Percy 2000: 54, 55) but for these bluegrass festival campers, they reclaim a sense of collective autonomy and cultural self-determination through the process of designing and construct­ ing their camps (Figure 3.1). As I describe in detail below, the typical bluegrass festival camp emerges through eight distinct and predictable stages: planning, pilgrimage, land rush, setup, performing place, mapping place, tear down, and departure,

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Figure 3.1 “Main Street,” Telluride Bluegrass Festival, Telluride, Colorado.

the last two of which I discuss in Chapter 6. Despite a lack of organizational coordination between venues, participants move through each of these phases successively and interact with them as distinct markers of festival time that help to organize their festival experience and frame their interac­ tions through each successive stage.

Planning The first phase of festival place building includes the planning of the festi­ val camp. Planning, especially for those festivals that have been hosted for several years and attract a growing number of fans, includes the primary step of securing festival tickets and the often-illusive passes for prime, on-site camping. In the case of Telluride, RockyGrass, Northwest String Summit, and other major festivals, ticket sales begin upwards of nine months before the festival date and often before the main stage performers are even announced. In the case of the Telluride Bluegrass and RockyGrass Festivals, the highly sought after Town Park and on-site camping passes are distributed in a random lottery due to the large number of people who camp on-site year in and year out. Years ago, ticket seekers would send in their payment with the hopes that their envelope will be chosen among the lucky winners. Today, this process has been replaced with an online lottery system in which ticket seekers fill out an electronic form including their ticket preferences and credit card information. Tickets for

74 Welcome home I the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and similar events attracting nationally known musical acts top out around $350 for a four-day festival pass with on-site camping included. In contrast, smaller festivals drawing local or regional acts may charge as little as $20 per day with free on-site camping. Children under 12 years of age are often admitted free of charge or for a nominal fee, which allows entire families to attend, making the festival experience appealing to those who might shudder at the thought of paying full price for each child. Long before the festival begins, usually days, weeks, months, or even an entire year before their arrival to the festival site, participants create elabo­ rate lists of supplies that they will need throughout the festival as well as other decorations, amenities, and comforts that will make the festival camp “home.” For many, the planning process for the next festival begins even before the previous year’s festival ends as campers take notes about items they had left behind or document ideas for the following year’s campsite theme. Whereas most newcomers to the festival plan a few days in advance and bring only basic camp supplies, more veteran campers like Steven, a longtime attendee of the RockyGrass Festival, and his wife, Susan, keep a notebook on hand throughout the festival to document all the supplies they forgot to bring or novel items they could bring the following year. Steven shared that Susan usually keeps a running list of supplies and adds to it each year. We get all kinds of ideas from our camp neighbors and see some pretty elabo­ rate setups. There’s even a bit of friendly competition that goes on, you know, trying to one-up the neighbor and create the most decked out site. While the competition is often informal and friendly, some festivals encour­ age the construction of elaborate themed camps by awarding prizes to the best camp or in the case of RockyGrass, the “Campsite Challenge” award­ ing campers presenting the “greenest” or most sustainable campsite design, judged by camp cleanliness, waste reduction, recycling and composting behaviors, energy use, and campsite creativity. When I arrived at the Walnut Valley Festival for the first time, I had little more than a solo tent, a sleeping bag, guitar, and a small cooler with trail mix and fixings for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to last me the week­ end. Because I decided to attend the festival at the last minute, I literally threw my supplies together into my truck the night before departing. Upon arrival, I had the good fortune of seeing and setting up next to a friend I had met at the Telluride Festival a few months earlier. A veteran festival camper, Erndog was living in nearby Wichita at the time and came equipped with “Luvbus,” his fully stocked, white Volkswagen camper van packed with an array of supplies and amenities. As I marveled at his setup, he chuckled “well, you know Rob, this ain’t my first rodeo.” As I later learned, Erndog

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was a field tester for a major camping supply company and was conduct­ ing his own field research on camp setups and testing the company’s latest gadgets including a portable propane heater and a machine that promised “hot water—on demand.” Once we were set up, he generously invited me to abandon my measly food offerings, partake in the smoked brisket and barbecued salmon he had prepared in advance, and wash it down with an ample supply of microbrewed beer. During this phase, camp residents carefully design and collect materials or gear for their campsite. After gathering the necessary supply of tents, pop-up shelters, tarps, camp chairs, portable stoves, coolers, lanterns, sleeping bags, blow-up mats, blankets, firewood, insect repellent, and rain gear, veteran planners will often add to their lists an array of seemingly superfluous items: couches, recliners, disco balls, decorative tapestries, parachute shelters, national and state flags, wind socks, barbecue cookers, propane-powered ovens, and refrigerators, picnic tables, solar generators, dart boards, wind chimes, bubble machines, pink flamingos, decorative lights, propane heaters, rolls of outdoor carpet, cornhole games, and port­ able showers. For the more elaborate campsites, especially those organized around a creative theme, planning becomes an intricate process of architectural design. In these camps, camp creators construct at times large, decorative adornments that they haul with them to the festival site. At the Walnut Valley Festival, there is a longstanding tradition of building elaborately designed, themed camps. As I walked through the campground during my first visit, I came across one group of veteran attendees who constructed an entire Old West street front as an entrance to their camp, including swing­ ing, saloon-style entry doors, a rickety barn facade, and a miniature covered wagon set up in front of their camp shelter. Others sewed long colorful cloth banners or constructed large decorative plywood placards at the entrance of the camp to announce its name and perhaps identify the city of origin of its core members (Figure 3.2). Themed camps like Midnight Bacon (whose members have a tradition of cooking bacon at midnight throughout the festival), Flamingo Camp (whose members adorn their camp with a tropical theme of palm trees and dozens of pink flamingos of various sizes), Camp Wooden Head (whose members construct an elaborate medieval castle complete with catapult and enor­ mous wooden figured foosball table), and Doozies Domino Lounge (whose members host dart and domino competitions throughout the festival) are planned and constructed months in advance in their home garages and workshops. These themed and creatively named camps become important sites of identification within the festival itself, as members of these camps identify themselves and others as either temporary or permanent “residents” of these named camps. These regular camps also provide enduring markers of festival space that facilitate navigation and encourage meaningful rela­ tionships to emerge within the campground.

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Figure 3.2 Rollin’ R Farm themed camp at the Walnut Valley Festival, Winfield, Kansas.

Throughout the year, younger and more technologically savvy partici­ pants connect with other festivalgoers via social media, including online community discussion groups linked from the festival website, themed camp blogs, or other participant managed Facebook groups to discuss their plans and coordinate their activities. Veteran campers will often publicly share their knowledge of the campsite layout, unique or unexpected circumstances from years past, recommended places to purchase camping gear or campsite supplies, or strategies for battling the unpredictable weather. These veter­ ans often provide invaluable advice to newcomers who are traveling to the site for their first festival and in the process demonstrate their subcultural capital, (Thornton 1996, Grazian 2003) thereby performing their veteran status to others. Since many festival participants are geographically dispersed, these online forums allow individuals to communicate their arrival time, their expected camp location, best routes to travel to and from the festival (and which to avoid), and perhaps specific supplies they will be bringing and sharing with the rest of the group. Since many members of these camp communities remain geographically separated throughout the year, they use the forums to collectively recreate “virtual” festival spaces and to plan and prepare for the contingencies that the upcoming festival will bring. Discussion list members also use these forums in the days and weeks leading up to the festival to organize pre-festival events like cocktail hours, group costumes,

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or themed parades and announce the times and meeting places for campsite traditions. Occasionally identified by special “group member” badges, but­ tons, or t-shirts, members of these chat-groups meet in specified locations to reconnect with longtime friends or to put online usernames, avatars, and personas with their actual faces. These extramural venues of interaction serve a socialization function for newcomers and veterans alike and allow for festivalgoers to manage aspects of the campground environment. As the last days before the festival approach, participants shore up their belongings, pack up their vehicles, and eagerly await the moment they will hit the road. Usually, this process is awaited with much anticipation as attendees count down the weeks and days before their departure. In fact, some festival websites have a running counter displaying the days remain­ ing before the start of the festival and at certain times, festival discussion list participants will send reminders when there are 100, 50, or 25 days remain­ ing until the festival gates open. Festivalgoers usually indicate that they have a difficult time focusing at work, because all of the time and attention is channeled into their festival planning. Often, via e-mail or phone communi­ cation, friends or family who have arrived earlier in the week will send sta­ tus reports back to those still finishing up their last days of work before their long-awaited vacation. These status reports often include updates about the weather, traffic or road conditions, or perhaps changes in the procedures for campground setup or a reminder of festival rules. Festivalgoers also used the fan groups and e-mail lists to communicate last minute changes in protocol, or strategies for circumventing police speed traps, or festival staff proce­ dures to get into the venue as early as possible and secure prime, flat areas with adequate shade. Others provided strategies for smuggling in kegs, cases of beer, liquor, or other contraband that were prohibited and might com­ promise or delay entry into the festival grounds. Prior to the Northwest String Summit, e-mail group discussions led by more veteran attendees alerted newcomers and late arrivals about the logis­ tics involved with making it to the venue and through the vehicle at the edge of the festival property. While the venue, Horning’s Hideout is located in a rural area 20 miles outside of nearby Portland, Oregon, the roads leading to it are used by residents to get to and from home, work, and school, and by local farmers to transport machinery, supplies, and crops. Because neighbors encountered clogged roads in previous years and festival staff endured numer­ ous complaints, organizers needed to find ways to manage and mitigate the traffic. In subsequent years, early arrivals would be turned away from the gate and re-routed to a holding lot before they were released into the venue.

Pilgrimage Once travelers have collected their items and have packed the car, they are ready to make the pilgrimage to the festival site, the second phase in festival time. Because many festivals take place in isolated, rural amphitheaters and

78 Welcome home I music parks and require that participants travel hundreds or even thou­ sands of miles, the pilgrimage to the festival site becomes a significant event in itself. For millennia, festivals have taken place at regularly scheduled times or during particular points of the year, and often mark the passing of seasons, celestial events, or the celebration of planting and harvest cycles. Attendance at and pilgrimage to these festivals become recurrent and deeply revered rituals for veteran participants. At the Walnut Valley Festival, one of the official trademarks of the festival, which adorns t-shirts, bumper stickers, and the festival’s periodic newsletter, the Occasional, is the slogan: “I Can’t. I’m going to Winfield!” signifying the central role it plays in organ­ izing the lives of its diehard attendees. For Rene, a 32-year-old yoga instruc­ tor from Oklahoma, this particular festival, which takes place each year over the third weekend in September, “is something that I always clear my calendar for.” In fact, when leaving this festival on the final day, volunteers pass out bumper stickers that announce the date for the following year’s festival to ensure that participants not only “save the date” and return, but eliminate competing obligations to ensure their attendance. Anthropologists have described pilgrimage as “a rite of passage that involves the temporary removal of a person from their host society to a sacred space at a special site” (Hetherington 2000: 75). Historically, pil­ grimage referred to a dedicated journey to a sacred site for religious or spir­ itual renewal, but tourists in the modern world now make treks to shrines and sites of a secular world (Hetherington 2000; Neumann 1993). In many religious traditions, the process of pilgrimage involves self-removal from everyday life into a transcendent, liminal world that is believed to provide a source of spiritual cleansing and renewal and demonstrate the religious dedication of the pilgrim. An “important social process centering around healing, renewal, and individual harmony with community,” the pilgrimage to the festival site became symbolic of a liminal “passage in and out of eve­ ryday life” (Neumann 1993: 214, 215; Turner 1969). In his study of New Age Travelers, Hetherington mentions that through this separation the ordeals of pilgrimage en route and the ceremonies that take place once the pilgrims have arrived … a person comes to be initiated into a new state of being and a new sense of faith … having experienced the communitas of the pilgrimage en route, their identity symbolically undergoes a process of renewal in some kind of festival celebration. (Hetherington 2000: 75) Like traditional notions of pilgrimage, the sites to which bluegrass festi­ valgoers travel are often on the margins or peripheries of inhabited areas usually in small mountain towns hosted at rural amphitheaters, farms, or music parks. Anthropologist Victor Turner points out that the “peripheral­ ity of pilgrimage” and its temporal structure are symbolically important in that travelers start in a “Familiar Place,” go to a “Far Place” and return,

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“ideally ‘changed,’” to a “Familiar Place” (Turner 1973: 211) to complete the transformational process. Caleb, a web designer who was living in sub­ urban Denver and played banjo, fiddle, and guitar in a local band described it as “this strange phenomenon where you travel away from home—you leave society, and have this epiphany—then return somehow changed.” He explained that this transformational process has a lot to do with removing himself from his day-to-day schedule sitting in a cubicle, tied to a computer screen. For Caleb, the bluegrass festival is far removed from his daily and weekly routines in terms of space, sense, and organization of time, and the setting or backdrop in which he usually exists. Because “everyone is sharing in this same experience, we all relate to each other a bit differently and more authentically (at the festival) which throws your day-to-day existence into stark relief.” During the initial stages of the bluegrass festival pilgrimage, the travelers slowly leave behind their “familiar place,” the workday worlds of sched­ ules, deadlines, and responsibilities as they begin to venture into the rural countryside. Pulling out of the driveway and heading down the road in a fully packed vehicle, the pilgrimage to the festival constitutes a symbolic break from daily life. Like Mark Neumann’s (1993) study of alternative bus tour travelers who operated on “Tortoise Time,” festival participants described the pilgrimage as a transition whereby they left “real world time” and entered a space organized by “festival time.” Moving “in and out of time” (Turner, 1973: 211), the festival pilgrimage serves as a “chronotope” (Bakhtin 1981) that ruptures and reorients the familiar space-time dimen­ sions of travelers’ daily lives and frameworks of experience, including their sense of self-identity, an idea I discuss in greater detail in Chapter 6. Much like Hetherington’s (2000) New Age Travelers, the idea of country­ side is extremely important to fans of bluegrass music as a symbolic geogra­ phy organizing their lifestyles and identity. As festival pilgrims pass through small rural mining towns, and as interstate highways give way to isolated dirt roads and rutty mountain passes, festival pilgrims soak in breathtak­ ingly beautiful landscapes that signify a backcountry wilderness removed from many of the markers of mass society and culture. The final destination, the historic small town hosts of bluegrass festivals like Telluride, Lyons, Westcliffe, or Grand Targhee, transition seamlessly from these open and largely undeveloped country landscapes and link symbolically to their rustic pasts. For festivalgoers like Caleb, the open road carried them “away from the routines of everyday life and toward a space and time of new encounters, possibilities, and playful improvisation,” pulling them “away from conven­ tions and stability of everyday life” into “new forms of social organiza­ tion” (Neumann 1993: 209). Abandoning a regimented schedule for one that emphasizes flexibility and spontaneity, many festivalgoers make a mul­ tiple day road trip and stop at other cultural, geographical, or geological sites along the way. Groups of vehicles carrying friends and families will

80 Welcome home I caravan to the festival as well, which adds to the festival pilgrimage as a shared social event and source of collective memory. As the caravan makes stops together for food or rest stops and communicates throughout the trip with walkie-talkies or cell phones, members of the caravan begin to form bonds with each other outside of the context of their routine lives. Ellie, a 24-year-old graduate student explained that she caravanned in two vehicles with about seven or eight people to the Telluride Festival. The spontaneity of their trip and the adventures that it produces allowed her to see different sides of her longtime friends and form new relationships with those she did not know before the start of her trip. She reminisced: When we got on the road, we were excited to be leaving town and all of our stress behind. We got on the road and before we know it, we were driving through the mountains, singing songs. The best part of the trip was getting off the interstate so we could see some sights and places off the beaten path. We even got a flat tire, which wasn’t all that bad because there was a whole group of us hanging around and goofing off while two of our friends changed the tire. As friends and family members make the pilgrimage to the festival site, the time spent on the road, especially when filled with unexpected sights, sounds, events, or adventures, provides moments for the spontaneous build­ ing of a distinctive group identity and solidarity (Neumann 1993) and a sense of fellowship in adversity (Hetherington 2000). Travelers often carry these feelings into the festival experience itself as they venture from the road directly into the festival campground. Kristina, a counselor who lived in suburban Denver at the time, explained that before her group of friends hit the road to Telluride several years back, they decided to all meet at a mutual friend’s house to stock coolers, consolidate loose items, and pack last min­ ute supplies. However, right before they left, their friend’s housemate left her two dogs unattended, and they decided to bolt out the door, leaving the group to split up and search for the runaway pets. It definitely added a bit of last minute excitement and drama to the whole experience. It was actually a major pain in the ass, but now our friends reminisce and talk about it fondly. “Remember that one time, before we left for Telluride …?” But at the time, it seriously delayed our departure, which made for even greater anticipation to actually hit the road and get out of Dodge. Exhausted and weary from hours on the road, Kristina explained that her adventure-filled trip to the festival set the tone for their arrival at the fes­ tival grounds: “We pulled into town at about one o’clock in the morning, it’s freezing cold … We pulled up to our campsite and right away there were people there welcoming us—and it’s one o’clock in the morning!” She

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explained that the instant comaraderie formed with other attendees likely stemmed from the fact that they, too, likely drove several hundred miles to get there, which emphasized to her that “we were all in this together.” Like Kristina and her camp crew, travelers instantly meet up with other friends, family, or fellow festivalgoers who are waiting in line to enter the campsite or who have endured the land rush and have already begun to set up camp.

Land rush Before the start of the festival, campers line up for hours, days, and in some cases weeks before festival staff open the gates to the campsites. Though outsiders ponder why someone in their right mind would show up days and even weeks before the gates open, others see this as a yearly ritual where they can relax and meet causally with old friends before the thousands of other festival attendees arrive. More pragmatically, however, many arrive to get a good place in line for the “land rush” during which they will drive (or perhaps sprint on foot) into the campsite and lay claim to the territory that will become “home” for their close friends and campmates during the week or weekend of the festival. Probably the most chaotic moment of the festival weekend, as gates open, campers scramble across the grounds, stra­ tegically placing their tents, tarps, and vehicles to maximize the amount of space for their weekend camp. Before the tents and canopies are actually assembled, campers will stretch their tents and tarps out across the ground to approximate the general floor plan of the campsite to ensure they have allowed adequate space for all of the tents, shelters, and vehicles and their site is constructed in a way that will maximize common space between and among the adjoining camps. At most festivals, land rush started out as an informal process of lin­ ing up a few hours before the gates opened. As competition for highly coveted camp spaces on level ground, close to the venue entrance, under adequate shade, and away from the pungent smells and banging doors of porta-potties increases with each passing year, festival attendees begin arriving earlier and earlier. Unfortunately, this often overwhelms the small town hosts by creating parking problems on the adjoining streets and clog­ ging intersections, much to the ire of local residents. Planet Bluegrass, the organization behind the Telluride and RockyGrass festivals has continu­ ally tweaked its land rush policy, and has implemented a lottery system to distribute staged entry times as a method of corralling early arrivals and minimizing their impact on local city streets. At RockyGrass, land rush participants now line up in a nearby park and pay to keep their cars in line each day prior to the festival start. Because campers are required to stay with their vehicles, many will create impromptu campsites or sleep in their cars for as many as five days prior to the land rush, playing music, drink­ ing beer, socializing with newcomers, or resting to pass the time away (Figure 3.3).

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Figure 3.3 Camper spreading and mapping out festival campsite at RockyGrass during land rush.

Though most people agree “land rush” is a fair and respectable way to distribute campground space, others have noticed in recent years that some land hungry campers arriving early are hoarding space, leaving later arrivals with small, leftover scraps of undesirable land in the direct sun. As a strat­ egy for securing adequate space, campers will often pull in, park their car, and immediately begin spreading their tarps and tents to liberally approxi­ mate the amount of space they will need but also to mark their territory as “taken” to those that arrive after them. While attending RockyGrass several years ago, I witnessed a large group that had secured a prime space near the front of the land rush line and bolted directly to a highly coveted area under the few available shade trees. Once they parked, two campers immediately created a physical boundary by wrapping a row of nearby shade trees with yellow police “crime scene” tape, effectively blocking off a large tract of land to prevent others from encroaching on their “property.” Jillian, a freelance writer, and resident of Lyons, Colorado describes this phenomenon as a “hangover from their daily lives where people want to maximize their space and create boundaries between their neighbors with big fences. They temporarily forget that we are in a place where none of this stuff matters.” She explained that newcomers who have not been fully enculturated into the festival scene or people who have simply not yet tran­ sitioned to their “festival self” are common offenders. Jeremy, a 32-year­ old computer programmer from Portland concurs, and explains that the

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close-quartered intimacy of the festival is part of its appeal. He added, “if you were to concern yourself about boundaries, you could easily have a bad time at the festival.” As I have witnessed at nearly every festival land rush, the chaotic and occasionally tension filled phase eventually gives way to a more collective attitude as campsites are completed and neighboring camp­ ers intermingle and emplace the festival camp (Figure 3.4). Although the distribution of space is officially “first-come, first-served,” certain spaces are recognized by veteran festivalgoers as “off limits” or “reserved” for their rightful owners who camp there from year to year, which may include campground personalities, staff, prominent musicians, workshop instructors, or academy attendees. At times, this causes confusion and potential conflict, as relative newcomers come upon a prime, unoccu­ pied space that was “spoken for.” Commonly, veteran campers will often inform newcomers that a space is “reserved,” “already taken,” or “saved” for a particular group and explain that the rightful inhabitants have laid claim to the spot through their veteran status. At the Walnut Valley Festival, before I had stumbled into Erndog, I tried quite unsuccessfully to set my tent in the middle of the Stillwater Camp, an enormous veteran campsite hosted by attendees from Stillwater, Oklahoma. As I was driving in my tent stakes, a wiry, gray-haired man in his late 60s or 70s wearing a western shirt, tucked in to display his prominent gold belt buckle, appeared and shouted: “Hey, you can’t camp there!” He explained to me that the same veteran camp has inhabited the space for the past 25 years. “They had some car trouble but are on the road now and will be arriv­ ing to claim that space shortly.” After asking him where would be a “safe”

Figure 3.4 Camper marking off campsite “property” with caution tape.

84 Welcome home I place to camp, he directed me to a small patch of grass at the edge of the main thoroughfare, between a row of porta-potties and a gravel lined ditch, which was clearly less desirable. Out of respect for campsite traditions, most land rush participants adhere to the informal norms of respect and stake claims in an open spot adjacent to the desired location. Though seeking out a new spot is a temporary hassle, others like Timothy, a 50-year-old systems administrator from Denver, prefer the variety of camping in new places, even if it means encroaching on another group’s regular space. We have not in seven years camped in the same spot. Since we never camp in the same spot, we are always squatters, stealing somebody’s regular spot. We usually don’t decide where we will camp until land rush. We make lots of new friends and a few temporary enemies because every year we have new neighbors. The people who we steal the spot from are usually mad for a little while but we are always good friends the next year. After the first wave of land rush, late-coming campers scatter into the last remaining parcels of open land. These least desirable portions of the camp­ ground are usually in the open sun, within earshot (and perhaps downwind) of the endlessly swinging doors of the portable toilets, or in heavy traf­ fic areas in between the already established camps. Occasionally, festival staff intervene to assist these later arrivals as their tickets guarantee them a space to camp, regardless of its quality. At the 2017 RockyGrass Festival, my friend Dave and I arrived a few hours after land rush and found few, if any, desirable locations to camp my old Volkswagen camper van. Since I had temporarily parked it in an illegal location while I looked for a place to park, an official looking staff member with a maroon polo shirt, tucked in and emblazoned with the Planet Bluegrass logo, approached me and told me I needed to “move your vehicle, ASAP.” When I replied that while I had the appropriate vehicle pass, I didn’t have a place to park it, he said “hold on, I will find you a spot.” After a few moments, he got off his walkie-talkie and motioned me to follow him down one of the major car paths through interior of the campground. Following in front of the van, he guided me to a desirable spot near the St. Vrain River and mere steps from the venue entrance near the edge of two camps. He asked, “Will this work?” I replied, “absolutely” and backed my van into the narrow opening, with ample space to extend my awning and set up camp. Because these campground areas are limited in size and are marked off by the physical boundaries of the festival site, tents, canopies, and vehi­ cles appear to be lying literally on top of each other. As Jennie, a resident of Kansas observed, “The campsites are usually all jumbled together. It is quite often difficult to tell where one ends and the next begins.” Because of the close proximity of different campsites, there is often a free flow of people walking through each other’s camp space. This close proximity often

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creates its own challenges as Melinda, a 35-year-old bartender, points out. “One thing is for sure, there’s a whole bunch of folks that camp really close together, so you have to be really good at navigating through tents, stakes, wires, hoses, campfires, ruts, coolers, etc. Especially at night. A flashlight is a must.” At the Walnut Valley Festival, this hazard came to fruition when a large, heavy-set, bearded gentleman was lamenting an accident that had occurred earlier that night. After a hearty swig of moonshine at a neighbor­ ing camp, he turned to leave the campsite jam with his guitar strapped to his neck and resting on his ample belly. Unfortunately, his “foot decided to get tangled with a damn tent stake” and he fell “flat on top of my guitar, blow­ ing out the sides …” His campmate chimed in: “I died a little inside when I heard the strings crying out.” During the first few hours of the land rush, each campsite tends to have ample space between adjoining camps, but Jack, a machinist from Missouri, mentions that “by festival’s end you’re camped inches away from the next camper or tent or campsite” due to the steady influx of festivalgoers lead­ ing up to and through the festival itself. Described as “perfectly crowded and serenely noisy,” Stan, a funeral director from Oklahoma, pointed out that the campsite straddled a delicate balance of both closer and louder than normal interaction. “You come to realize that there are actually people out there that snore louder than you do, which I always make a point to remind my wife.” Despite the potential for uncomfortably close and unusu­ ally noisy accommodations, participants like Stan often re-framed the lack of privacy and quiet as desirable elements of the campground setting as they created a type of relational and interactional intimacy that was uncommon among relative strangers in other social settings. Though some campers are initially protective of their camp territory in the early stages of the festival, these boundaries usually collapse out of sheer necessity. Whereas the more protective campers see the bound­ ary crossing as an annoyance or a necessary evil, others view it as an opportunity to stumble into new friendships or musical opportunities as campers meander from camp to camp, jam to jam in the evening hours. The permeable boundaries between campsites also allow for members of the neighboring campsites to mix and mingle in new and different ways. Gretchen, a 46-year-old office secretary from Indiana, mentions that the close proximity of neighboring camps brings old and new faces together for the duration of the festival. The fact that you camp, party, cook, eat, go to bed, and wake up, with the same people for a full week you form stronger friendships with your existing friends and form new ones with those newcomers that plop down in your campsite because there’s no other room to drop a tent. As a result, the circle of friends you leave with grows with each festival. I’ve now got many friends from many states in the U.S. that I wouldn’t have, had I not been attending the festival.

86 Welcome home I As campers broaden their interpersonal networks and accumulate social capital within the scene, they encounter the festival—or other festivals within the regional circuit—as a reliable place to see and catch up with old friends and familiar faces. At the 2017 RockyGrass Festival, once the staff person found me a spot and I backed my van carefully between the neighboring sites, a thin, heavily bearded man in a tattered white t-shirt bounded from his tent. Shoeless and gesticulating dramatically, he suggested that I should reposition my van, wedging it into an even narrower spot between a neighboring tent camper and his elaborate campsite kitchen, which I later realized he did not want me to block. Though it was nearly a decade since I was a regular attendee at RockyGrass, I recognized him immediately as Barefoot Kenny, or simply “Barefoot,” a well-known character in the festival scene who lives in a rus­ tic cabin in the forested foothills in a small nearby mountain town above nearby Boulder. He got his nickname because of his refusal to wear shoes, even in the dead of winter. As I greeted him with a handshake, “It’s been a long time, Kenny,” he peered at me with questioning eyes, studying my face for a moment before he pulled me in for a warm, friendly hug. “Hey, man, welcome home, brother. It’s been a loooong time!” Barefoot has been a staple at the RockyGrass Festival and Academy and is probably best known for his annual communal breakfasts of biscuits and cheese with sausage gravy on the Thursday before the festival begins. He stores his ingredients in a large propane refrigerator and cooks them from scratch on his gas oven that he wheels into camp each year before the official land rush begins. The morning after land rush, droves of campers line up in casual conversation while waiting for a taste of his famous biscuits. Even though it takes place before the official start of the festival, partici­ pants find that the land rush scramble becomes a significant opening event in its own right. For festivalgoers, it represents the culmination of months of planning and the symbolic end of the initial pilgrimage journey. For the droves of amateur musicians, it serves as the commencement of informal campsite jamming. During this phase of the camp’s development, the par­ ticipants’ long wait outside of the festival gates comes to an end with long­ time friends and festival family, franticly negotiating festival space to ensure each camp can build an ample and comfortable home place for the weekend festivities. Though problems and conflicts certainly arise, campers indicate that the close proximity of the festival camps to the main stage promotes a sense of cozy intimacy with “a thousand of your best friends that you just met” as one camper explained it to me.

Setup After the land rush, portable tent communities spring up and spread out across the patches of grass lying between the service access roads leading through the campground. Once their space is secured, camp members begin

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to quickly assemble their tents, portable shelters, and picnic tables that will serve as “home” for the duration of the festival. Emerging from the mass of tangled aluminum poles, piles of plastic tent stakes, and rows of carefully spaced plastic and canvas tarps, campers carefully assemble each piece to ensure that their shelters will weather potential gusts of wind or storms that may converge on the campground. Others who prefer more perma­ nent and reliable forms of shelter begin popping their tops to their VW and Sprinter camper vans or stretch the awnings of their pull-behind RVs and motor homes to create a “front porch” area for common socializing. Gradually, once the shelters have been assembled and fortified, participants begin to decorate and adorn the campsite with both functional and decora­ tive amenities. To create a sense of place and place identity during the setup period, campers strategically manipulate the structure and form of camp spaces to facilitate interactional dynamics conducive to intimate, communal interac­ tion. On a functional level, campers construct rows of tables for their often elaborate kitchen setups, remove folding chairs from their protective travel bags, and haul from the back of their vans and trailers large reclining chairs and couches to provide ample cozy seating under the canopies to facilitate large groups of people to congregate. On a more decorative level, camp­ ers string rows of “camper lights” across their awnings and shelters, hang windsocks and decorative flags representing the state or country of origin of camp members, use decorative solar garden path lights to illuminate path­ ways between camps, adorn the sides of shelters with large, colorful tapes­ tries, and stretch banners or signs announcing the camp name and perhaps the city of origin of the camp’s members. To protect themselves from Mother Nature, festivalgoers design their camps in ways that provide maximum comfort for their week or weekend stay. As novices gather building tips from experienced campers and acquire additional gear, this is reflected in the constantly evolving campsite designs that comes with more veteran status. As Lora, a social worker from Kansas City, jests: “Perhaps my favorite ‘ritual’ is watching the father of our camp­ site, Chuck, use his skills at being our ‘Tarp King.’ Each year, the tarping of our camp becomes more elaborate, more sophisticated, more hysterical and more threatened by the wind, rain and elements.” By watching others experience struggle with their own camps, Lawman, a 44-year-old data entry specialist from Wichita, mentions “You can learn something new every year about construction with tarps, duct tape, and wire.” Noting the modest construction and design, he adds, “I just love to see how (fellow campers) make their spaces home.” Modeling his camp­ site on the ingenuity that he witnessed from years of festival attendance, Lawman describes a particularly elaborate set up that he constructed: One year I brought a big farm truck and did a covered wagon sort of thing, with long tarps stretched out on either side. On one side I set up

88 Welcome home I my kitchen, which I thought was modest, but people would stop as they passed by and wondered at the setup I had created. It just so happened that it was a “rain year” and the space I had created on either side of the truck was swallowed up by friends that filtered in as the days went on. I had a mattress in the back of the truck, which was my bedroom. It was great, I called it “The Penthouse” because I slept above all the commotion that was going on around me. Because festivals take place in natural environments, camps are often forti­ fied to battle the elements, such as wind, rain, hail, and the occasional flood. Lawman mentioned how his elaborate setup was created to shelter him, and his newly found friends, from the weather and chaos of the increasingly muddy festival grounds. Constructed modestly with “wires and duct tape,” camp residents often improvise, and make the most with the supplies they were able to pack into the back of their vans or trucks. Melinda, a physical therapist from Oklahoma who wore a large, floppy cowboy hat featuring commemorative pins from previous festivals proudly compares her modest yet comparatively elaborate setup with those camping in the mobile home portions of the festival. There are the RV dwellers who are so damn swanky with their AC and air-conditioning and microwaves. And then there’s me: A van with four-inch foam mat to sleep on. A tent to store gear and use as a dress­ ing room. A little shower cabana so I don’t totally gross myself out. A canopy over the front of the van, with my living room, kitchen, and picking parlor all included underneath. For those like Melinda who design and build their festival camp from the ground up, form often meets function in the simplicity and modesty of design. During my first few visits to the Walnut Valley Festival, some of the more elaborate camps appeared to represent amazing feats of architectural crea­ tivity. Strange yet strategic configurations, these camps revolved around the types of activities that took place within their loose and often sprawling camp boundaries. Whereas some camps were rather Spartan and consisted of a sim­ ple grouping of tents with few amenities, or as described above by Lawman and Melinda as particularly “utilitarian,” others were complete monstrosities that constituted a central hub of campground activity. These larger and usu­ ally more veteran camps were often crafted to accommodate large groups of people who congregated there to participate in or simply watch a bluegrass jam or share in cocktails, kegged homebrew, or communal meals. When setting up camp, individuals in these larger camps frequently ori­ ent the tightly packed tents and canopies around the perimeter in ways that maximize space for common socializing at the center. Campers often set up their tents, pop-up and pull-behind trailers and RVs into large circles, with their entrances focused in toward the center. Commonly, adjoining campers

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pull a large picnic table or two into the center of the circle to create a focal point for the participating campsites. To draw outsiders into their site, gen­ erous camp hosts often prepared large kettles of stew, skillets of pancakes or scrambled eggs, racks of roasted chicken or pork barbeque, or kegs of their hand crafted, home-brewed beer that they would share with visitors or passersby. Often elaborately decorated and themed campsites draw many strangers, some who come, instrument in hand, to join in a jam session or just curious about the history of the camp or the origin for their particular theme. Ultimately, these camp spaces become the sites where large groups of people congregate throughout the festival. Barbara, a payroll manager from Wichita, likens the formal organiza­ tion of the camps to more primitive tribal life and states “the campsites remind me of tribal gatherings, each clan with its group gathered together in a central area.” Like the pioneers making their way to the Old West, this “circling of the wagons” provides a sense of protection and distinction, and facilitates communal interaction among the camps’ members. It also distinguishes each particular camp from adjoining camps and differentiates the activities that take place within. While most camps are open and invit­ ing, some camps appear to take on an air of exclusivity in demarcating a private space because their enclosed, encircled camp organization has no clear entrance or gateway into the campsite. For some, this is a strategic move to limit the amount of “random traffic” through the site that may dis­ rupt the privacy needs of individual campers. At RockyGrass, for example, well-established bands or more advanced jam groups often blocked their camp entrances with tarps, screens, large tapestries, or strategically parked vehicles across the natural entryway to their camp. Other camp hosts would orient a small number of chairs tightly within the available space to manage the flow of musicians into the circle. Jim, a semi-professional mandolin player from Colorado’s Front Range, explained that his usual jam group has spent years crafting and honing their repertoire and “play a lot of really difficult songs with complex arrange­ ments that would be complete jam busters for novice players” so he and his jam mates prefer to be more selective in who enters their camp. Mary, a selfdescribed “folkie” and avid singer-songwriter defends her use of a screenedin vestibule to constrict traffic into her camp: “At bluegrass festivals, I find that there is usually some young guy that wants to come in and take over the jam with really fast and loud playing, which simply isn’t our thing.” She explained that her mostly female camp values a “gender balance” and uses the structural arrangement of her camp to prevent certain types of players from entering. Despite the more exclusive preference of certain camps, less restrictive hosts often create well-marked walkways or formal gateways into the camp, inviting outsiders to join in communal camp feasts or group jam­ ming activities (Figure 3.5). At Walnut Valley, campers constructed often elaborate and quite invit­ ing gateways into their Pecan Grove camps. At Doozies Domino Lounge,

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Figure 3.5 Doozies Domino Lounge themed camp entrance, Walnut Valley Festival, Winfield, Kansas.

campers constructed three-foot-high decorative dominos that lined the walkway into the camp space. As I walked past their camp, I could not avoid the impulse to walk down the dramatic entranceway to meet the camp hosts and to participate in a game of dominos, darts, or sample some of the pork barbeque that they had been preparing throughout the day. Walking along the main road past Rollin R’ Farm, the camp hosts invited relative strangers to “roll into their farm” through a real life replica of a covered wagon that sheltered a wooden planked walkway into their camp. Beyond the walkway laid an elaborate and authentic-looking barn door facade, which neatly concealed the front of their nylon, pop-up shelter. Within the camp lay a comfortable setup complete with La-Z-Boy reclining chairs and soft, cushy couches. Beside the covered wagon, the camp hosts constructed a working water fountain that drew water from a small makeshift pond created from a shal­ lowly dug trench, a piece of visqueen plastic to seal the bottom, and a water hose to fill the pond as the water evaporated. Given the camp’s proximity to the main thoroughfare connecting the campsite to the main stage fes­ tival area, it became an attraction of sorts, as children of all ages walked through the covered walkway back and forth along its wooden planks. At the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, along one of the only paths through the Town Park campsite, members of the “Crossroads of Steamboat Camp” constructed their entire camp across the span of a major camp walkway.

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Anyone traveling from one side of the campground to the other had little choice but to walk directly through their camp, a captive audience to their campsite greetings and comedic grilling. According to one of the men camp­ ing at this site, they designed their camp structure to compel passersby to walk into their camp and meet them. He explained: “Its just the best way to get to know everyone at the festival. I really cannot think of a better way to accomplish this.” As the festival progresses and nighttime falls, these communal areas become central nodes for socializing and musical activity. Susan, a 39-year­ old research scientist from Texas, describes how these spaces allow her entrée into the camps. She mentions, “I like the little clusters of campers and tents surrounding a central jamming area. I love just wandering up and down the roads and dropping in on people.” Marco, a 31-year-old pro­ grammer, concurs and adds that the design of each camp strives to achieve a particular goal. The campsites are warm and friendly, especially if there’s a fire going. Each campsite has its own ambiance, its own way of layout that pro­ motes a particular set of activities. Maybe the camp is a music setting with a centralized circle of chairs for jamming; maybe it’s a cooking setting with an elaborate kitchen for common meals. Though many sites are organized and decorated in ways to create common socializing areas and to bring passersby into the camp, others are organized in ways that are more functional, as Marco points out. Occasionally, camp hosts would erect large canopies or secure enormous parachutes above the camp space by securing it to branches hanging between the trees. These parachutes, which could be seen from across the campground, provided a practical shelter from the rain, sun, and elements but also a symbolic marker indicting its status as a hub of social activity. It is in the context of these strategically designed festival camps that participants constructed and per­ formed a meaningful sense of place. To be sure, bluegrass festival participants interact with festival spaces in multiple ways and with varying degrees of passion and commitment. There are those who attend casually, arrive late and leave early, go to sleep early instead of roaming the campground until dawn, and those who avoid the bustle of crowded common areas in favor of more isolated, and quiet areas of the festival, all of which shape festivalgoers’ relationship to place and community inside and outside of the festival grounds. However, taken as a whole, these “vernacular villages” embody a distinct and deeply per­ sonal relationship to place, as I discuss in greater depth in the next chapter. Operating at the level of routine interaction in the festival camp, the distinct sense of place that emerges from the festival camp constitutes a routine form of vernacular rhetorical discourse, public dialogue about shared social prob­ lems that flourishes in informal settings outside of official public channels

92 Welcome home I or forums (Hauser 1999). Reading the festival camp through the lens of vernacular rhetoric draws our attention to the vital role of culture in com­ municating sentiments and attitudes about the changing world around us, particularly the collective detachment from place and a generalized loss of community in our daily lives. Situating the emergence of the bluegrass festi­ val camp in this larger public context, we can better see how it functions as a barometer of community life in the early 21st century.

Works cited Bakhtin, Mikhail M. 1981. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, edited by Michael Holquist, translated by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Duffy, Michelle. 2000. “Lines of Drift: Festival Participation and Performing a Sense of Place.” Popular Musicology. 19(1): 51–64. Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Grazian, David. 2003. Blue Chicago: The Search for Authenticity in Urban Blues Clubs. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Hauser, Gerard A. 1999. Vernacular Voices: The Rhetoric of Publics and Public Spheres. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press. Hetherington, Kevin. 2000. New Age Travelers: Vanloads of Uproarious Humanity. London, New York, NY: Cassell. Leyshon, Andrew, David Matless and George Revill. 1995. “The Place of Music.” The Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers Translator. NS. 20: 423–433. Milligan, Melinda J. 1998. “Interactional Past and Potential: The Social Construction of Place Attachment.” Symbolic Interaction. 21(1): 1–33. Neumann, M. 1993. “Living on Tortoise Time Alternative Travel as the Pursuit of Lifestyle.” Symbolic Interaction. 16(3): 201–235. Percy, Walker. 2000. Message in a Bottle: How Queer Man Is, How Queer Language Is and What One Has to Do with the Other. New York, NY: Picador. Smith, Susan. 1994. “Soundscape.” Area. 26: 232–240. Terkenli, S. Theano. 1995. “Home as Region.” Geographical Review. 85(3) July: 324–334. Thornton, S. 1996. Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital. Hanover: Wesleyan University Press. Tuan, Yi Fu. 1977. Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Turner, Victor. 1969. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Chicago, IL: Aldine. Turner, Victor. 1973. “The Center Out There: Pilgrim’s Goal.” History of Religions. 12(3): 191–230.

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Welcome home II Performing place in the vernacular village

The vernacular villages contracted by festivalgoers in festival campgrounds are best understood not by what they are or what they do, but by what they communicate: meanings, values, attitudes, messages about the larger social and historical contexts in which they emerge. Prior to land rush, festivalgoers radically reconfigure otherwise indistinguishable spaces—meadows, vacant lots, parking grounds, farmers’ fields, municipal parkland— into elaborate stages for place performance. In a matter of days or even a few hours, these camp areas are transformed from open, vacant fields into vibrant, freeform tent communities. As festivalgoers interact within and with these spaces, they begin a process of emplacement by attaching significant meaning to the interactions, personalities, and physical layouts of the various campsites. Setha Low and Irwin Altman (1992) provide a useful definition of the concept place: “(it) refers to space that has been given meaning through per­ sonal, group, or cultural processes … [p]laces may vary in several ways— scale or size and scope, tangible versus symbolic, known and experienced versus unknown or not experienced” (5). Elegantly elaborated by geogra­ pher Yi Fu Tuan (1977): What begins as undifferentiated space becomes place as we get to know it better and endow it with value … The ideas “space” and “place” require each other for definition. From the security and stability of place we are aware of the openness, freedom, and threat of space, and vice versa. Furthermore, if we think of space as that which allows move­ ment, then place is pause; each pause in movement makes it possible for location to be transformed into place. (6) As Tuan suggests, performances of place are interpretive strategies for making sense of our natural and built environments and the interactions and relationships that are cultivated within them. The bucolic festival set­ ting allows festivalgoers a distinct opportunity to temporarily escape the “space” of homogenous urban and suburban environments, providing them opportunities to pause and re-configure relationships to place in their own

94 Welcome home II collective image. Despite their seemingly unplanned and haphazard con­ struction and permeable boundaries, over time, festivalgoers begin to see and interact with festival camps as a distinct and enduring set of places. Through these vernacular villages, festivalgoers build deeply meaningful extensions of the festival experience that anchor the portable forms of com­ munity cultivated within them and shape their attitudes about the social and cultural worlds they temporarily leave behind. Though the physical spaces are provided for campers by the festival organ­ izers, these campgrounds are usually neither formally planned nor over-organ­ ized by the mandates of an official festival bureaucracy. Alexander, a regular at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and several other regional festivals describes the campground setting as “a place of complete unbridled creative expres­ sion. The possibilities are limitless and there are no rules.” Campers are free to build and arrange their campsites in any fashion that they please (barring local laws or formal festival rules prohibiting campfires, assembling tents in fire lanes, or other potentially dangerous activity). Because there are few if any formal rules, planning codes, or land use restrictions for these festival camps, their emergence provides an interesting glimpse into the formal arrangement of camp structures and the distribution of space within the campground.

Emplacing the vernacular village As a form of vernacular dialogue (Hauser 1999), the emergent festival camp reflects participants’ shared values and desires for intimate, communal inter­ action. Like other folk or vernacular architectures that are the “product of a place, of a people, by a people” (Heath 1998: 5), their characteristic architecture and aesthetic of the festival camp grows organically from those who inhabit them. Over a period of years, longtime attendees find particu­ lar spots or areas of the campground that they return to year after year. Especially at the longer-running festivals, the continuity of the festival camp as a physical and social space and the continuity in their location year in year out provide participants with a stable sense of place to which they can return, both physically and interactionally. According to Audrey, an accountant who attends the Walnut Valley Festival “religiously,” the reliable placement of themed campsites “builds up a sense of community among the campers and really gives them a shared history and shared set of traditions. People love ritual, and the continuity of the rituals over the years helps hold us all together.” Because the sights, the sounds, the people, and the physical geography of the festival site remains relatively consistent, even with a regular influx of newcomers, Vinnie, a longtime attendee of the Walnut Valley Festival explains how it anchors festival scene interactions: Because many of the camps are set up in the same spots year after year, it’s almost like a tent city that exists continuously. Of course, I generally

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come the weekend before the festival, and see much of the campground fill up over the course of the week, so the annual construction is evident to me. But to someone who only comes on the actual weekend of the festival every year, it must seem as though the Pecan Grove campground always looks as it does that weekend each fall. Festivalgoers also retain continuity of place from year to year at the larger, longer-running festivals such as Telluride, the Walnut Valley Festival, and the Strawberry Music Festival outside Yosemite, California, by generat­ ing a creative name to thematically distinguish their particular campsite from those around them. These often-whimsical monikers organize the selection of décor and the activity that takes place within camp space. Camp names like Midnight Bacon, The River Rats, Comfortable Shoes, Big Britches, Glitter Gultch, Malfunction Junction, Camp Run-A-Muck, Chicken Train Camp, Camp Carp, and Flamingo Camp often adorn large banners or signs strung prominently across the front of the site, inviting in passersby and orienting them to the personalities they may encounter as they enter. Each camp is recognized by festivalgoers not only by name, décor, and location but by the events, traditions, and cast of characters associated with each. For example, Midnight Bacon has a nightly tradition whereby camp hosts cook up a massive spread of bacon as the clock rounds mid­ night. Crowds of people ritually gather to get a quick nighttime snack, and pause for conversation as they venture from jam to jam. As such, it becomes a popular congregating spot for large groups of people who are either seeking to get their bacon fix before the morning breakfast or seek­ ing out the camaraderie the ritual provides. Deena, a data entry specialist from Kansas City, explains that the main reason people organize their camps around creative themes is “just to have a little fun and express an identity that is a bit different than the other camps.” When I probed why she thought carving out a unique or unconventional identity was impor­ tant to campers, she mentioned that “it allows people to step out of their shell a bit and become known among the larger group of fellow campers. For most people, they wouldn’t get this kind of attention at home, so the themed camps provide a place to get it.” Additionally, she states that these themes often grow from a “particularly memorable event or incident” that the camp members encountered which memorializes it in their yearly ritu­ als. Describing the origin of two prominent camps at the Winfield festival, Deena states: One camp, the Flood Victims, was so named because, due to the heavy rain that year, their campsite got completely flooded out. The Chicken Train Camp was another that was named because that was the name of one of the first songs we played at the campsite that year. We started with that song simply because it was easy. It only has one chord, E. For

96 Welcome home II some reason, it just stuck. We decided that would be a good theme and went crazy with chickens (when decorating) the next year. As a marker of festival memory and memorial of camp experiences, partici­ pants interact with themed camps like Flood Victims and Chicken Train as distinct places and vital sites of festival memory. Sociologist Melinda Milligan (1998) contends a particular place’s “inter­ actional past,” which describes one’s past experiences, memories, and emo­ tions with this place, comprises a major component of place attachment (2). The shared interactional past of the festival site is often carried along from year to year through shared stories, memories, e-mail and chat room discus­ sions, and festival planning. It serves, therefore as a way for festivalgoers to create a continuous and reliable sense of place, even though the camp itself disbands and disappears after a week’s time. In fact, even participants who have been away from the festival for a period of years recognize the conti­ nuity in the social form of the campsites. Audrey, who hadn’t been to the festival in years explains “I don’t know how I let fifteen years go by without attending, but upon returning I was amazed at how much had not changed, especially the spirit,” even as she encountered a host of new faces among the familiar ones. Milligan explains that a place’s “interactional potential,” or the future experiences imagined or anticipated to be possible in a site, become anchored in its interactional past, including the memories and rituals associated with it. Through this process, festivalgoers begin to develop a strong sense of place, “a physical site given meaning through interaction” (Milligan 1998: 2). While some places are constructed around specific festival memories or traditions, other camps take on altogether different themes by cultivating a space for creative play and fantasy. Tom, a tall, lanky mountain dulcimer player from Colorado describes one of the creative themes he and the rest of the River Rat camp generated: The other most fun my campmates and I have with music (outside of the festival) is Octoberfest. So we set up an Octoberfest at Winfield. We have a big canopy that we hang lights on and lots of flowers suspended from hula hoops that we attach to the ceiling. We hang Bavarian flags and try to make it look like a German beer garden tent. We have a flag with a picture of King Ludwig II that is our trademark. We some­ times have an alpenhorn—think Ricola TV commercial—and a resident accordion player. We sing German drinking songs mixed with bluegrass jams. Our official beer is King Ludwig Beer imported from Bavaria. By creating both a space of fantasy and play, Rat Camp members could celebrate their German heritage while creating a new sense of place and identity through their interaction with the festival grounds. Other camps use distinct markers like signs, banners, and flags to identify the place or region

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of origin where camp participants currently live. For example, members of the Stillwater Camp fly a huge banner above their camp announcing that their camp consists of members who traveled to the festival from Stillwater, Oklahoma, while Exit 81 proudly celebrates the fact that campmates live off the same highway exit. The International Camp also expressed the ori­ gins and ethnic identities of its diverse participants through the prominent display of national flags. Others, like the Visitors’ Camp at the Northwest String Summit at Oregon’s Horning’s Hideout used a large flag represented by an outline of the state boundary of Oregon with a large green heart at the center to signify the location and territory of their highly coveted camp space on “Visitor Hill.” Chris, the designer of the camp’s insignia, explained that he and his campmates used the flag at multiple festivals as a way for friends and “festival family” to identify and locate “some familiar faces” out of an otherwise anonymous crowd. Though many camps like Stillwater Camp, Exit 81, and Visitors proudly represent their place of origin through camp name, others represent a more critical relationship to place of origin. Steve, the camp host of Country Flub Plaza explained that he decided on his theme as a creative way to represent and poke fun at his native Kansas City. Dressed in a faded tiedye shirt and wearing thin, wire-rimmed glasses, he explained to me that his camp satirizes Country Club Plaza, Kansas City’s historic downtown shopping district by recreating its famous square. To accomplish this, he constructed a mock bell tower, a working fountain complete with spitting horse “statues,” and by naming each tent as a playful and mocking spoof on the various storefront businesses lining the square. With names like Barns and Yodels, Sox Fifth Avenue, and Potty Barn (mocking the national chain stores of Barnes and Nobles, Sachs Fifth Avenue, and Pottery Barn), he explained that the wanted to poke fun at the “rampant commercialism of the square.” Though Steve explains that he loves living in Kansas City, there were certainly aspects of the city that he found to be lacking in authenticity and character. For Steve, he used the Country Flub Plaza camp theme to critique what he saw as undesirable commercial elements of his city, and to contrast their inherent inauthenticity relative to what he perceived to be more authentic interactions found in the festival campground (Figure 4.1).

Mapping and defining place During the next stage in the development of the festival camp, festivalgoers begin to map and define the initially undifferentiated and indistinguishable fields, parking lots, and parks that become their temporary “home away from home.” This is a critical stage in festival placemaking as it allows campers to create and carry with them a conceptual scheme for orienting themselves and navigating the campground upon arrival and carrying an enduring mental image of the setting with them between festival events. This mental cartography of social space becomes a useful and necessary way of

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Figure 4.1 Country Flub Plaza camp, including Sox Fifth Avenue, Barnes and Yodles, and Nickels Fountain.

orienting oneself within the festival campground, especially when traversing its various campsites at night. At Wilkesboro, North Carolina’s Merle Watson Memorial Bluegrass Festival (or Merlefest as it is commonly known), one particular campsite is hosted by the Wilkes County Fire Department. When not used for the festival, it functions as the site of an active water treatment plant positioned behind a Walgreens drug store. For 51 weeks out of the year, the grassy area directly in front of and directly to the side of the water holding tanks is what Marc Auge (1995) refers to as a “non-place,” the space between places that are heavily used but often passed over and largely ignored from day-to-day such as parking lots, strip malls, airports, bus terminals, and motorways due to our lack of meaningful connections with them. As a largely non-descript space outside of the context of the festival, the grassy area surrounding the water treatment plant holds little aesthetic appeal. During the week of the festival, however, this grassy area emerges into a vibrant temporary camp­ ground, with tents, kitchens, chairs, tables, and numerous informal amateur jam sessions. Service roads that are part of the daily architecture and land­ scape of the facility become “emplaced” over time by the festivalgoers as they affectionately name and map the natural, physical, and social geogra­ phy of the campground. When I entered this unfamiliar campground for the first time, a festival staff member approached and handed me a hand-drawn map to orient myself as I sought out an appropriate place to camp for the weekend. I immediately noticed that these otherwise non-descript roads and

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features had distinct place names linked to features of the landscape and the people who populated these sites in years past: Blue Jay Road, Whispering Pines, Tom’s Roost, Roger’s Ridge, Scott’s Lane, Wickel’s Hill, Phisbin’s Circle, and Brenda’s Loop (see Figure 4.2). As markers of place, these named areas of the campground demonstrate how festivalgoers interact with space to construct a meaningful sense of place. For the Visitors’ Camp mentioned at the end of the last section, their ritual gathering in the same area of the campground at Horning’s Hideout for Northwest String Summit demonstrated their longstanding occupation of this prime campground space. Due to their connections with the host bands and production crew on staff, they would often arrive before the gates officially opened to lay down tarps and ensure that they had adequate space for their entire camp, which regularly hosted over one hundred people. The informally named “Visitor’s Hill” was named an official campground loca­ tion and now appears on the official festival site map included in the event brochure as “Visitorville.” This official recognition further established their claim to this otherwise open camping area and elevated their status as an influential camp in the festival scene. Beyond their role as placemakers and placeholders, named camps also serve a functional purpose in the festival camp by providing a sense of

Figure 4.2 Map of Wilkesboro Fire Department campground at Merlefest in Wilkesboro, North Carolina.

100 Welcome home II direction and spatial orientation. Jillian points out that the named campsites provide a sense of navigation in a potentially chaotic setting: “It’s like a mini Rand McNally develops as everybody gets their campsite set up.” Jessica, a high school teacher from Colorado who attends Winfield and other major festivals back home, adds: With so many campers, how do you tell your friends all the way across the grove where you’re camped? “Oh yeah, you’re down there across the road from the River Rats.” “Yeah, just look for the ‘Camp Bummer’ sign next to the road.” “Oh, you’re camped next to Comfortable Shoes aren’t you?” “Hey, have you been down to the Split Lip camp yet?” And then there’s always: “Where’s Mary? Oh, she’s over in the Pecan Grove at the Carp Camp.” It’s like it identifies neighborhoods, and it’s very necessary when you’ve got a mash of people gathered in a small area. Many pointed out that over time, festivalgoers carry these mental maps with them as reliable ways of orienting their activity at the festival. Themed camps function as enduring markers of place in a temporary setting where both people and physical infrastructure are in constant flux. The the­ matic names provide a source of distinction between the closely arranged camps and are, as Rene explains, “a great way to get to know your way around in an instant village such as Winfield. When someone asks how to get to Stillwater Camp, you just say ‘go past Chickentrain Camp, past the Comfortable Shoes Camp, past My Grass is Blue, and it’ll be on your left.’” Aiding in these place identifiers, for well-established festivals like Walnut Valley, Telluride, and RockyGrass, and String Summit, festival organizers often assign a name to each of the campground areas that correspond in some way to their physical geography. This naming of the open campsite space transforms it into a site of emplacement. For example, the Pecan Grove is named as such because it lies in the valley of a grove of pecan trees, whereas Meadow Park and Town Park in Lyons and Telluride Colorado refer to existing municipal parks servicing each town. Other campsites like Sheep Corral, Illium, and Rivers’ Edge provide each camp area with a dis­ tinct identity that attracts a particular type of camper seeking to cultivate a particular environment or “vibe”. Festivalgoers indicated accordingly that each of these distinct campground places elicit distinct types of interactions. Whereas Town Park and Pecan Grove tend to attract a younger and more lively, partying crowd of tent campers, Walnut Grove and Meadow Park are known to be somewhat more subdued and family friendly, and attract older folks and families staying in RVs. Craig a 33-year-old truck driver, describes the distinct camping areas at Walnut Valley Festival in terms of existing places: At Winfield, there are three major camping areas. To me they are like three different cities. The Pecan Grove where I camp is kind of like

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a small town in the southeastern U.S. Kind of rustic and has lower priced dwellings. Then there is the soccer field, which is more like the central plains area of the U.S. Not much shade, but a good view of everything and slightly better dwellings, you know, more campers and motor homes. Then there is the Walnut Grove, a.k.a. Hollywood. This is more like the West Coast: higher priced dwellings, mostly motor homes. While the tent camping areas’ physical and social boundaries meld into each other, the motor home and trailer camping areas have more clearly delineated boundaries separating the different camps. Because most motor homes and campers have attached pull out canopies and awnings, the spaces between and among the mobile home camps are slightly less flexible and negotiable. Additionally, because of the semi-permanent and physically anchored nature of their dwelling, residents populating these areas often retreat to their campers at night, creating a distinct boundary between pub­ lic and private space that is often less discernable in the tent camps. Susan, a cantankerous bookkeeper for a local printing business, took issue with the very different social environment that emerges in the areas designated for mobile home camping and notices how the physical architecture of the camps limits the level and intensity of interaction. I don’t like the people that ‘circle the wagons’ and have these giant RV’s walling their common area off to the world. What’s the fun in that? It’s very un-neighborly. I make a point of cutting through those just to piss them off and shake things up a bit. While the different camps work to cater to the different needs and desires of the different types of campers and festivalgoers, what is most notable about Craig and Susan’s descriptions is their mapping of geographical and social space across the campground setting. In the process, their emergent cartography works to solidify shared distinctions between the types of inter­ actions and people that define these camp places as well as attitudes and judgments about their authenticity. Dedicated tent campers like Susan and Craig mentioned that they felt a closer sense of intimacy during festivals where motor homes, travel trailers, or hotels were not the dominant form of shelter. However, those in the RV heavy campgrounds explained that their choice of accommodations was influenced by “too many nights sleeping on the cold ground in my early years” or the fact that “my back just can’t han­ dle sleeping in a tent any more,” while parents of young children explained “there is no way my 3 and 5 year-olds are going to get any sleep in Pecan Grove.” In this case, the practicality of a good night’s sleep trumped these campers’ need for lively, sustained communal interaction into the wee hours of the morning. Instead, they opted for the solitude and privacy found in the RV campgrounds.

102 Welcome home II The tension between tent and RV campers came to a head at The Columbia Gorge Bluegrass Festival (recently re-named the “GorgeGrass Festival”) held in Stevenson, Washington, though for slightly different rea­ sons. Because of its smaller campground footprint, RVs and tents shared the same general vicinity this particular year, much to the ire of a few par­ ticular tent campers. After a long night of complaining about the relent­ less noise coming from an adjacent RV camper’s gas generator, a few tent campers confronted the owner to have him shut it down for the evening by relentlessly knocking on his camper door. Emerging from the camper after several repeated efforts to wake him, the owner of the RV refused to turn off the generator and slammed the door shut. Minutes later, a few intrepid, alcohol influenced campers decided to take matters into their own hands by manually turning off the generator’s power switch. The middle-aged, beer-bellied owner immediately stormed from his camper wearing nothing but his tighty-whitey briefs. After awkwardly slamming the door open, he fumed: “Who did it? Who, fucking did it? Who turned off my generator.” After several failed and rage inspired attempts to restart the generator, his tone went from accusatory to ballistic. Over the now calm silence of the campground, he erupted: “Whoever fucking turned it off owes me $500 for a new one. You aren’t supposed to turn it off that way. Now you ruined it. I’m going to find out who did this.” As he slammed the door behind him, his retreat was greeted with tremendous applause from the campers around him who were happy that he and his generator were finally put back to sleep. Though tensions between tent and RV campers rarely reach a boiling point like they did this particular night, there is often mutual disdain and distance between the tent bound “party crowd” and the older and more conservative or family oriented RV campers. Because people using more permanent forms of shelter often retreated from surrounding camps by “closing doors behind them,” or in rare cases slamming them, tent campers explained that the open-air tent camping brought them “closer to nature” and encouraged a closer social and interactional bond with other festival participants than their RV dwelling neighbors. Though they perceive the motor home campsites as structurally limiting due to the rigid physical boundaries created by the vehicles themselves, RV sites still tend to be com­ munally oriented to accommodate large gatherings of friends and neigh­ bors and often host nightly jam sessions, but without the raucous intensity (Figure 4.3). Though many criticize the RV dwellers for their “extravagance” and preference for more comfortable environments, other tent campers are a bit more self-reflective and point out the irony that festivalgoers would asso­ ciate tent camping with “roughing it” and getting away from “it all.” As Margo, a petite and energetic television media specialist from Manhattan, pointed out to me back at her campsite, she and her campmates usually bring much of “it” with them. Explaining this irony, she adjusts her floppy cowboy hat and jests: “I think it’s funny that people think they are ‘camping’

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Figure 4.3 Walnut Grove RV campground at the Walnut Valley Festival, Winfield, Kansas.

just because they are in tents. Maybe it was just our campsite, but it was bigger, nicer, and had more amenities than most of my apartments in New York.” Though many agree when camping at the festival they are far from roughing it, campers like Maggie, a sporting goods account manager from Dallas, states that “the campsite setting and going all out is part of what makes Winfield fun. People bring furniture and large appliances to have the most comfortable time possible.” It also infused the campground with a fun, funky aesthetic of whimsy and play to find these “out of place” items in the middle of a campground. By trucking in accoutrements of all sorts including elaborate kitchens, bar-b-ques, sofas, recliners, refrigerated beer dispensers, hammocks, mattresses, inflatable palm trees, portable heaters, impromptu shower stalls, rolls of carpet, picnic tables, rugs, pink lawn art flamingos, and tapestries, festivalgoers make their campsites a home away from home.

Welcome home: Performing place in the festival camp Frederick Buechner (2009) argues that narratives of home revolve around two primary forms: the home that we remember and the home that we dream. These narratives often construct the notion of one’s “true home” as a refuge and an anchor in an often chaotic world: the word home summons up a place … which you feel, or did feel once uniquely at home, which is to say a place where you feel you belong

104 Welcome home II and which in some sense belongs to you, a place where you feel all is somehow ultimately well even if things aren’t going well at any given moment. (63) The nature of home, therefore, describes “a refuge in the world, a cozy, warm, place in juxtaposition to its immense, unknown surroundings, where people may regenerate themselves” (Vycinas 1961 as cited in Terkenli 1995: 331). Since individuals are increasingly mobile in their daily lives, and spend significant portions away from home and home places, this uprooting “rein­ forces the need for human beings to attach themselves to a context that is unquestionably theirs, so that they are secure in the changing associations with place, society, and time” (Terkenli 1995: 331). Over time, especially when they return to the same festival year after year, camp with the same groups of people, and dwell alongside the same sets of neighbors, festivalgoers often begin interacting with the festival space as if it were home. For Tom, the lanky dulcimer player, he reports that “My personal favorite tradition is to set up my part of the camp as quickly as I can, turn to my camp mates and loudly declare, ‘I’m home!’” At Telluride, RockyGrass, Northwest String Summit, and other festivals across the American West, campers are often met with similar greetings of “welcome home” from their friends and extended “festival family” when they arrive to the campground and meet their campmates or camp neighbors that they haven’t seen since the previous year’s event. Many festivalgoers referred and related to these friends in much the same way they would refer to their own families. These fictive kin relationships (Ebaugh and Curry 2000) became extremely important for scene members, especially those mobile transplants to the region who seek out the relational intimacy and mutual support of friends in the absence of family members nearby. Indicative of the rise of close-knit groups of post-college, creative class youth that eschew marriage and family for membership in “urban tribes” (Waters 2004; Florida 2002), the newer generation of festivalgoers gravitate to the scene’s networks for the creativity and autonomy it promotes. Though many may see their festival “home” as a metaphor for their yearly place of escape, especially given the level of camp comfort they aim to achieve there, others interact with festival site with a level of inten­ sity and meaning often reserved for one’s place of permanent residence or in the exclusive company of close family. In fact, multiple festivalgoers have proposed and even had marriage ceremonies at the festival. Joseph, a top-hatted pastor who is a regular at the Walnut Valley Festival explains that he performs “at least one or two (wedding ceremonies) at the festival every year.” At the 2003 Winfield Festival, I witnessed one such ceremony that was staged as an anti-wedding of sorts. For the bride-to-be, a few weeks prior to the festival her fiancée suddenly got cold feet and called off their fully planned wedding at the eleventh hour. Realizing she was

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now left with a free weekend, friends had persuaded her to attend the festival instead. Given that her money was already spent on decorations, food, flowers, cake, a minister, and other services, she decided to bring her “unmarriage” ceremony to the festival and host it alongside the other themed camps as a cathartic release from the pain and disappointment the situation had caused her. In style and form, the campgrounds at well-established and longer-run­ ning festivals began to take on characteristics of miniature villages or small towns through the establishment of various festival institutions, rituals, and civic activity governing campground affairs. Some longstanding festivals have instituted monthly “newspapers” or online newsletters to share the news of their “residents” and campmates, celebrate notable achievements, and plan for the next festival. Others like the Telluride and RockyGrass festivals have hosted lively virtual “town meetings” to discuss changes to the festival site, logistics, or proposed policies that could impact partici­ pants’ ability to organize and build their elaborate camp spaces in the way they had previously. Other festivals like the Northwest String Summit have established institutions like their “Peacock Radio,” an on-site radio station that provides festival schedule updates, announces events and community happenings, and pumps a live music feed through the campgrounds to those staying behind while the main stage performances ramble on. Honored festival traditions and institutions including Winfield’s “home­ coming” parade sponsored by Carp Camp, the yearly “homecoming” gos­ pel sing, and community square dance; Telluride Town Park’s “Free Box Fashion Show,” the Children’s Parade at Northwest String Summit, or the “band scramble” event at both Winfield and RockyGrass refashion and emulate storied small town celebrations that provide stable sites of memory and continuity from one festival to the next. Inside the music venues them­ selves, the various food stands, handmade arts and crafts booths, pop-up clothing shops, band merchandise tents, and musical instrument dealers re-create a vibrant “local downtown commercial district” as one festival­ goer described it. These spaces addressed festivalgoers’ desire for unique and locally made products, and promoted a festival aesthetic that includes natural stone jewelry, floppy sun hats, festive hemp clothing, batik and tye­ dyed t-shirts, hammocks, boutique acoustic instruments, concert photogra­ phy, folk art, and other related items that contributed to it. Usually, these merchants showcased a variety of local offerings from nearby restaurants or small scale artisans who are also part of the local music scene. In this way, festival promoters and festivalgoers recreated and refashioned commercial and civic spaces at the festival to promote independent, local businesses and handmade crafts as a conscious alternative to the mass produced consum­ erism promoted by chain store vendors that increasingly dominated their hometown economies. Interestingly, when I asked festivalgoers about the notion of the festival camp as “home” they frequently responded by contrasting their “festival

106 Welcome home II home” with their “real life homes.” Lora states that she is fortunate that her home community is a tight-knit one but contends “Winfield, well, it’s just my favorite home.” She explains that she loves being able to walk into someone’s camp, introduce myself and sit down with a beer and get to know them. I’ve never been anywhere else in my life that compares to the comfort I feel at being “home” at Winfield. Festival attendees like Lora reported the permeable boundaries of the festi­ val environment relaxed the strict divisions that often separated them from their neighbors in everyday life. This sentiment was substantiated by Jay, a middle-aged design engineer from North Carolina, who mentioned the ease at which he can visit old friends and make new ones at RockyGrass: “This type of festival is the only place I know where you can just walk into some­ one’s living room and say howdy. You can get arrested for that shit back home if they don’t pull a gun on you first.” Whereas walls, paved roads, fences, and private property lines provide physical and symbolic boundaries limiting the amount and intensity of the interactions that take place at their place of residence, the intimate and communal forms that festivalgoers cultivated in the campground setting provided a stark contrast. For Lawman, the festival camp bears little resem­ blance to his home of Wichita and allows him to interact with his festival neighbors differently: Of course, the festival is nothing at all like where I live. Cold pavement, no yards, no music. I don’t really talk to my neighbors much except in passing. And Wichita is a busy city where no one takes the time to get to know you, except maybe in a bar. At the festival, if you wander into a campsite, people will ask where you’re from, (whether) you play an instrument, and maybe even play a song for you. By the end of the visit you’re both probably good friends and planning on contacting one another in the future, even if it’s all the way across the country. For Lawman, the interactional reciprocity that evaded him daily was found in abundance in the festival campground, which was key to its enduring appeal. Margo, the 33-year-old media specialist from New York explains that the structure and form of her urban living arrangement makes it dif­ ficult to see, let alone interact with people on a daily basis. Even though she lives in extremely close proximity to her neighbors in her Midtown apart­ ment, she explains that the privatization of her daily life inhibits the types of relational intimacy she found in abundance in festival settings. Sitting in her reclining camp chair, Margo explains: I live in a thirty-five story high rise apartment in Midtown, Manhattan. I take an elevator to do my laundry, if I do it at all. In-house costs

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the same as a laundry service and it comes back folded in an after­ noon. And I can have just about anything delivered to my apartment after my doorman checks in with me. After three years I know three neighbors by first name, but we have never invited each other over for conversation. My husband and I moved from Dallas where we knew all of our neighbors, their jobs, their sexual practices, and we borrowed things by simply walking in and leaving a note. In the city, there are so many people on the streets, in the restaurants and bars, when you get home you just want to shut the door and have some pri­ vacy. Winfield is easily the absolute opposite: Common camps, open conversations with just about anyone. I feel just as safe in both places, but I have an absolute peace and state of relaxation at Winfield. There is no comparison. In the city, I feel the stress and never really get calm until I leave. Consistently, festival attendees described the campground setting as remi­ niscent of small town life whether or not they had experienced it before. Like Margo, they also contrasted the small, village atmosphere of the fes­ tival to the perceived (or experienced) impersonality of city life. Katie, the registered nurse mentioned in the previous chapter, states that “the festival is like the rural community I grew up in that no longer exists. Everybody worked and played together and if anyone needed help, everyone is there to help.” Steve, an amateur musician from Colorado, explained that while at the Walnut Valley Festival, he likes to camp in the Pecan Grove because of the strong connections to the type of community he reminisces about from his youth. He states that the grove is more like Pemberville, Ohio, his native hometown, than his current place of residence. He explains that the festival, like Pemberville “is a community where everybody kind of knows everybody’s business, and makes allowances and provides guidance and mutual celebration for each other.” Mirroring Steve’s sentiments, Maria, an insurance claims adjustor, sees the festival as a “throwback to simpler times” Though she admits that the nostalgia for these older, simpler times “even if they weren’t really simpler” tend to idealize notions of small town community, the festival still provides “a total departure from stress and busy-ness of the city.” Barbara, a payroll manager from nearby Wichita who “never misses” Winfield finds it a relaxing “time away from it all” with her husband and close festival friends. Under the shade of their pop-up canopy, she explained that their attraction to the music derives from its living link to American cultural history: I think that more and more people a (sic) realizing that Bluegrass and acoustic music is our heritage. Bluegrass and old time music is the way that our forefathers expressed themselves, told news of their families, carried news of current events, and even entertained themselves.

108 Welcome home II By attending the festival and listening to the music, Barbara and her hus­ band tapped into this fading heritage to revive their relationships with a col­ lective past and regain a sense of continuity with a slice of cultural life that she lamented is “slipping away.” Other festival attendees like Richie, a burly, middle-aged landscaper from Arkansas whose camp hosted a large nightly music jam described himself as a “diehard bluegrass fan.” When I asked him why bluegrass is especially appealing to him and others like him, his raspy voice revealed that people just want “to get back to what is real in our past and history.” When I asked Richie to clarify what he meant by “real,” his neighboring campmate Gene, a realtor and part-time massage therapist, interjected that the music allowed him to develop an “appreciation of more traditional ways of life” where people “got by with less” and “actually made things with their hands,” which elicited several “uh, huhs” and vigorous nods of satisfied agreement from Ritchie. For festivalgoers like Richie and Gene, bluegrass music pro­ vided a living link to lifestyles and traditions of the past made accessible through the modern festival culture in the New West. In this and the previous chapter, I explored the emergence and growth of the portable festival camp and its evolution into a vibrant vernacular village. I examined the typical processes of planning, pilgrimage, land rush, and setup, stages through which participants progress in transforming fes­ tival space into a viable sense of place. As the festivalgoers encounter the open space of the festival campground at the start of the land rush, they are presented with an opportunity to fashion it in whichever way they please. Examining the particular configurations of physical and social space con­ structed in the festival camp and the processes of emplacement that imbue these spaces with meaning and memory, provides considerable insight into the social worlds festivalgoers wish to create and the ones they intentionally leave behind when making pilgrimage to the festival grounds. Once con­ structed, these vernacular villages speak to festivalgoers’ desire to cultivate a sense of home away from home, and relationships with extended fictive kin, including longtime friends and newcomers they just met. Festivalgoers’ choice of campground represents a temporary anchor for festival identity. Over time, this identity solidifies when newcomers transition from stan­ dalone tents to more deeply emplaced camps as their festival experience widens and their circle of festival kin grows. In the following chapter, I develop in greater depth the concept of portable community and examine how festivalgoers cultivate these mobile festival sites as intimate, inclusive, and simple alternatives to their lives outside of the festival.

Works cited Auge, Marc. 1995. Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity. New York, NY: Verso. Buechner, Frederick. 2009. The Longing for Home: Recollections and Reflections. San Francisco, CA: Harper.

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Ebaugh, H.R. and M. Curry. 2000. “Fictive Kin as Social Capital in New Immigrant Communities.” Sociological Perspectives. 43(2):189–209. Florida, Richard. 2002. The Rise of the Creative Class: And How Its Transforming Work, Leisure and Community in Everyday Life. New York, NY: Basic Books. Hauser, Gerard A. 1999. Vernacular Voices: The Rhetoric of Publics and Public Spheres. Columbia, SC: South Carolina Press. Heath, William Kingston. 1998. “Defining the Nature of Vernacular.” Material Culture. 20(2):1–8. Low, Setha and Irwin Altman. 1992. “Place Attachment: A Conceptual Inquiry.” In Place Attachment, Irwin Altman and Setha M. Low, eds. New York, NY: Plenum Press. Milligan, Melinda J. 1998. “Interactional Past and Potential: The Social Construction of Place Attachment.” Symbolic Interaction. 21(1):1–33. Terkenli, Theano S. 1995. “Home as Region.” Geographical Review. 85(3): 324–334. Tuan, Yi Fu. 1977. Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Vycinas, Vincent. 1961. Earth and Gods: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Martin Heidegger. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Waters, Ethan. 2004. Urban Tribes: Are Friends the New Family? New York, NY: Bloomsbury.

5

The portable community* Inclusion, intimacy, and simplicity in bluegrass festival life

In the previous chapter, I described the processual emergence of the festival camp and described how participants actively managed the setting to create a distinct and meaningful sense of place. In this chapter, I discuss in greater depth the interactional dynamics of the campground and the larger festival setting by describing the deeper motivations underlying festivalgoers’ par­ ticipation in festival life across the New West. Both as an outgrowth of and response to their geographical mobility, participants traveled hundreds or even thousands of miles (and in some cases, overseas) to create and experi­ ence the festival and create novel forms of portable community within the festival campground.* Portable communities arise within intentionally cultivated spaces of com­ munal interaction that accompany a recurrent, temporary event, whether it is a festival, concert, reunion, retreat, convention, sporting event, or academic conference. They require some physical venue for sustained contact, which may consist of a campground, recreational vehicle park, hotel, fairground, parking lot, or other form of shared communal space that facilitates intimate and inclusive social interaction. In the span of a few short hours, days, or weeks, these communities emerge, flourish, disband, are planned for again, and then resurface in patterned, recurrent intervals. Though temporary and fleeting, their recurrent, episodic quality and enduring social infrastructure provide participants in these communities the continuity in time and space necessary to cultivate feelings of group cohesion and identity among their participants, and a stable sense of place from one event to the next.

The changing nature of community Early social theorists explored the tension between community life and mod­ ernization during western industrialization and warned against the destabi­ lization of social relationships and anomie that accompanied rapid social *

An earlier version of this chapter appeared in: Gardner, Robert Owen. 2004. ‘The Portable Community: Modernization and Mobility in Bluegrass Festival Life.’ Symbolic Interaction. 27(2).

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and economic change (Durkheim 1933; Tonnies 1957). For the past several decades, scholars have grappled with the perceived decline of traditional community forms in the face of cultural and social modernization (Putnam 2000, Wellman 1988). Defined in contrast to the anomic forces of urbani­ zation, both academics and laypersons continue to describe community as inherently incompatible with modern society (Cohen 1985). Although many scholars lament the perceived decline in community, individuals seek novel ways to cultivate communal bonds and do so in ways that challenge conventional understandings of community life. On its surface, the concept of portable community appears to be quite antithetical to traditional ideas about community. Though humans continue to seek meaningful relation­ ships with our significant primary social groups as we have throughout his­ tory, we must do so in ways that reflect the lives, lifestyles, and resources available in particular social contexts. In the vast sociological literature on the concept of community, it is com­ monly presumed that a “legitimate” community required deep connections to an established set of political institutions or geographically rooted civic life (Bellah et al. 1985; Selznick 1992). Traditional sociological conceptions of community assume a stable physical locale with a stable population of partic­ ipants. As a result, they do not adequately account for forms of community that arise through geographical mobility, including those formed through participation in episodic leisure activities, travel, or subcultural groups. Today, individuals continue to seek out communal bonds in the wake of rapid social change as they have for centuries, but often do so in novel and creative ways. Whereas many individuals dissatisfied with their commu­ nity starved home neighborhoods form voluntary associations to create or restore a sense of neighborly cohesion (Warren 2001), others flee to find it elsewhere. Adler and Adler (1999) support this notion in their study of tran­ sient employee collectives at a Hawaiian resort. For the resort’s mobile and transient “seekers,” the parameters of community life revolve increasingly around “shared consumption, interests and lifestyle” (1999: 52) rather than stable notions of neighborhood, or place (Biggart 1994). Richard Florida (2002) develops this idea by examining how the emergent and highly mobile “creative class” is shifting the flow of work in the new economy toward cer­ tain localities based on lifestyle amenities and local culture. For these mobile individuals the draw of “home” remains strong but is increasingly trumped by the diversity of experience and lifestyle amenities found elsewhere. While some suggest that the decline in attachment to a particular locale necessar­ ily corresponds to a decline in community (Bernard 1973), Correll (1995) argues that the notion of locale is being reformulated to account for virtual or experiential places that “need not be confined to a specific geographical location” (298). This insight has led others to shift their focus from neigh­ borhood or place-based notions of community toward ones rooted in expe­ rience in which individuals feel a sense of place, solidarity, or communion in the company of others.

112 The portable community Portable communities respond to the tension between “communities of memory” and “lifestyle enclaves,” two types of community juxtaposed by Robert Bellah and his associates in Habits of the Heart (1985). Whereas com­ munities of memory formed in permanent residential neighborhoods within established cities and towns consist of individuals who self-consciously par­ ticipate in a larger shared history and collective civic past, lifestyle enclaves such as fraternal organizations or social clubs are “fundamentally segmen­ tal” and thus celebrate the “narcissism of similarity” (Bellah 1985: 72). In addressing the “community question”—What happens to community in the face of cultural and economic modernization, population growth, (sub)urbananization, and geographical mobility?—(Salamon 2002; Putnam 2000; Wellman 1999), Suzanne Keller (2003) argues that the “longing for community is often displaced into substitute or illusory forms” (13). Though they may appear on the surface as “mere” lifestyle enclaves, or inferior, temporary substitutes for “real” communities of memory, mem­ bers of portable communities establish enduring forms of social interaction rooted in collective memory, history and tradition, which, over time, consti­ tute storied and cherished foundations necessary for communal interaction to flourish. While temporary and episodic, portable communities possess many of the benchmarks of traditional community relationships, including “a high degree of personal intimacy, emotional depth, moral commitment, social cohesion … a fusion of feeling and thought, of tradition and commit­ ment, of membership and volition” (Nisbet 1966/1996: 46). And as we will see in the final chapter, far from being temporary and fleeting, the relation­ ships, networks, and friendships formed in these portable settings produce tangible resources for repairing and restoring civic life in times of disaster. Emerging from the disruption of older, more established social orders, Gerard Delanty (2003) describes how contemporary social contexts have led to the formation of what he terms “postmodern community”: The old certainties of class, race, nation and gender that were the basis of the kind of society that emerged with industrialization have become contested categories in what is now and (sic) age of multiple belongings. But the postmodern age is an insecure age which, in calling into ques­ tion the assumptions of modernity has made the problem of belonging more and more acute. The quest for belonging has occurred precisely because insecurity has become the main experience for many people. Even the very notion of society has come into question, along with all kinds of fixed reference points and stable identities. Because of the uncertainties and anxieties of life in postmodern soci­ ety, the very notion of community is assumed to be irrevocably under­ mined. However, as Delanty (2003) argues, this unsettling has actually spawned novel forms of community that reflect an age of fractured, “mul­ tiple belongings” featuring fluid relationships between self and other and

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porous group membership as a remedy to the insecurities of the postmod­ ern era (131). For Delanty, “(p)ostmodern communities are nomadic, highly mobile, emotional, and communicative. These communication communities are sus­ tained by mass culture and aesthetic sensibilities and practices rather than in symbolic battles between self and other” (132). In contrast to forms of community that are geographically rooted and stable, postmodern forms of community that exist in the “flux of life” (140) are therefore characterized by fluidity, occasional and temporary gatherings, and dispersal (Maffesoli 1996: 76). They are found in the forms of interaction sustained by everyday life, in forms of consumption, and in informal friendship networks (26). Despite their highly transient nature, participants in these mobile, nomadic lifestyles cultivate informal networks of friendship that, while loose and spontaneous, are also highly emotional and rooted in norms of reciprocity and mutual aid. In the past few decades, the expansion of mobile, computer mediated communication has facilitated instant connections across social and geo­ graphical space, bridging gaps between people and places. Access to tour­ ism and recreational forms of transportation have further increased the feasibility and pace of geographical mobility. Global travel has been made possible by circuits of mobility and tourism tied loosely together by the informal networks of communication making the remote and isolated cor­ ners far more accessible and desirable to access. Subcultures embracing these changes have abandoned the roots of home for the routes of the open road. By resisting the bonds of traditional community life rooted to place and stable geography, the freedom to travel facilitated the cultiva­ tion of electively chosen forms of community. Because of their intentional­ ity, these forms take on a more reflexive quality that involves a conscious questioning of traditional categories of social belonging and membership (Delanty 2003). Traditionally, relationships in communities have been organized around family, kin, and neighbor in their role as citizens. As communities have grown in size and complexity, these bonds have changed and evolved exten­ sively over time. In a mobile society, these bonds are increasingly organized around friendship, both formal and casual. Those seeking routes over their roots, these folks who are living away from home, parents, and extended family rely increasingly on networks of friends for practical concerns like “child care, illness, and the crises of everyday life” (Delanty 2003: 144). Forms of community organized by informal networks of friendship—how­ ever loose the term—provide “flexible and deterritorial kind of community that can be mobilized easily depending on the circumstances … (It) can exist on ‘thick’ as well as ‘thin’ levels, for friendship comes in many forms” (Delanty 2003: 144) ranging from intimates to casual acquaintances. The fragmentation of modern life, which permits individuals to travel and con­ nect across vast geographical distances, is the same force that paradoxically

114 The portable community moves us back to roots and place. “The more global and uniform our civili­ zation, the more people want to anchor themselves” (Enzensberger, quoted in Keller 2003: 251). Postmodern communities of these types often rely on novel and emergent forms of phatic communication. Commonly referred to as “small talk,” phatic communication (or what Malinowski termed “phatic communion”) refers to forms of speech used to share feelings or to establish a mood of sociability rather than to communicate information or ideas. Over time and when reciprocated, the informal networks of friendship built through phatic communication evolve into a form of phatic community, rooted not in political or civic life per se but growing out of a shared interest in being sociable with and connected to likeminded others. The bluegrass festival campground provides an interesting case to exam­ ine contemporary relationships to community and attachments to place. Whereas festivalgoers tend to congregate to form mobile and transient forms of community, the transience and mobility does not seem to weaken the bonds they form in its context. Rather, these bonds become increasingly strong as time goes on, despite the fact that these portable, pop-up commu­ nities exist for little more than a week at a time, and disband only to form at a different festival or at the same site the following year. Given that many participants in these festival communities indicate that their participation is driven by a weakened sense of intimate, face-to-face community in their daily lives, they are not abandoning community but simply reconfiguring it in ways that better fit their mobile identities and lifestyles.

The bluegrass festival as portable community In bluegrass festival settings, attendees cultivated a particular form of com­ munity that is distinct from those which are geographically rooted or defined by physical boundaries of place (Hindman 1998). Participants in the festival traveled from their places of residence to attend festivals in small towns and resorts across the American West and beyond. Though a significant por­ tion of festivalgoers sought out one or two particular festivals and attended them yearly, a smaller core participated actively in the festival circuit and attended as many as a dozen festivals each season. While some festivalgoers would return home after one festival, numerous others would spend their summers traveling from festival to festival for several consecutive weeks or weekends. Promoters and volunteers independently operated and organ­ ized each festival, which left little formal coordination between events and thus provided a distinctive setting, cast of bands, and campground scene for each of the different festivals. However, once established, festival promoters hosted their event on the same or similar weekend each year, which invited participants to either schedule yearly vacations around particular weekends or create their own summer festival circuit. Despite each festival’s distinctiveness, bluegrass festival organizers designed events along a consistent and well-established though flexible and informal set

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of “rules” and norms that produced a predictable and inviting scene environ­ ment across multiple settings. This consistency in form made it relatively easy for participants to step in and out of these festival communities and seek the experience of meaningful, communal interaction whether they were newcom­ ers or veterans of the particular event. Strikingly similar to the form and struc­ ture of mobile communities in the Grateful Dead parking lot scene (Adams 1999), bluegrass festival attendees would often encounter some of the same people and camps from one festival to the next, and often in the same relative places. As a result of this repeated contact, members of the bluegrass com­ munity formed a stable sense of communal interaction despite their lack of permanent geographical locale. Participants in these communities describe the intentionally planned and cultivated structures of the festival camp in terms of the forms of interaction and sociation promoted within them. Because there is a consistent logic from festival to festival and because the informal rules are transportable from one festival site to the next, participants cultivate a reli­ able sense of place. The consistent forms of interaction, rituals, and norms, therefore, provide an “in” that facilitates and lubricates interaction between the festival’s mobile participants who may not necessarily know each other. Relying on a number of interactional codes, norms, and practices, festivalgo­ ers created consistent and reliable forms of community that, in their view, were increasingly difficult to find in their home neighborhoods. They articu­ lated three key motives to explain their interest and sustained involvement in these portable communities: inclusion, intimacy, and simplicity.

Inclusion Festivalgoers indicated that their attraction to and continued participation in bluegrass festival settings stemmed from an overriding sense of inclu­ sion, even when they traveled alone to a new or unfamiliar festival. Veteran members of the festival circuit were eager to demonstrate their relative expertise by walking a “newbie” through the potentially unfamiliar sights, sounds, and rituals of the setting. This made the transition between new­ comer and experienced festivalgoer a smooth one. Across multiple festi­ val sites, participants passed down a set of long-established interactional norms and practices that organized the behaviors of both new and veteran attendees. Common when entering any new scene or subculture, newcom­ ers were introduced to and slowly made aware by those more experienced to the subtle nuances of each particular festival site and their correspond­ ing unwritten rules or norms. These norms and rules allowed individuals to understand their role within the larger festival community. Certainly, members of the community excluded certain types of anti-social behaviors that directly threatened the shared values of the group. Regardless of some essential gatekeeping to mediate setting-appropriate behaviors as guided by the desires of the larger group, its members prioritized inclusivity as a means to create a “space for belonging” (Duffy 2000: 52).

116 The portable community To ensure tolerance and acceptance among wide-ranging groups of peo­ ple, festivalgoers guided their interactions by this informal set of rules, which they referred to as the “festivarian code.” Flexible and emergent, this code consisted of an unwritten set of behaviors and normative prac­ tices that festivalgoers used to guide appropriate conduct within the set­ ting. Similar to Sutton’s (2000) “deadhead code”—a system of informal “rules for everyday living” fans of the Grateful Dead established to guide conduct in the Dead scene, the festivarian code also included norms or mutual respect of space, property, and person and required that one per­ son’s enjoyment did not infringe on other peoples’ right to enjoy them­ selves. To be sure, each festival had its own particular written rules, which banned such things as pets, glass bottles, high backed chairs, Frisbees, or drugs from the main stage festival site. However, many smaller festivals left enforcement to the festivalgoers rather than to formal security per­ sonnel. Veteran members of the bluegrass scene made certain that any individual who failed to adhere to the norms of respect and reciprocity did not compromise the open, intimate interaction characterizing the various camps and campgrounds. Most infractions of the code were swift, car­ ried out without severe or longlasting sanctions, and included annoyed and dirty looks or a more pointed “you aren’t acting in the festivarian spirit” or “this kind of behavior has no place at Rockygrass.” Most vio­ lators deferred without argument and corrected their errant behavior. Many festivalgoers indicated that when everyone at the festival adhered to this code, it allowed for stable and predictable behaviors in gatherings of three or four individuals to events hosting upwards of 10,000 or 20,000. Explaining why she kept coming back to the same festival for nearly 20 years, Mary, a 50-year-old Kansas resident and citizen of the Frog Holler Camp, asked me pointedly: “Honey, when was the last time you got this many different people all into one place and seen them all behave with manners? You just don’t get this anywhere.” In his book Outsiders, Howard Becker (1966) noted jazz musicians’ tol­ erance for all sorts of deviant behaviors with little judgment or overt social control (Groce 1991; Tunnel and Groce 1998). This attitude of tolerance celebrated the whimsical and carnivalesque and intentionally created space for audience members to express themselves freely. Scholars have argued that the liminality or “free space” at festival sites facilitates a site of trans­ formation through which participants explore and create alternative com­ munity forms (Turner 1969, 1982; Pratt 1989). In these spaces, mainstream societal norms, institutions, and categories collapse and coalesce into new practices that highlight the values of diversity, free expression, and auton­ omy not commonly associated with sites of public culture (Hetherington 2000). Recalling an experience at a Colorado festival, Casey, a computer programmer who played bass in an upstart bluegrass band, mentioned that fellow festivarians allowed considerable space for self-expression without the threat of judgment or social sanctions:

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At Rockygrass there was this guy who was dancing really funny and doing this weird thing with his leg. I imagine there were a few people poking fun at him, but most would look at him and say: that’s just his way of enjoying the music and everyone just walks past him. In other environments, people would make fun of him or attack him for being different. Unless this self-expression, prevented or otherwise, interfered with other individuals’ ability to enjoy themselves, most behaviors were openly tolerated. Though many of the festivals I attended celebrated difference and tol­ erance across multiple sites, different festival circuits often overlap and experience a clashing set of normative codes. Whereas participants in the “newgrass” or more progressive bluegrass circuit tolerated moderate lev­ els of public drunkenness, marijuana and other recreational drug use, and dancing near the stage area, most traditional or “old time” bluegrass festi­ vals carried a more conservative, “family friendly” social atmosphere that imposed more negative sanctions when the code was breached (including expulsion from the festival or even arrest). This fuzzy and flexible line between codes was crossed by one participant and quickly restored by main stage bluegrass singer Doyle Lawson and his band Quicksilver. Performing the Sunday morning gospel set at RockyGrass, which featured both traditional and newgrass acts, Lawson spotted and called to a festive, tie-dyed dancer in front of the stage who was flailing to his own beat even after the music had stopped: “You sir, in front: Could you please sit down so the rest of those fine people in the audience can enjoy our show,” and retorted in a comforting drawl “That’s right. Everything’s gonna be all right” as the man sheepishly sat down and the band began the next song. In this instance, the dancer’s behavior was deemed inappropriate, especially for the Sunday morning gospel set, by Lawson, a veteran of the more traditional “family” festival circuit.1 Though certain traditional, family festivals were less tolerant of overtly deviant behaviors than more progressive events, both integrated new and veteran participants into their long-established rituals and traditions. Regardless of the type of bluegrass performed there, the interactional norms remained relatively consistent from festival to festival and region to region, which invited those traveling from out of town the opportunity to step into a familiar set of practices like campground jamming, communal meals, and instructional workshops with relative ease. Campground jams allowed ama­ teur musicians the opportunity to connect each other through the common language of the traditional repertoire of bluegrass songs and time-honored instrumental “fiddle” tunes. At my very first Walnut Valley Festival, I arrived at the festival site by myself, hardly knowing a soul. I drove into the Pecan Grove campground through packed rows of elaborate themed campsites and heard lively music

118 The portable community jams underway all around me. The gates had been open for several hours, so I had to locate an appropriate place to park my truck and throw my modest two-person tent in one of the few remaining patches of grass along the edge of the campground. Before I could get the door open to remove my camp­ ing gear, I heard a particularly hot version of the fiddle tune “Salt Creek” coming from somewhere behind me. Almost by reflex, I passed over my tent and grabbed my guitar case, removed my Martin D-18, and tuned it on the way as my ears directed me to the location of the jam. As I approached the picking circle in the narrow, dusty gravel path between rows of campsites, I spotted two tall, burly men each sporting massive cowboy hats, snakeskin cowboy boots, and plaid western shirts tucked into their pressed blue jeans, which were supported by enormous rodeo belt buckles leading the jam with their fiddle and banjo. While a bit intimidated, and by now feeling quite underdressed in my t-shirt, worn corduroy pants, and sandals, I situated myself alongside a mandolin player and began playing a steady rhythm to support the soloist. At the end of the solo “break,” the gruff banjo player turned to me and barked in a gravely drawl, “Want one?” I nodded my head. After hunting for the first few notes of the melody, I quickly found my groove and belted out a particularly clean solo at breakneck speed before I passed the break to the mandolin. At the end of the tune, the fiddle player ended the song with an elaborate “shave and a haircut, shampoo” lick as the two men in cowboy hats smiled in deep satisfaction and complemented me on the nice guitar break. My confidence skyrocketed temporarily until the banjo player turned to me and growled, “You got one?” inviting me to pick the next song. As I searched my brain for a standard jam song, I blurted out the one I had been working on most recently: “Y’all know ‘Love Please Come Home’?” He responded with a hearty “Hell yeah!” and demanded to start the song: “Lemme kick this one off” as he raddled off a cascade of syncopated notes. I franticly tried to catch up and establish the backing rhythm as everyone looked at me to start the song. Pushing the first few lyrics shakily past the enormous lump in my throat, I belted out the rest of the verse. As we got to the chorus, the two cowboys leaned in and met my melody note with their perfect high tenor and baritone harmony, sending chills up my spine. As we reached the last chorus, I stuck out my foot to indicate the song was coming to an end and signaled that I was going to repeat the final chorus line one more time simply by raising my head and eyebrows. As the instruments dropped out, the cowboys and I held on to the last note, as our voices vibrated with perfect harmonic convergence. The fiddle player rejoiced, “Oh, man, was that sweet!” while the banjo player chimed in “Hot damn!” and turned to me: “What was your name?” After introducing each other and exchanging excruciatingly firm handshakes with the two men, they invited me to their camp to play more songs later in the evening: “Why down you come on by later on? We got a big spread, some barbecue on the smoker, and will probably be jamming all night. I’d love to sing a few more

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tunes with you. I’m sure you got a few more up your sleeve” as we parted ways and I returned to set up camp. While I would probably never have encountered, met, or even approached these guys in my daily life, the participatory nature of the festival jam ses­ sion, the reliable structure of jam etiquette, and vast repertoire of standard songs and traditional tunes allowed us, complete strangers from very dif­ ferent walks of life, to make music together and harmonize without even knowing each others’ name. And while we had only just met and exchanged names, the informal jam culture allowed us—complete strangers—to invite each other into each others’ festival “homes” to share in food, drink, and conversation before the nighttime jamming commenced. Even as a new­ comer, as one travels to and steps into the festival campground, the trans­ portable modes of interaction provide amateur musicians with a sense of inclusion into campsite jam rituals, as long as they can keep time, keep their instrument in tune, and play the correct chords. And if they can’t, they are usually welcome to take a place outside of the “inner circle” of musicians to practice quietly behind and learn from the more established ones. The ethic of inclusion cultivated in bluegrass campgrounds provides the foundation of the scene’s portability, especially when traveling away from home. Becky, an attorney from San Diego who spends her spare time writ­ ing and playing music, the open bluegrass jam structure provides her the opportunity to connect with people with whom geography would have dis­ couraged her from meeting. Becky explained, “I like the fact that when I am traveling, bluegrass is an ‘in’ that allows me to experience a place in a unique way I would otherwise miss, including meeting people, and seeing certain aspects of (local) community life.” She explained that she usually has an instrument with her and often will research the times and locations of jam sessions in the cities and towns she visits while on the road. Jodi, a year-old physical therapist from rural Colorado who travels to a number of festivals across the West, explains how the subtle simplicity of the musical structure and form made the music “easy to play” regardless of the particular festival she attended. She mentioned that people playing bluegrass informally in the campgrounds and parking lots “don’t take themselves too seriously,” which allowed other, less advanced pickers to join in a group session without the threat of intimidation or ridicule, and to participate regardless of where they happened to be from. However, there are limits to this welcoming behavior. In certain jam ses­ sions, experienced pickers would occasionally call out more difficult songs to “weed out” less experienced players or to initiate a newcomer into a faster, more advanced circle to test their skills. Especially if the newcomer could not keep a steady rhythm or did not adhere to the etiquette of the jam ses­ sions, more veteran players would often grow frustrated and leave the jam altogether. At a local open jam session at Foolish Craig’s Café in Boulder, Colorado, the musicianship was often top-notch and attracted a number of younger, and more competitive male jam participants whose personalities

120 The portable community weren’t always quite so open or welcoming. Novice newcomers would often arrive and struggle to keep pace and found themselves at the margins of the jam. While they were always welcome to stay around and play, they weren’t always invited to take solo breaks or lead their own songs. The younger “hot pickers” would often monopolize the jam and select complex bluegrass tunes like “Jerusalem Ridge” or jazz-influenced songs outside of the genre like Django Reinhardt’s “Minor Swing” or David Grisman’s “EMD” to demonstrate their prowess. For many, the opportunity to jam in the campground and in local res­ taurants and cafes defined bluegrass as a “participation sport.” Comparing bluegrass to rock and roll festivals, Dave, a seasoned guitarist in a regional bluegrass band, asked ironically “when was the last time you saw a per­ son at a rock concert look forward to jamming in the parking lot after the show?” Caleb, the banjo player who moved to Colorado from his native Kentucky, added: When you go to a rock festival you don’t see people wheeling in their drum sets, electric guitars, amplifiers, and other instruments, but at a bluegrass festival you see almost everyone in the parking lot or camp­ ground with something to play. For Dave, Clarence, and numerous others, their draw to the bluegrass fes­ tival and culture lay in the opportunity to produce and participate, rather than passively consume the music. Though other genres of music such as jazz, rock and roll, and blues feature informal amateur jams for more advanced players, the simple chord progressions and portability of the instruments gave even novice players an opportunity to participate in jam sessions wherever they happened to travel. For these same reasons, open jamming or “parking lot picking” constituted an extension of, and perhaps even an alternative to, the main stage performance of nationally known acts as evidenced by the number of people who could be found “picking” back at the campground in the middle of the day. These participatory and inclusive practices invited a wide range of age groups and ability levels to participate. According to Carlton, a 38-year­ old school administrator from New Mexico, during a bluegrass jam “it’s not uncommon for a teenager to be playing with a senior citizen,” or “a rancher or farmer to be playing alongside a lawyer or some hippie with dreadlocks” as Bob, a computer programmer added, highlighting the degree of mixing and mingling of people with different educational, occupational, and religious backgrounds at bluegrass festivals. Ron, a 38-year-old com­ puter programmer from Texas who attended many bluegrass festivals in the Mountain West, stated: I often find that I am associating with people involved with bluegrass music that have political and religious perspectives that are radically

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different than mine. Where I live, many of the participants are political and religious conservatives. I am not, and yet we associate together to make music where ordinarily we would not get together … At the jam I regularly attend we also have participants with a spectrum of education levels, from tradesmen and laborers to university professors and administrators. Festivalgoers felt the mingling of different social groups made for a comfortable and uncomplicated entrée into the festival and sustained a level of freedom in expression not readily accepted in other social contexts. Although many participants claim that members represented diverse religious, educational, and age groups, the scene was still overwhelmingly white and the sticker price for many larger festivals was cost prohibitive to many working-class or poor families. Because the festival celebrated music traditions rooted in Anglo-American heritage, performers or bandleaders of color were rare, and therefore did not attract widespread participation of other racial and ethnic groups. Though welcoming of all races and ethnicities in principle, in practice the festival included very few participants of color, which several respondents found unfortunate though somewhat inevitable given the dominant cultural identification of bluegrass as “white music” (despite its African and African-American influences). A few female par­ ticipants also mentioned that the scene also was not as inclusive of women as it could have been. They noted that, with a few notable exceptions, the main stage performances were predominantly male, and mentioned that the more advanced jams, though open to females, could get so competitive and fast that they were unappealing, leading them to form their own “women’s song circles” or retreating to a more private picking session back at their campgrounds. Despite these observations, most participants felt that camp­ ground settings provided a stable, predictable, and reliably safe and open place where they could participate in festival activities across multiple set­ tings and locales.

Intimacy Festivalgoers indicated that beyond the appeal of the music itself, they gravi­ tated to festival culture because of the close, intimate nature of the setting. In these communal spaces, participants interacted in ways that were con­ sidered uncommon or perhaps abnormal in other social settings. Whereas fences, property boundaries, and security gates delimited social space in participants’ home neighborhoods, the festival sites were experienced as a therapeutic break from the isolation they experienced in their “locked­ door” communities. Respondents pointed to the opportunity to camp as a major factor in creating this liberating atmosphere because for the dura­ tion of the festival they lived communally surrounded by relative strangers in a shared social space. Curiously, when they set up camp or joined the

122 The portable community morning tarp run, groups initially created boundaries between themselves and neighboring campsites or tarps by marking their territory with their belongings. Driven by a short-lived impulse to protect their private space and property, some constructed a clear, physical boundary around their personal camping or tarp spaces and between the end of their space and the start of the next. Shortly after all the camps and tarps were set up, however, their residents allowed strangers relative freedom to walk between or even through their site and often invited them to share their space. Many participants compared the festival setting to their everyday lives and mentioned how the “welcoming and generous nature” of the festival attendees sharply contrasted with their experiences in “real life” or “out in the real world.” After explaining the utter shock she experienced at her first bluegrass festival, Ellie, a graduate student from Colorado, concurred: We pulled into town at about one o’clock in the morning, right away there were complete strangers there welcoming us. Then, when morning came, I walked out of my tent and walked to the porta-potty, and had five people say good morning to me … Everything I was looking for in a group of people I was finding already. When I wake up in the morning and walk to class, I pass at least five people on the way, and nobody says good morning to me. For Ellie, the high levels of mutual respect and acknowledgment she felt upon arriving “struck me the most because it doesn’t happen in my day-to­ day life.” According to Fred, the retired electrical engineer and avid guitar player, in the campground “everybody is immediately your uncle or your best friend. People may be literally camped right on top of each other, but everyone is immediately friendly right when they move in.” Because he and his wife often go to great lengths to construct a large and well-equipped camp, Fred indicates that they try to “adopt” new, unfamiliar people into their camp: At the Four Comers Festival, we see this young couple who were hiking into the festival with nothing more than their backpacks. They have their little tent and sleeping bags and bags of trail mix—that’s all they were going to live on for the entire weekend. And we say, “Well, come on over have a seat. You don’t have to sit on the ground. Here, have something to eat. Since we are all in this together, let’s share.” For Fred and his wife, Linda, they “put conscious effort into adopting peo­ ple” in the campground because it got them to move “beyond the economic (status) thing” that tended to divide residents in everyday life. Because many campers like Fred and Linda sought to intentionally reduce the bor­ ders and boundaries of the festival site, they allowed new and perhaps unfamiliar relationships to flourish among festivalgoers. Clint, a longtime

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banjo player who attended RockyGrass “religiously,” pointed out that the relationships he formed at the festival are special and endowed with something that my other relationships are not. There’s a special type of bond that you have with these people. There’s a communal thing that goes on between people at a festival that is fundamentally different than my other relationships. The festival enabled Clint to reveal parts of himself and express his emotions in ways he would not be accustomed to in the context of relative strangers. Clint continued by explaining that festivalgoers accomplished this emotional intimacy interactionally: It’s a very interesting way to see other people. You can see your naked­ ness because the whole setting breaks down the boundaries that often come between people in daily life. It’s pretty risky behavior to reveal yourself to other people, especially strangers, but there’s a certain type of payoff here … because people will hopefully reveal themselves back to me. I definitely feel through bluegrass I form bonds a lot more quickly than the people I see and work with every day. After experiencing the intimate interaction in the presence of relative strangers in the camping and festival area, many individuals like Clint claimed it also created a new sense of openness within themselves. The often overwhelming feeling of intimacy participants experienced in the campground and festival represented a stark departure from their everyday work and home settings and provided a safe environment to interact with both longtime friends and complete strangers. Jade, a 28-year-old counseling graduate student and relative newcomer to the festival culture explained that in these settings: There’s communal living that goes on that doesn’t happen in our neigh­ borhoods at home. There are a lot of neighbors we don’t know, and we’ve lived there two and a half years and we’ve only now gotten to the point where we feel like we can swap keys with one of our next-door neighbors. Though Jade “would probably feel that (ideal) sense of neighborly connect­ edness and trust much more and more immediately at a bluegrass festival than I do in my own neighborhood,” others reported that they felt this high level of intimacy only at the smaller, less popular festivals. Fred and Linda, for example, indicated that they stopped going to the large festivals like Telluride in favor of the smaller, family festivals like those hosted in the Four Comers or Pueblo because “these other festivals were getting too crowded and impersonal.” Others indicated that larger festivals introduced a “different crowd” who were not fully socialized to the festivarian code,

124 The portable community and therefore compromised the intimacy of the setting. These festivalgoers reported less trust and openness when higher levels of public drunkenness, drug use, and disrespect for others’ property were visible and apparent. Regardless of the size of the festival, festivalgoers found that the boundaries traditionally found in venues of mass consumer culture tended to be non­ existent or at least smaller and less intense in the festival setting. Within the informal jam and performances spaces, the audience, festival staff, and ama­ teur and professional musicians intermingled and constituted what Jodi, 46, from Colorado, identified as “a social/ professional equalization in blue­ grass music environments.” Communication scholar Mark Fenster (1995) supports this observa­ tion by pointing out that “the distance between the most successful blue­ grass performer and his or her fans is relatively slight, whether measured in income or in the interaction between artist and audience at festivals and concerts” (92). Whereas most forms of popular music hinge on hierarchal status distinctions between professional “stars” and audience, the formal properties of bluegrass culture allow for a high level of sustained interac­ tion between audience members and main stage musicians. This norm of intimacy became a significant draw for many festivalgoers, especially those who viewed it in sharp contrast to the impersonal and distant feeling they received from other, more “mainstream” or commercially successful genres of music. Festival traditions like open jam sessions, instructional camps, and workshops during the week of the festival, as well as formal instrument and band competitions effectively collapsed traditional distinctions between professional, main stage musicians and amateur, parking lot performers. These workshops were designed to pass down the bluegrass folk traditions from established performers and instructors to a budding generation of jam participants and singers. The opportunity to spend a week or even a few moments with bluegrass legends signified a monumental experience for numerous festival participants. For many, the opportunities to converse and perhaps even play with main stage performers during instructional camps and parking lot picks were described as awe-inspiring experiences. Daryl, a dusty-haired web designer and part-time musician from Colorado, recalled a memorable experience at a bluegrass camp: At the (Rockygrass) Academy, I decided to take in Peter Rowan’s song writing workshop. So, I sat there and Peter starts asking folks to come up and play their originals for him so he could critique them and pro­ vide constructive feedback … Peter asks “who’s next?” My hand went up without the apparent permission of my brain, like divine interven­ tion or something. The particular song I played references Peter in the second verse, and when I sang it, Peter’s head went back with a big smile. Towards the end of the song, Peter was singing harmony with me on the chorus! I damn near shit my pants! After I was done, he looked at

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me and said, “Now that’s a good tune. I could use one like that.” Do I really need to tell you what I was feeling after that? Unlike many mainstream rock or country performances characterized by both physical and symbolic separation between performer and audience (large elevated stage, amply secured back stage area, layers of bodyguards and security, and their millionaire status), it was commonplace to see pro­ fessional performers mingling in the crowd, sitting in on late night jam ses­ sions in the campground, and providing informal instruction to budding musicians. Diana, a jam session participant from San Francisco, stated that she was drawn into the bluegrass because of the overflowing generosity of the professionals “who are happy to play with and teach amateurs.” Steve, a guitarist from Colorado recalled a specific instance: I remember practicing my guitar in my tent one night. Some unknown figure approached and began scratching at my tent. Come to find out, it was David Grier (a professional bluegrass guitarist) coming over to help me with a troublesome spot. I gotta say, that was really neat! Festivalgoers noted that the leveling of traditional popular music hierarchies and the ability to actually meet, converse, and perform with the main stage performers played a large role in their continued participation in the blue­ grass community. Daryl stated that bluegrass is set apart from other cultural or musical events because the professionals are friendly, approachable, and “not full of themselves.” These professionals were often found mixing and mingling in the crowd and campsites before and after the main performance. Through institutions like parking lot picking and instructional workshops and academies, the equalization of performer and audience member allowed participants to engage in a popular music culture without the rigid bounda­ ries and hierarchies that separated other fans from rock, pop, and commer­ cial country music stars.

Simplicity Festival participants sought a break from the complexities and stresses of modem, urban living, and found this break in the bluegrass festival setting. For many, bluegrass provided both a physical and symbolic escape from their daily demands, pressures, and responsibilities. Though few participants would find a hardscrabble life on the Appalachian or Western frontier an attractive one, they were attracted to its symbolic associations with a simpler, more natural way of life. Responding to a social world that they perceived as increasingly hurried and complex, and lacking the interpersonal warmth and personal interaction they associated with traditional village culture, participants sought refuge in the festival by returning—if only for a short while—to “a simpler way of life.” Lynette, a 48-year-old high school math

126 The portable community teacher, described the typical bluegrass festival attendee as one “who desires to get back to living in a village sort of setting. It’s a group of people who are looking to get back to basics.” She indicated that the camping atmosphere mirrored the simplicity of the traditional small neighborhood in both design and function: When you live in a small neighborhood, it’s a lot like the campground. It’s a place where you see and interact with your neighbors more often … because of the way small neighborhoods are constructed. You get removed from that when you move out into these new developments. People who are into spending the night and spending time with a group of people (at festivals) are the same people who want to live in a small neighborhood with a sense of community. People need to feel part of a village and that’s what they want out of a festival. Many festivalgoers found the intimate levels of interaction mentioned above paradoxical because in their hometowns and cities, they seldom interacted with their neighbors with quite the same level of openness and intimacy. Cindy, who left her career as a computer software technician to start her own acupuncture clinic, found a stark contrast between the intensity of interaction in the festival setting and her neighborhood in suburban Denver. Comparing the bluegrass festival to communities of 50 years ago, she pointed out: In the 1950s people would sit on their porch and drink their lemonade and talk to their neighbors, and now if you talk to your neighbors, they think you’re weird. Now people have their new houses. Their garages are up front, you drive up, open the garage shut the door behind you and that’s it! Playing bluegrass and being able to connect with one another, making eye contact and communicating with one another, it’s something that we’re craving because we’ve lost that as a society, espe­ cially out where we live in the suburbs. Since the festivals I attended for this study were largely in the western United States, some respondents found that the symbolic import of bluegrass music and festival settings were particularly relevant to the West as a region and its current social context. For Caleb, people living in the West are attracted to bluegrass because many of them were transplants to the region, and were longing for a sense of identity rooted in place, history, and tradition they once found at home: In my home state of Kentucky, traditions have been established and have been in place for a very long time. But here (the suburban West), this area is so new and filled with transplants … Consequently, people are trying to seek out and find new traditions but in fact they are looking

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inside of old ones. It’s sort of a Norman Rockwell fascination with a pastoral image of a past that never really existed. Caleb explained the bluegrass festival drew a large number of geographically mobile urban and suburban dwellers who came to the West and yearned for the perceived simplicity of the rural lifestyle. Festivalgoers also found the setting a welcome alternative to both the larger cultural trends affecting the region and the physical and social environments characterizing their daily work lives. Over the past decade, the Rocky Mountain West has increasingly become recognized as a center of high-tech business and industry, and has become home to a number of technology industry leaders and Internet start-ups (Gardner et al. 2002). Even outside of the computer industry, individuals living and working in the region were increasingly likely to find themselves seated in front of a computer, machine, or other electronic device for large portions of their workday. Pete Wernick, a nationally known banjo instructor and member of the iconic band Hot Rize, saw bluegrass festivals as a form of release from the stresses and strains of working with machines daily: I think there is a real hunger for a deeper connection with other peo­ ple, especially for those living in this high-tech community. These are individuals that are on one hand, all eaten up with their technology and on the other hand are equally berserk over some detail of the banjo or mandolin. It’s a natural fit. If you spend too much time in front of a computer, then having something, an object that doesn’t plug into any­ thing, and you can rub it with your hands in certain ways. Just hitting parts of it and making sound come out of it makes you feel human in a unique way. It’s simply a need that isn’t fulfilled in our daily lives. Chuck, a web-designer and casual fiddle player explained that most blue­ grass musicians like himself usually worked in “sterile, isolating settings” and turned to jamming with others at festivals as a release from an unfulfill­ ing workplace culture. He lamented: My work life is very anti-social, and it’s very much indoors. I work in a cube and stare at a computer all day, every day—it’s sort of everything that bluegrass isn’t. I find getting together and actually making music with people a great break. I think a lot of the bluegrass folks are in similar situations. They may be in jobs that they like, but in the end, it’s just a job … Bluegrass is a really nice outlet for community because you aren’t talking about computers or other work issues. Participants like Chuck were drawn in because a large proportion of bluegrass performances took place outdoors and in rural areas physically separated from the “distractions” of urban life. The wooden, acoustic

128 The portable community instruments, the natural environment of open-air amphitheaters or music parks, and the often scenic backdrop constituted a physical and symbolic separation from the worlds and routines they were leaving behind. Of course, a few considered leaving the “real world” behind as neither feasible nor desirable, and ironically, many were required by the nature of their work to carry a cell phone or check their e-mails during the festival, even though many festivals are hosted in remote locations with limited cell phone service (Figure 5.1). Carlos, a longtime participant of the Telluride Festival, described how the physical and symbolic separation from the rigors of daily life provided a source of renewal and re-enchantment for himself and his friends who traveled long distances to attend the festival: Especially at a festival like Telluride, where you are in a gorgeous set­ ting, and you have nothing to do but sit around and feed yourself and listen to the music, it’s fantastically liberating. You leave society, you

Figure 5.1 Improvised cell phone charging station, RockyGrass, Lyons, Colorado.

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go out, you have this epiphany, and then you come back this changed person. I definitely come back from a bluegrass festival definitely feeling somehow different, somehow changed, and somehow more alive. Carlos explained that attending the festival gave him renewed energy and a different perspective to resume his daily routine. Soon after his return, however, he would quickly confront the stark contrast between the festival setting and his work environment, and the incongruity between, on one hand, the feeling of connection with nature and a simpler way of life, and his isolating office job on the other. For some, the festival experience created a “deep change” within themselves prompting them to connect with nature or simplifying their life on a daily basis. Others approached the festival as a temporary break, but were eager to return to their cell phones, laptops, showers, and SUVs at the conclusion of the festival. “I just couldn’t see myself living this way for long. Even though I never thought about turning on the TV while I was at the festival, I just don’t see giving up these things on a long-term basis,” mentioned Sunny, a 30-something who writes code for an upstart tech company. The festival experience forced him to “think about and reflect upon my current lifestyle and how I interact with others on a daily basis, but it would take a lot for me to give up my fascination with computers and other gadgets.” For many like Sunny, the simple living he found in the festival was refreshing yet not some­ thing they were ready to adopt full time. On one hand, the perceived simplic­ ity of the setting was associated with the celebration of basic elements of community and family life. On the other hand, this perceived simplicity was something viewed as inherently more authentic than other cultural offerings. In his study of bluegrass industry and its relationship to tradition, Mark Fenster (1995) argues that bluegrass is for many a point of identification, a music that would seem to express something ‘authentic’ about emotional attachments to fam­ ily, home, and traditional Appalachian culture as well as a source of ‘affective alliances’ among fans jam session partners, and professional musicians. (94, 95) In his study of authenticity in country music, Richard Peterson (1997) exam­ ines how the music industry has used the perceived authenticity of bluegrass and early forms of country music to “fabricate” an experience and a culture that was untainted by civilization. In one of its many meanings, authentic­ ity distinguishes what is “true, consistent, sincere, or real as opposed to the imitative, artificial, contrived, or phony” (209). In his study of authen­ ticity in Chicago blues clubs, David Grazian (2003) showed how club patrons brought with them their own ideas about the blues and evaluated it along a “sliding scale” of authenticity. In the bluegrass scene, festivalgoers

130 The portable community explained that at the bluegrass festival, retreating to nature, getting their feet dirty, picking and singing all night, and living in close quarters with other festivalgoers often contrasted with the lack of authenticity at other live music events, especially when they lacked traditional music acts or ama­ teur campground picking. Whereas mainstream cultural offerings connect with the “audience-as­ consumer,” the bluegrass festival provides its listeners and players with the opportunity to become, using Alvin Toffler’s terminology, “prosumers,” simultaneously producing the music and culture they consume at the festi­ val. Rather than interacting with a pre-fabricated cultural artifact that essen­ tially consumes the listener, the festival provides some modicum of control over the production and consumption process and transforms the parking lot picker from passive observer into an active producer of culture. On a structural level, bluegrass supports an institutional and commercial network that exists outside the purview of mainstream media and telecommunica­ tion conglomerates. Instead, bluegrass music and culture survive through a series of networks of small independent businesses such as local recording studios, independent record labels, music stores, public or community radio stations, local and regional bluegrass organizations and clubs, and locally owned and operated performance venues (Fenster 1995). “Motivated more by their owner’s and employee’s devotion to the music than by hope of financial gain” these institutions and networks, Neil Rosenberg (1992) argues, provide spaces where artistic, lyrical, and expressive control are left in the hands of artists and fans themselves. On an interactional level, the simplicity of the music and its connections to a perceivably more authentic time and culture in our collective past links the music and festival life more closely with the consumer than other modern alternatives. Although bluegrass has become significantly more popular in recent years, an institutional and commercial network existing largely outside the mainstream has supported the music and culture for decades. Participants in the festival explained their attraction to bluegrass by pointing to the fact that largely non-commercial, grassroots institutions and networks guided bluegrass musical performance, production, and distribution (Fenster 1995; Rosenberg 1992). Pete Wernick, the banjo instructor and former president of the International Bluegrass Music Society, argues that through strict con­ trol and planning, the bluegrass industry keeps the bluegrass traditions alive by blocking profit interests from “contaminating” what years of tradition have built. Unlike commercial country music, which is driven by “what’s popular this year,” Pete argued that those attracted to bluegrass music seek something that is driven more by the artists’ interests than those of the recording industry. He explained that bluegrass is still driven more by a team mentality than the cult of individual personality: Bluegrass is still bands. The same people that cut the record are going to show up on stage. Not so with George Strait. The people that he

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records with plays with Alan Jackson and Vince Gill, they play with everybody. That’s why the records sound the same. The producers the arrangers are all about the same for all the artists. That’s what I call homogenization. That’s what happens when someone gets corpora­ tized, whether its sports or whatever, it gets reduced to this standard, common denominator. Comparing bluegrass to mainstream American cultural offerings, festival­ goers explained that bluegrass music constitutes an alternative because its grassroots institutions stand in direct contrast to more commercial­ ized forms that rely on mass production, distribution, and marketing. Consequently, it was widely accepted in the festival community that this style of music never has been and never will achieve sustained mainstream commercial success. In a number of ways, their avowed opposition to mainstream media networks and corporate distribution outlets signified one of the strongest motives driving their interest in the genre. Diana, a fiddle player who travels to Colorado from San Francisco to attend its wide array of summer bluegrass festivals, explains how bluegrass’ roots in local, grassroots community institutions becomes a major source of appeal: I like the fact that bluegrass is not attached to a wealthy, powerful media machine of any sort. The crowd and the types of people it attracts are not into commercial culture, materiality, appearance stuff. Pop music is getting so canned and trite and bad; people are looking elsewhere and even traveling across the country or world to do so. For travelers like Diana, the portable festival community drew her and sig­ nificant numbers of other fans to the American West to engage in a setting that was perceivably more authentic than other, mainstream cultural offer­ ings. Since she felt that these more authentic and simpler settings were in short supply in her home community, she sought out spaces in the American West where she could remove herself from the seemingly contaminating forces of modern mass culture. Peppered across the American West, these festival sites pulled an increasingly mobile subset of the population with the promise of more inclusive, intimate, and simpler forms of community. In this chapter, I introduced the notion of the portable community and explained how travelers to these settings sought out the intentionally culti­ vated norms and rituals that were seen in short supply in other sites of con­ sumer culture. Countering feelings of community decline and isolation in their hometowns and cities, respondents tapped into the modern impulse for mobility and retreat to carve out spaces of cultural resistance. While these two forces are viewed as potentially disruptive to community life, festival­ goers leveraged them to create portable forms of community they can carry with them as they tour and travel across the American West. The mobility

132 The portable community of these portable settings allowed consumers to plug in and out with relative ease and the ritualized forms of interaction cultivated within them allowed immediate entrée into the festival culture, even for relative newcomers. As they make their pilgrimage away from home to the festival grounds, festivalgoers experience their travel to and from the festival as a liminal transition between the “real world” and the “festival world.” The distinc­ tions they make between these two spheres of life allow festivalgoers to break with everyday modes of living to get in touch with their “real selves.” In the next chapter, I explore the festival site as an alternative stage for iden­ tity performance. I address how participants re-shape their understandings of self and identity in the context of the festival site and carve out a space where they experience a deep sense of belonging. As the festival comes to a close, festivalgoers prepare for their transition through the final stage of fes­ tival performance: the often emotional and jarring process of tearing down camp and returning back to the “real world.”

Note 1 As a sign of respect to elderly members of the audience who prefer to remain seated where they can view the stage, dancing is often restricted to the side of the stage or to the rear of the crowd in more traditional festival settings.

Works cited Adams, Rebecca G. 1999. “Deadheads: Community, Spirituality, and Friendship.” Paper Presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association. Adler, Patricia A. and Peter Adler. 1999. “Transience and the Postmodern Self: The Geographic Mobility of Resort Workers.” The Sociological Quarterly. 40(l): 31–58. Becker, Howard. 1966. Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. New York, NY: Free Press. Bellah, R., R. Madsen, W. Sullivan, A. Swidler and S. Tipton. 1985. Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. New York, NY: Harper and Row. Bernard, Jessie. 1973. The Sociology of Community. Glenview, IL: Scott Foresman. Biggart, Nicole. 1994. “Labor and Leisure.” In The Handbook of Economic Sociology, Neil J. Smelser and Richard Swedberg, eds. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 671–690. Cohen, Anthony P. 1985. The Symbolic Construction of Community. New York, NY: Tavistock Publications. Correll, Shelley. 1995. “The Ethnography of an Electronic Bar: The Lesbian Cafe.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography. 24(3): 270–298. Delanty, Gerard. 2003. Community. London: Routledge. Duffy, Michelle. 2000. “Lines of Drift: Festival Participation and Performing a Sense of Place.” Popular Musicology. 19(1): 51–64. Durkheim, Émile. 1933. The Division of Labor in Society, Translated by George Simpson. New York, NY: The Free Press.

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Fenster, Mark. 1995. “Commercial (and/or?) Folk: The Bluegrass Industry and Bluegrass Traditions.” The South Atlantic Quarterly. 94: 1, Winter. Florida, Richard. 2002. The Rise of the Creative Class: And How its Transforming Work, Leisure and Community in Everyday Life. New York, NY: Basic Books. Gardner, Robert, Carol Conzelman, Kim Sanchez and Guy Burgess. 2002. “The Framing of Colorado’s Growth Related Environmental Conflicts.” In Making Sense of Intractable Environmental Conflicts: Concepts and Cases, Roy J. Lewicki, Barbara Gray and Michael Elliott, eds. Washington, DC: Island Press. Grazian, David. 2003. Blue Chicago: The Search for Authenticity in Urban Blues Clubs. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Groce, Stephen B. 1991. “What’s the Buzz: Rethinking the Meanings and Uses of Alcohol and Other Drugs Among Small-Time Rock ‘n’ Roll Musicians.” Deviant Behavior. 12(4): 21–36. Hetherington, Kevin. 2000. New Age Travelers: Vanloads of Uproarious Humanity. London, New York, NY: Cassell. Hindman, E.B. 1998. “Community, Democracy and Neighborhood News.” Journal of Communication. 48(2): 27–39. Keller, Suzanne. 2003. Community: Pursuing the Dream, Living the Reality. Princeton, NJ: Princeton. Maffesoli, Michel. 1996. The Time of the Tribes: The Decline of Individualism in Mass Society. London, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Nisbet, Robert. 1966/1996. The Sociological Tradition. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Peterson, Richard A. 1997. Creating Country Music: Fabricating Authenticity. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Pratt, Ray. 1989. “Popular Music, Free Space, and the Quest for Community.” Popular Music & Society. 13(4): 59–76. Putnam, Robert D. 1995. “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital.” Journal of Democracy. 6(1): 65–78: 1360–1380. Putnam, Robert. 2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. Salamon, Sonya. 2002. Newcomers to Old Towns: Suburbanization of the Heartland. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Selznick, Phillip. 1992. The Moral Commonwealth: Social Theory and the Promise of Community. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Sutton, Shan S. 2000. “The Deadhead Community: Popular Religion in Contemporary American Culture.” In Deadhead Social Science, Rebecca G. Adams and Robert Sardiello, eds. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. 109–128. Tonnies, Ferdinand. 1957. Community and Society: Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, Translated and Edited by Charles P. Loomis. East Lansing, MI: The Michigan State University Press. Tunnell, Kenneth D. and Stephen B. Groce. 1998. “The Social World of Semiprofessional Bluegrass Musicians.” Popular Music & Society. 22(4): 55–77. Turner, Victor. 1969. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Chicago, IL: Aldine. Turner, Victor, ed. 1982. Celebration: Studies in Festivity and Ritual. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Warren, Mark R. 2001. Dry Bones Rattling: Community Building to Revitalize American Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

134 The portable community Wellman, Barry. 1988. “The Community Question Re-Evaluated.” In Power, Community, and the City, Michael Peter Smith, ed. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction. Wellman, Barry, ed. 1999. Networks in the Global Village: Life in Contemporary Communities. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

6

“The festival world is so much better than the real world” Performing self and identity in

festival spaces

Adorning the rear, spare tire cover of a white conversion van at the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas, a bumper sticker advertises a differ­ ent event, the Four Comers Folk Festival in Pagosa Springs, Colorado that reads: “The FESTIVAL WORLD is so much better than the REAL WORLD.” As a sociologist, I have been trained to understand that both places do indeed inhabit the very same world, a world tied together through local and regional economies, political, transportation, and communica­ tion systems, and transnational flows of culture and capital. Training aside, however, I was often reminded how far away these worlds seemed from each other while attending festival events, especially as I left my own work schedule, teaching responsibilities, service obligations, writing, and rent payments behind. Cementing the distinction between the festival setting and the lives, identities, jobs, schedules, problems, politics, and responsibilities festivalgoers leave behind in the “real world,” this bumper sticker articu­ lated the evolving discourse of the festival as an alternative space of retreat and a stage for identity performance. While the isolated physical geography of many festival sites reinforces the impression that participants are leav­ ing their workaday worlds behind, the yearly pilgrimage to the festival site temporarily inverts the normative and temporal logic of daily life, inviting the free play of interactional creativity and experimentation (Figure 6.1). Getting away from the “real world” through a pilgrimage to the “festi­ val world,” festivalgoers step outside of their situated identities to perform what they consider to be more authentic representations of themselves. They describe that the festival experience and setting allows them to reveal certain features of their identities that are often hidden or repressed in their day-to­ day lives. In the previous chapters, I explored the transformation of the festi­ val space into distinct and intentionally cultivated campground villages that invited meaningful and intimate forms of portable community. Participants use this framing of the festival experience to recapture repressed elements of their selves and reclaim connections to their “real” or “true” identities lost in the modern, bureaucratic world they temporarily leave behind. In the context of this chapter, I define identity as a performance that is publicly enacted and shared in a communal context. In The Presentation

136 Performing self and identity in festival spaces

Figure 6.1 Bumper stickers on the rear of a conversion van, Walnut Valley Festival, Winfield, Kansas.

of Self in Everyday Life, Erving Goffman (1959) posits that presentations of self and identity are mediated by theater-like performances that are guided by our front stage acts as circumscribed by the roles we enact in daily life. According to Goffman, we often retreat from these public roles and performances to a more private backstage in which we can unwind, step out of character, and where we can “reveal what we imagine to be our more authentic selves to our intimates and confidants” (Goffman 1959 quoted in Grazian 2003: 11). As a stage removed from the trappings of everyday life, the bluegrass festival provides a “public backstage” for peo­ ple to reveal their true or authentic selves in the company of likeminded others. In the eyes of participants, these performances, like the high school reunions studied by Vinitzky-Seroussi and Zussman (1996), are based in part on “deeply felt inner understandings of the self (that) transcend both time and situation and are independent, at least in the short run, of the responses of others” (226). While the festival setting opens a free space for participants to reveal their truer selves in an interactional backstage guided by norms of tolerance and inclusion, Beverly Stoeltje (1992) argues festival action is “a combination of participation and performance in a public context … What is spoken, acted, or displayed in festival—public or private—anticipates a response” from others (Stoeltje 1992: 263). The collaborative, group context of festival interactions

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work to solidify and mutually reinforce an individual’s preferred version of selfhood. As Robert Wuthnow (1994) argues, “what a person chooses to share in a group becomes ever more important to that person’s identity. The group becomes ever more important to that person’s identity. The group’s affirmation of this identity reinforces and legitimates it” (Wuthnow 1994: 302 quoted in Irvine, 2000: 15). It is through these coordinated group per­ formances in festival settings that individuals both reveal and, in the process, come to understand what they see as their more “authentic” self. I follow Dwight Conquergood (1992) in exploring the potentially trans­ formative potential of these identity performances. As generative, meaningmaking practices, identity performance in festival settings is not merely “a reflection, nor even a representation, of given structurally and/or cognitively encoded identities” but a reinforcing process central to one’s understand­ ing of self (Henry 1999: 338). In the following sections, I examine how festival participants come to better understand their self-identity through festival interaction, which is most acutely expressed upon returning to the “real world” from the “festival world” at the closure of the festival camp. Responding to the postmodern “problem of identity,” I grapple with the assertion that the rise of post-industrial society has induced the frag­ mentation, fracturing, or saturation of modern selfhood. Though festival participants experience many of the associated ills of cultural and social modernization, they retreat to the festival as a form of cultural resistance to reclaim what they determine to be lost or under threat.

The allure of the festival world For most festivalgoers living outside of easy commuting distance from the festival site, attendance requires an element of preparation and travel befit­ ting of a ritual pilgrimage. Because returning home for an item that has been left behind or seeking out the nearest REI outdoor store to purchase forgotten gear is neither practical nor desirable, festivalgoers must pack and prepare for the unexpected and equip themselves for the long haul ahead. Leaving behind the “pent up city life” and sprawling urban and suburban landscapes, festival pilgrims enter the open road, revealing the isolated phys­ ical geography and dramatic mountainous backdrop of the rural, festival grounds, which aids in the perception that participants are abandoning the “real world” for one characterized by free play, creativity, and adventure. Geographer William Riebsame argues that the New West is increasingly a place of retreat for lifestyle refugees who are seeking out a landscape of authentic, natural environments that are sheltered from influences of mass culture and urbanization (Riebsame 1997: 46). Starting with the third migration in the 1970s, mobile newcomers largely came to the Mountain West from the more crowded East to enjoy the region’s open, rural, and largely undeveloped landscapes. However, whereas 75% of residents of eastern states reside in cities, 86% percentage of westerners call urban and

138 Performing self and identity in festival spaces suburban regions home (Riebsame 1997: 55). This statistic contrasts with the more common perception of the West as predominantly rural, and likely comes as an unexpected reality of those who transplanted there to “escape” the crowded cities further east. However, the West’s abundant national and state forests, mountains, and expansive ranchland makes possible regular escapes from the hustle and bustle of the city for weekend getaways to the large tracts of surrounding public open space and to the various private resort communities that pepper the region.1 Festivalgoers mentioned that the physical and symbolic distance of festi­ val sites from their places of work or residence allowed them to reveal parts of themselves that they may not be as willing to display in their daily lives. The physical separation between their places of residence and the rural, isolated festival site and the symbolic distinctions between the rules, logic, and routines of “real life” and “festival life” allow participants, if they so choose, to make a relatively clean break from their workday worlds when embarking on their voyage to the festival site. The physical separation of the Telluride Festival, for example, and its symbolic separation from the markers of commercial life—office buildings, strip malls, chain stores, and restaurants, and traffic jams—become significant in providing a space where participants can get away from “it all.” As such, they experience the festival as a quite “other worldly” space in which they can get back to their “real selves,” or perhaps “try on” different identities for the week. Theorists of identity have argued that the rise and expansion of commu­ nication technologies and social media, the increasing efficiency and avail­ ability of transportation systems, and the acceleration of global information exchange and travel have resulted in a literal explosion of possible nodes for identity formation. Because of the disorienting forces of late capitalist, post-industrial societies, identity in the contemporary period is one that is increasingly fragmented and fractured, saturated (Castells 2010; Gergen 1991), mobile, and rootless. Whereas earlier forms of identity were anchored by the fixed and highly interdependent social relationships rooted in geogra­ phy, family, work, and localized economies and communities, identity today is far more untethered, mobile, emergent, and open. According to Zygmunt Bauman, the modem “‘problem of identity’ was how to construct an identity and keep it solid and stable, (while) the postmodern ‘problem of identity’ is primarily how to avoid fixation and keep the options open” (Bauman 1996). It is commonly argued that the free play of postmodern identity has been a thoroughly liberating and freeing development in recent decades, decoupling individuals from stifling and limiting social relations of home and family. Despite cautions that such decoupling creates problems of “multiphrenia” and “populated” selfhood in which “one begins to experience the vertigo of unlimited multiplicity” (Gergen 1991: 49), these social changes are assumed to be inevitable and here to stay; a necessary cost of cultural modernization. In the portable festival community, however, festivalgoers capitalize on the flexibility and mobility of postmodern identity to create spaces of

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resistance from the alienating forces of contemporary society. They par­ ticipate in the festival in ways that reshape and resist the space-time com­ pression and acceleration associated with postmodern society. Much like the alternative bus tourists who experiment with alternative forms of social organization by exploring the open road on “tortoise time,” festivalgoers carve out interactional spaces in which they “slow down time,” simplifying their often complex and chaotic lives to reclaim a stable sense of self or selfidentity within the portable community setting. Here, identity is not simply an individual choice or creation but an emergent, collaborative process of identification, staged within the larger web of relationships and social scenes that surround them in the festival setting. Karen, a high school counselor from suburban Denver describes that dur­ ing the festival, she feels as if she is living decidedly “in the moment” as opposed to living “minutes, hours, days or weeks ahead” of herself. She describes her experiences at the festival: It just feels like utopia to me. When I’m at festivals most of the time I feel like there is no other place I’d rather be. I also feel very present and very in the moment. The quality of feelings I experience are in the moment. I’m not thinking about anything but that moment; I’m not thinking about five minutes from now or five minutes ago. Not only am I in the moment, I have no sense of anything else. I’m not thinking of any cares I have at home related to my job, anything like that that pops in can float right away. Festivalgoers like Karen describe their weekend and weeklong retreats as a coping mechanism for she and her husband’s “stressed out lives” that “pull us in multiple directions at the same time.” Though their performance festival identity is often fleeting and temporary, they use these events and festival spaces to “get back in touch” with their real or true selves they may have necessarily abandoned or compromised in their workday worlds. The festival experience, especially leaving their everyday environment and trave­ ling to a space with a strikingly different temporal logic and organization, aids in the process of regenerating the self and of helping define or perhaps redefine one’s “true” identity. Through the process of ritual pilgrimage to the festival site, participants experience the festival as other worldly, and decidedly not representative of their daily lives. Jillian, a former college educator who does freelance writ­ ing for the music industry, points out that the isolated location is a major part of the appeal of these festivals and that if located closer to urban areas, the draw would not be as strong: JILLIAN: I think that it builds up the mysticism of the place when it’s dif­ ficult to get there and it’s out in the middle of nowhere. You know, that’s actually a huge criticism that people tell me they don’t like seeing music

140 Performing self and identity in festival spaces in the city because they can just look behind them and see the office build­ ing that they work at. And they don’t want to see that. They want to be somewhere so they can live this fantasy for a night or for four nights and be away from their lives. It’s not just like looking behind you and there’s an Arby’s (chain restaurant). Getting away from it all—that’s why people go to these festivals—people want to get away from it all. ME: What is “it all?” JILLIAN: Well, I think it’s work. It’s a hectic life. It’s sprawl. You know, it’s traffic. It’s all that stuff. They want to forget about all that when they’re enjoying themselves. At the festival there’s not lots of traffic and you’re not yelling at people and you’re not spilling your coffee on yourself and you’re not, you know, looking at a bunch of strip malls, Generica. Jillian mentioned that growing up just outside of the resort setting of Telluride in a less isolated working-class town, that such a festival would likely flop there due to its working-class reality and closer proximity to the “outside world.” Even though her hometown was a short drive from the festival site, the strategically placed Telluride Bluegrass Festival drew a significant crowd of over ten thousand, Jillian argued, because it was hid­ den away from the commercialization of surrounding cities and towns, in a community that has historically kept big box retailers and strip mall devel­ opment out of its city limits. The rural setting and dramatic physical backdrop of the festivals also cre­ ate a space where participants can “get back to nature,” what they perceive to be a simpler, slower, and more authentic environment than their familiar urban and suburban landscapes. By getting away from “it all” in the “real world,” participants pare the layers of socially ascribed roles, rules, and responsibilities to find or perhaps rediscover a performance of selfhood that seldom reaches center stage. Getting closer to nature, simplifying one’s envi­ ronment, and relinquishing the need to keep up physical appearances are viewed as central to this paring. Festivalgoers described that the opportunity to camp in the outdoors, get dirty, and expose themselves to the forces of Mother Nature opens a space for a truer expression of their essential being. As Tracey, a veterinary assistant from Ohio explains, the camping experi­ ence and getting closer to nature at the Walnut Valley Festival allows her to reveal elements of her “true self” that remain hidden in the day-to-day: Winfield is a total experience in being yourself. There is no make-up required, you can get away with wearing barely clean clothes and only taking periodic showers, mostly just to feel better rather than to actu­ ally get clean and smell better. You end up following only enough of a schedule that gets you to the music you want to hear and instead of cell phone calendars and deadlines, you are driven by hunger and sleep. It’s also an exercise in surviving Kansas weather in a nylon hut so you can tell the survival stories back at work.

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For festivalgoers like Tracey, getting back to nature allows them to get in touch with a portion of themselves rarely exposed from the day-to-day. This more primitive understanding of selfhood is believed to lurk below the “lay­ ers” of artificiality and various self-presentations that they feel obligated to enact outside of the festival. Instead of modern technologies and the voices of their workplace superiors, they listen to and respond to natural rhythms of food, sleep, shelter, and ritual. Curiously, through the process of getting dirty, letting their hair down, infrequent showering, and surviving the ele­ ments in the festival camp, festivalgoers free themselves from the demands and expectations of their daily lives to perform what they perceive to be a more authentic version of themselves. Susan, a research scientist who organizes her summer around the dates of the Walnut Valley Festival, explains how getting in touch with her real self by the end of the festival results in somewhat of a letdown when she returns back to her regular schedule and life. She confesses I feel like a phony when I get back to real life. After spending ten days in this little bubble of a world, I really let my guard down, don’t worry about my appearance too much, swear all I want, nap when I want. I feel much more ‘real’ at Winfield.

Contrasting social worlds In her work on high school reunions, Vered Vinitzky-Seroussi (1998) asserts that each individual has a “personal identity” that is often in conflict with their “situated identity,” or their place among others. When encountering former friends and classmates, especially after a long lapse in time, one must negotiate between the self that they have become and the “old self” they left behind or aspired to be long ago, or that exists in the minds and memories of their former peers. While the high school reunion is a site where this con­ flict is often played out, the bluegrass festival is a place where this conflict is resolved, albeit temporarily. Participants in class reunions often need to negotiate their situated identity in light of a rather unexpected or perhaps unflattering hits to their personal identity, in the festival setting, participants explain how this “situated identity” of the workplace is abandoned or tem­ porarily suspended for the duration of the festival. Although some may be “on-call” or called back in to work from their vacation, or perhaps need to retain some semblance of their situated identity as they navigate their roles as musicians, parents, spouses, employees, or vacationers while on-site, most festivalgoers explain that they check their workplace identity at the gate of the festival or perhaps refrain from packing it altogether. Mary, an elementary school teacher from Iowa, explains that at the festival, she often takes on a quite different persona than the one she has at work. She reveals, “I guess that’s why most people have a big real­ ity shock when they get back from Winfield. Some would probably not be

142 Performing self and identity in festival spaces recognized at the festival compared to their regular lives.” Explaining how many of his friends experience the festival as a complete transformation of their identity, Steve, a musician from Colorado adds, “I know so many people who transform completely into their festival persona, then transform again into something altogether different when they return to their jobs and homes.” For others, the fact that their situated workplace identities are kept hid­ den or packed away for the duration of the festival is apparent in that many seldom know what their best friends or pickin’ buddies at the festival do for their work. Illustrating this point, Melinda reveals that “there are so many people that I see there every year that I still have no clue as to what they do in the ‘real world,’ or as my friend Brian calls it the ‘fifty-one week sup­ ply run.’” Though constructed in jest, the idea that that the “real world” is merely the time we spend preparing for the next festival is significant in that festivalgoers often feel more at home among their friends and neighbors and more at home performing their festival persona. Melinda explains the obsession of many during the off season who expend a great deal of energy preparing for the next year’s festival and work hard to retain ties to the festival communities: Those who most strongly differentiate between the “real world” and Winfield are often compelled to spend significant amounts of time and money reinforcing the difference between what happens the rest of the year, and what happens during the days of the festival. As hinted at in Melinda’s previous statement, participants often spend a tremendous amount of time communicating with festival friends, recall­ ing stories and memories, and debating how to best manage or respond to the yearly festival site policy changes during the off-season. As discussed in Chapters 3 and 4, they also spend a great deal of money purchasing camp­ ing equipment and gear, planning, and constructing elaborately themed camps. Others may take music lessons or purchase a better musical instru­ ment, or make other monetary and time investments, in part, to impress their fellow pickers and to cement their festival identity as a serious musi­ cian. Through these off-season activities, festival participants negotiate the conflict between their situated (i.e. workplace) and personal (i.e. festival) identities in an ongoing process of identity discovery and formation.

From real world to festival world The experience of feeling more “real” in the festival space further cements the distinction voiced on the back tire cover of the white conversion van between the real world and the festival world. For festivalgoers, the pil­ grimage from home to festival world creates a break in time, space and environment, altering the interactions that span these two worlds. As the

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stage on which identity is performed changes, so do the rules of interac­ tion and subsequent behaviors. As they transition into the festival space, participants experience a “frame shift” from everyday focus on subsistence, routine, and production to “frames that foster the transformative, recipro­ cal, and reflexive dimensions of social life” (Stoeltje 1992: 263). Through the process of pilgrimage, the liminality of the festival site gives travelers a means of breaking with their existing society and identifying with another (Hetherington 2000: 204) Karen explains that the festival temporarily suspends the rules and restric­ tions on behavior that we live by in everyday life. She explains “It’s kind of like that social psychological principle that there are rules, and we live by them day-to-day. At the festival, though, it’s different. It’s like there are no rules, and anything goes.” She describes how these rules (or lack thereof) are unique and specific to the festival site. Festivals are this sacred space. It’s this container, this closed off space, and there is this set of behaviors and people all fall in line with that, because this set of behaviors is very different than those that are expected of us out in our everyday lives. In any social situation there’s this set of rules or the ways that it works, and at festivals it’s different than our everyday lives, and it’s a huge factor to have the stressors of everyday life taken away. This brief, yet powerful feeling of “being outside of society and its struc­ tures” (Hetherington 2000: 64), Karen described as a common festival expe­ rience in which individuals momentarily lost their sense of self-awareness and transcended traditional social hierarchies, a phenomenon that anthro­ pologists refer to as “communitas”2 (Turner 1969; 1982). As a result of the quite different logic and rules of the festival, participants frequently have a very difficult time describing their experiences and often find equivalent comparisons difficult to generate. Consistently in conversa­ tions and interviews, participants would stumble in their descriptions of the festival setting by explaining how those not part of the “special atmosphere of this secret, beautiful underworld,” in the words of one festivalgoer, have no way of comprehending what takes place within its boundaries. When asked how they describe the festival to friends and family members who had never attended, respondents would often explain: “Outsiders just don’t get it.” Or “It’s impossible to describe to someone who has never attended. They just can’t understand.” These participants would describe “the inde­ scribable” as something that others, especially their friends back home and co-workers could not possibly relate to. In this way, festivalgoers often cre­ ated a symbolic separation between the festival world and the world popu­ lated by non-festival friends, family, or co-workers. This distinction is an important one in creating a separate space for alternative forms of iden­ tity performance, especially if these performances depart radically from the

144 Performing self and identity in festival spaces rules, roles, and responsibilities of their daily worlds and temporarily sup­ press the relationships that anchor them there. Dylan, a 25-year-old theater technician from Santa Fe, New Mexico, reveals, “I often tell my co-workers ‘You wouldn’t understand. It’s a Winfield thing’ I mean, how do you describe landrush, or people lining up two weeks before they open the campground which is two weeks before the festival even begins?” By constructing the festival in this light, festivalgoers create a sense of mystery for their associates in the real world around what really takes place within festival boundaries as well as who they become. Melinda explains that she tries to relate her festival experiences to her friends who have never attended and gets several different reactions: They vary from ‘oooohhhh, I wanna do that,’ to ‘ooooohhhh, it sounds just horrid to live outside for that long.’ It’s not for everybody, but those of us that have the fortitude and the drive to push the limits on fun, and callouses, and sleep deprivation, and laughing so hard that we snort. Interestingly, participants will often describe the experience of “rough­ ing it” in festival camp as something that their friends back home would never be able to handle. Somehow, the sheer experience of battling the ele­ ments, sleeping in rain-soaked sleeping bags in the biting wind, and trekking through the mud in the middle of the night to get to a nearly overflowing porta-potty are simply not attractive to many outside the festival world. These descriptions often led to an implicit message to others that under­ standing it is only possible through direct participation and experience. The experiential quality of the festival elicits for many an ethereal, inchoate or spiritual element; an atmosphere, which is often articulated as a “vibe,” a “buzz,” or a “surreal,” other worldly feeling or community, kinship and connection with others (see Hetherington 2000), what Émile Durkheim meant by “collective effervescence.” (Durkheim 1915) When describing the festival to non-attending friends, David, a 52-year­ old computer technician from Missouri, tells them it is “impossible to explain”: I tell my friends there is no way to accurately describe it … you can only understand Winfield by being there. I mention ‘community.’ I use words like ‘paradise.’ But those don’t really do it justice. It’s really just one long jam session occasionally interrupted by food or sleep. Though finding the words to describe the festival vibe and atmosphere is difficult and cumbersome, when I asked them to articulate this vibe or to describe how this atmosphere may compare to other settings, they point to the “instant camaraderie” they feel with other participants. Because many feel like they have found a special, little place hidden outside of other main­ stream cultural, leisure, or tourist destinations, they feel that the relationships

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and bonds they form are like an “extended family,” an “unrelated sibling type of thing,” or as Sara, a 32-year-old resident of Kansas City, described it “lifelong kinship to someone you just met yesterday.” Though many have formed enduring, lifelong relationships with their fellow festivalgoers, the emotional intensity of relationships expressed by festival attendees has much to do with the realization that their time together is short lived and fleeting. Similar to the relationships formed at vacation spots, on weekend camping trips, or at weeklong summer camps, the emotional intensity of the experience reaches a pinnacle, and then wanes as participants pack up, leave the festival site, and move back into their normal lives and schedules. As festivalgoers travel to, build, and interact with the emergent festival camp as a distinct set of places, they begin to contrast the types of selves they enact given the social and institutional roles they must perform in their daily lives. Reflecting the perceived rift with daily life, participants experi­ ence the festival as an alternative “social situation” in which their “true” or “real” identity is performed. By removing themselves from the rules, restrictions, and responsibilities of the “real world,” festivalgoers create an environment in which they can retreat to their “real selves” and express themselves in ways that are untethered from their socially ascribed roles and positions. For example, participants explained that the open, creative atmosphere at the festival provided a relative freedom of expression, which allowed them to step outside of their normal styles of dress and decorum. Illustrated by a “festivarian dress code” that included elements of the car­ nivalesque and whimsical, devoted festivalgoers often display a montage of silly, impractical hats, colorful tie-dyed shirts and pants, and flags, banners, and kites of various shapes, sizes, and colors. Adorning themselves in this festive attire, people at the festival exploited the open nature to adorn them­ selves in ways that would be deemed inappropriate or impractical in other social contexts. Caleb, the banjo player and computer programmer from Colorado, described the fanfare at certain bluegrass festivals: People wear these zany outfits, and play with hula hoops, and fly kites and flags. I definitely like that sort of “fair” aspect to it. Everyone is always somewhat on display. No one is dressed up … there’s sort of a festival uniform that you wear. No one really wears what they would wear to work and I really like that. According to Caleb, the playful, carnivalesque atmosphere provided a framework for people to step out of their daily routines and outside of the rules, restrictions, and conventions of the larger society (see Bahktin 1984). He mentioned that this liberating atmosphere paralleled the “Harley Davidson thing” where “doctors, and bankers and lawyers get dressed in their leather and their scary gear and drive to Sturgis. They get to take on a different identity for a little while.” Festivalgoers like Caleb explained that transition from real world to festival world signified a change in the rules

146 Performing self and identity in festival spaces and logic of everyday life but also provided an alternative stage for identity performance. They found this stage to be more accommodating of their quirks, personalities, and potentially unvonventional behaviors and hab­ its. Whereas they could be reprimanded or looked down upon at work or among their neighbors for this behavior, they described the festival site to be much more open and accepting; a place where they felt as if they belonged; a place where they felt “at home.”

Campsite characters and themed camps One of the significant components of feeling “at home” in a community is the opportunity to be recognized by others and to be included in its web of interpersonal connections. As the late philosopher Leroy Rouner (1996) asserts, as human beings, “we want a place where we know people, and where we are known; a place where we can be somebody” (l). For attendees of the festival, especially those who stay regularly in the festival camps, they experience the festival as such a place. They express that the intimacy and openness of festival camping coupled with the web of relationships they build, allows them to indeed “be somebody” and carve out an identity that is inextricably linked to their campmates and fellow festivalgoers. A major factor in the creation of these relational identities is the forma­ tion of named and creatively themed campsites discussed in earlier chapters. When I first experienced the “themed camp” phenomenon at the Walnut Valley Festival, I began walking into the camps and asked their residents about the origins of the camp and camp members, the origin of their par­ ticular camp name or theme, their reasons behind decorating the camp, and their choice of decor. Usually these themes had something to do with an unexpected event, a rowdy conversation, or a particularly hilarious moment that occurred the previous year or perhaps several years in the past. Other themes revolved around the particular place of origin of the camp members or particular camp rituals as described in the last chapter. Regardless of the theme or its origin, participants not only felt a strong connection to the camp as a place, but also used the camp as a node for identity. Through their public presence in the festival grounds, these themed camps “give a public description of the kind of people you are and, hopefully, will lure in others” as Jacob, a heavily bearded college professor from Utah, explained. Harkening back to the theme of returning to a time that is more “primi­ tive,” Jacob adds that the appeal of creating themed campsites “goes with the tribal thing. Each tribe must identify itself so that other distant tribal members will know where to gather.” More pragmatically, he admits that these names, “also make it easier to find one’s way home after drinking too much White Lighting.” He mentioned that his favorite personal camp tradi­ tion was the ceremonial “passing of the jar of moonshine.” He explains that “It’s nice to invite people into the camp that we don’t know. When we all drink from the same jar, there is a special kind of bond formed.”

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Whereas identification with the various themed and named camps pro­ vides nodes of identity, it also constructs differences and creates markers of distinction among the camp members. Michael, a newspaper editor from Wichita explains: I think there are probably numerous psychological and social factors at play here. First, setting up a camp with a theme, and invariably a name, satisfies that all-too-human craving to mark what is “mine,” or per­ haps more appropriately “ours,” as opposed to everything else. Second, Winfield offers people stuck in boring lives to express themselves in ways they cannot in their day-to-day existence. For instance, an exemployer of mine runs a small town weekly newspaper. His profession keeps him at a Defcon-4 stress level every day of his life. A few years ago at Winfield, he set up an entire Old West cow town. He built a giant, operational windmill and constructed elaborate facades in front of all the tents and campers in his camp. He called it “Glitter Gulch.” Then he went right back to trying to make payroll under a bank of blinking fluorescent lights in a building with a leaky ceiling. As a resident of Glitter Gulch, Michael’s former employer created an alter­ native identity that provided a stark contrast from his daily grind in the working world. By constructing his elaborately themed and creatively deco­ rated campsite, he crafted an alternative “stage” of identity performance and thus an alternative enactment of self. Additionally, this campsite allowed for him to create a quite different locus of shared identification with his fellow campmates. As sites of identification, some camps are quite notorious for their rau­ cous, late night partying like Split Lip Rayfield, while others are known for their sobriety like Friends of Bill W., a campsite named after Alcoholics Anonymous co-founder Bill Wilson, which is a safe, welcoming place for recovering substance abusers. Still others like the Carp Camp tend to be known for their over-the-top festivity and creativity, while those like Comfortable Shoes or the Mash Camp are known to be a site of the best bluegrass jams in the campground. As a member of these camps, one carves out a personal and group identity by identifying with and being identified through a tribal affiliation with a particular camp group. As public and commonly recognized places, participants build creatively themed camps to perform a preferred, alternative identity. Many essentially become char­ acters in the enduring and unfolding story that is the history of the festival campsite. Many of them become local “celebrities,” notorious characters, or prominent members of the community as they are identified with these particular camps and the stories that surround them. These characters emerged through the “roles” of camp host, camp member, picker or jam musician. For example, as Walnut Valley folklore has it, an unfortunate and unsuspecting soul stepped into the vacant porta-john to do his usual

148 Performing self and identity in festival spaces business. One festival participant explains the “Chem Can Larry” incident in all of its dramatic glory. Marian, a longtime attendee of festival, explains: Some of the larger camps use these huge cargo parachutes that they hang from the trees and use as shelters, under which they sit out of the sun and/or rain, and do campground picking, and other activities. You know how they have rows of porta-pots in the campgrounds? Well, anyway, one early morning the honey wagon [truck that cleans and services the toilets] had been making its rounds, servicing the facilities, and during the night, the wind had loosened one of the guylines on a nearby parachute, as the truck drove away—remember this actually happened, and is not a joke—it snagged this line, dragged it over the end porta-john, and pulled it over. One of the campers had just gone in, and you can guess the rest. They drove off, not knowing anything was amiss, except the poor guy inside knew it. He started yelling his head off, of course, and finally some fellow campers came to his rescue. They found him inside with the porta pot lying door down. Fortunately, since the service had just been done, he came out blue (from the chemicals) instead of brown. As the story of Chem Can Larry circulated across the campground and developed folklore status over the years, Marian mentioned that various other suggestions of names for this character have come out, like Larry Blue Boy or The Man in Blue. Indicating his notoriety, people have made Chem Can Larry buttons and t-shirts and have even constructed an impromptu historical marker by the side of the porta-potty to commemorate the inci­ dent (Figure 6.2). Other festival characters have also found their mugshots, sometimes unexpectedly, adorning the front of a t-shirt. Tom, the lanky dulcimer player from Colorado, who after finishing among the top three in the moun­ tain dulcimer championship for several years, arrived to the festival deter­ mined to land himself in first place once again. Without his knowing, his friends made t-shirts and buttons and distributed them far and wide across the campsite to “psych him out” and poke fun of him for his hoarding of the competition’s awards. Though immersed in serious preparation for the contest, he began to question his sanity as he began to see his image appear in bathrooms, posted on trees, on dumpsters lining the path to the festival stages, in short, nearly everywhere he looked. The display of Tom’s image as a prominent festival character who, recognized by many longtime attend­ ees, became the target of their playful musings, illustrates how everyday participants in the festival, over time, can become local celebrities of sorts. Additionally, the stories of Tom and Chem Can Larry solidify their position within a vibrant network of festival friends and neighbors who depend on each other’s presence at the festival to anchor the setting’s intimacy and familiarity.

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Figure 6.2 The story of Chem Can Larry, aka, Larry Blue Boy.

Because each member of the community provides one of many nodes in a network of festival relationships, the thought of missing a festival, regard­ less of the reason, becomes more than an inconvenience or subtle disap­ pointment. The realization that one cannot attend, especially for the most dedicated veterans of the festival, can be a letdown because it symbolizes that they will not only be a missing out themselves, but also a missing piece for others’ festival experience. No relation to Chem Can Larry, “Flat Larry” was a longtime participant of the Telluride Festival who, due to health rea­ sons, was not able to attend. He was supremely disappointed not only that he would not be in attendance and be part of the festival experience first­ hand, but also that he would be missed by his fellow campmates. To rectify the situation, Jo Anna, a fellow Telluride discussion list participant sug­ gested to Larry that he create a flat, cardboard cut-out image of himself and send it to her so that he would still be able to attend the festival. Jo Anna, a grade school teacher, explains: The idea was mine, although not entirely original. School children have been doing similar projects for years, inspired by a book called Flat Stanley. There have been many variations, no doubt. When Larry, a list member whom I have never met, said he couldn’t go, I suggested that he do the flat thing. With the help of his daughter, he made the flat version and mailed himself to me. We carried Flat Larry to as many list activi­ ties as he could get to, had his picture taken with (main stage musicians)

150 Performing self and identity in festival spaces Tim O’Brien and with John Cowan, and even went backstage and had all sorts of adventures at Telluride. Jo Anna and her campmates carried the cardboard likeness of Larry through­ out the festival grounds and had longtime friends sign and send messages to Larry, took pictures of Flat Larry in various festival situations, and even snuck Flat Larry back stage. Not only was Larry able to attend the festival vicariously through his likeness “Flat Larry,” but also other festivalgoers were able to experience the presence of Larry even in his physical absence. This allowed Larry to carry out his identity as “devoted festivalgoer” while contributing to the festival identity performances of his campmates. For dedicated festivalgoers like Larry, the realization that he would be missing the festival comes at a cost to his festival identity. For these dedi­ cated fans, the thought of missing the festival for any reason and especially their opportunity to reinforce their relationship among their festival friends and family is a serious blow. Tom, the dulcimer player, explained in great length all that he had to overcome to get to the festival one year: Back in July, my mom scheduled my step-dad’s 75th birthday party in Colorado Springs—for the Sunday of Winfield Week. By the time she realized the conflict, several family members had already booked non­ refundable airfares from around the country. I definitely did not want to miss the brunch, so I said I’d drive back from Winfield on Saturday, to get home in time for the Sunday morning drive to The Springs. My son, Steven, was coming to Winfield from Nashville, and didn’t want to miss Saturday night. Since my van held all the tents, sleeping bags, cool­ ers and food, he would have been out of luck after I left. My Daughter, Stephanie, was only willing to miss one day of school, so she was plan­ ning on flying down Thursday night. The thought of driving back with me Saturday morning, essentially having only one day at the festival, was very unappealing. I asked if she wanted to punt and stay home, rather than have only Friday in camp, and she said “absolutely not. We gotta go to Winfield.” As for myself, though I am a mature adult who understands that one must occasionally make sacrifices, I was bumming out over missing the now-traditional Sunday night “decom­ pression jamming” and walkabout, and the Monday knock-down of the River Rat camp. So rather than cut everything short … Wednesday after setting up camp, I drove to the Wichita airport to meet Steven and Jordan, his girlfriend, who flew in from Denver about the time he arrived from Tennessee. Back to camp by about 11:30 pm. Thursday evening, I drove to the airport again, to get Stephanie. Saturday even­ ing, Steven and Jordan drove me to the airport, where I caught a flight back to Denver. Next morning, my wife Jill and I drove to the birthday brunch, while the kids are hanging out in the Pecan Grove. Sunday evening, Steven, Jordan, and Stephanie drive the van to Wichita, and

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catch their flights to Denver and Nashville. Meanwhile, Jill drives me to Denver International (airport), still in my sportcoat and tie, where we meet Stephanie and Jordan arriving. I get on the plane they just exited, fly back to Wichita, snag the van from airport parking, and arrive in the ‘Grove at midnight, still wearing my coat and tie. A rapid change of clothes, and I’m back at it, pickin’ in the campground until nearly 7:00 am. Monday. Slept ‘til about 10:30, then up and at ‘em to pack up the camp. The parachute finally came down at about 8:30 pm, and by 9:00, the caravan of remaining ‘Rats left the campgrounds for Greg and Gail’s house in Wichita. Hit the sack, then hit the road Tuesday morn­ ing. How’s that for a story of insane allegiance to the festival? For another festival e-mail list participant and festival character, “Telluride Tom” the unofficial “mayor of Town Park,” who presided over the festi­ val’s coveted on-site camping area, found out that due to financial reasons, he would be unable to attend the festival. When the members of the discus­ sion list caught wind that he would be breaking his 20-plus-year streak of consecutive festivals, and realized that the “Town Mayor” would be strangely absent, they chipped in money to purchase him tickets for both the festival and Town Park camping. Because of his enduring attendance and his prominent position at the festival, in 2003, the festival sponsors, Planet Bluegrass, awarded him with a “certificate of appreciation,” which entitled him to a complementary Town Park pass “for as long as he wishes.” Interestingly, a Town Park celebrity of sorts, Telluride Tom has his own website (TellurideTom.com) dedicated to his festival persona. In fact, his website includes its own chat room where festival participants can meet up and chat in virtual space to discuss bluegrass music, upcoming festivals, and perform their festival identities during the off-season. Being a prominent member of the Town Park community, Telluride Tom situates himself as a hub of community activity and is active in planning and organizing prefestival activities for its temporary residents. The previous stories of Chem Can and Flat Larry, Telluride Tom, and Tom the dulcimer player illustrate how the festival, over time, lends itself to the creation of characters and personalities only meaningful in the context of the festival. Given the slim possibility that they would become famous in their daily lives, festivalgoers felt like the camp provided a place where they could “be somebody,” a known quantity among an intimate circle of friends. The same festival that Telluride Tom received his award marked the Telluride Bluegrass Festival’s 30-year anniversary. To commemorate the landmark event, the evening before the festival officially began, campers in Town Park were treated to a slide show portraying the various char­ acters, events, and memories over the past 30 years. Though most of the events, memories, and faces were largely unfamiliar to me, the ebbing and flowing crowd of roughly 100 who circled around the impromptu yet quite

152 Performing self and identity in festival spaces elaborate projector and sound system clearly identified the characters in the brief festival history with oohs, aaahs, laughter, and cries of “oh dear, look at Jim! He must be only 20 in that picture!” For old timers and festi­ val veterans, the slideshow provided a time of reflection and remembrance of their experiences and the creation of new friends and family over the years. For relative newcomers like myself, the slideshow and the intimacy of the both the pictures and the warm responses to the various festival events indicated that the festival was an important part of these people’s lives and foreshadowed that I, too, may become part of and attached to the collective experiences at the festival.

Tearing down and leaving the festival camp As the festival winds to a close, and the approaching Monday morning looms ever more closely, one by one, participants begin to withdraw from the festivities and stick closer to the “home base” of their camp. By this point in the festival, participants are usually suffering from extreme sun exposure and sleep deprivation from staying awake late into the night, drinking beer, moonshine, and corn whiskey, or participating in campground jams and other socializing activities. There is also the sobering realization that soon they will have to begin dismantling their campsites, packing their vehicles, and returning to their workday lives and schedules. On this other end of the festival pilgrimage, the return back to “reality” or the “real world,” festivalgoers experience a flood of different emotions and sensations ranging from exhaustion, depression, hangover and sadness to harmony, rejuvena­ tion, restfulness, and relaxation. Festivalgoers experience the return back to the all too familiar schedules, routines, and workday responsibilities in stark contrast to their festival week or weekend. This contrast cements the distinction that festivalgoers make between the festival world and the real world that developed during the early stages of the festival pilgrim­ age. Karen the counselor from suburban Denver, Colorado who attends RockyGrass yearly, links this withdrawal as a necessary way to reintegrate herself into her daily routines after immersing herself if such a communal environment. She explains: As the festival comes to a close, I experience a flood of emotions. I get very introspective at the end. I find that I do not get out and about con­ necting with other people. I started to pull back at the end. I generally experience a lot of gratitude from the experience, but I feel like I have to remind myself of the gratitude because there is a lot of sadness and loss at having to go back to my life. Part of the realization is that I feel like maybe I would never get the chance to recreate these feelings again. It’s not yet a feeling of loneliness, but a fear that I would feel lonely after having lived in this real communal kind of environment and then not being able to see my friends again, even after a two day break, because I

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felt I became very connected and close with my friends and didn’t want to be away from them. At the end of nearly every festival, the process of withdrawal is evident as participants are considerably less jovial, energetic, and lighthearted as they begin the daunting task of collecting their belongings and packing up their camp. Many are slowly coming to the realization that they need to return home, unpack the car, and prepare themselves for the upcoming workweek. However, while others are withdrawing, a few participants try to hold onto and savor the last remaining moments of the festival. Though he would like to stay in the space he has created over the course of the week, Fred, the mandolin and guitar player and member of my infor­ mal Monday jam group, explained how the setting just isn’t the same once people begin to pack up and leave: Breaking camp is definitely a phenomenon. We usually stick around after everyone else has gone on the last day because once we get camped in, you bring in all of this stuff, it becomes your home and you don’t want to leave. Besides being a pain, it’s really sad. It’s like you look outside your house and you see all of your neighbors packing up and leaving. If you were not packing up and leaving, you would feel aban­ donment and feel like you were going to be left in some ghost town. So you pack up and leave as well, because in staying there, you are in the place but you aren’t inhabiting it as a neighbor anymore. And I say it’s sad, because you’ve lost that church. You know you are leaving and going back to your normal life. A few days later, it’s not with you … It’s not going on anymore. For most who won’t be attending another festival until the following year, they try to savor the time that they have remaining because it will be an entire year before they inhabit the temporary home places and join with their festival friends and neighbors. “When it evaporates, it’s gone until next year, so you gotta’ squeeze all you can out of each second while the oppor­ tunity exists” states Ronald, a 40-year-old electrician from Virginia. While others like Kristen withdraw into herself and Ronald and Fred try to take each remaining moment as slowly and preciously as possible, others gather together with campmates and perform symbolic traditions to commemorate the end of yet another festival. Steve, the funeral director and a longtime member of the Carp Camp, states that the symbolic “lowering of the carp” signals the end of the festival for him and his campmates. “We all get tears in our eyes when we ‘lower the Carp’ and hum ‘Pomp and Circumstance.’” Gloria, a member of the Metaphysical Camp, explains that she and her campmates gather Sunday morning “before we tear down the big tent” and “all sing songs together that were written by fellow campers.” She explains her yearly ritual as the festival winds down:

154 Performing self and identity in festival spaces I have taken to spending Sunday night in camp, to decompress, and have a relaxing knock-down on Monday. It is a sad time, but we always make the best of it, by conducting traditional ceremonies like planting spring bulbs in our tent stake holes, or sharing one last beer or cham­ pagne, to remember our loved ones as the camp has lost several buds over the years. But really it’s to celebrate the future we all look forward to the next September. For many festivalgoers, the sadness begins to bubble up as they come to the realization that they will need to say goodbye to their longtime festival friends or perhaps part ways with altogether new ones. For others, the symbolic end of the festival is a signal that they have to begin thinking about their transition back into the “real world,” their “real lives,” and perhaps withdraw from their “real selves” as they don their workaday uniforms and prepare for their workday roles. As the flip side of the pil­ grimage, the return home and reentry into normal life is experienced as thoroughly difficult and disorienting. Often it takes festivalgoers several days to “get back to normal” or “to get back in the groove,” an experience that multiple participants described as a “festival hangover.” This festival hangover is experienced as both an emotional and physical adjustment to returning back to normal ways of living and returning to identities they had momentarily escaped. Explaining the physical component, Kristen, a loyal attendee of the Telluride who travels from Florida, describes that the festival does not always lend itself to the healthiest style of living, and states that she strays from her normal weekday resolutions: “I’m going to get my eight hours of sleep” and I’m going to eat healthily,” and “I’m going to recognize my limits.” She states that she likes to be “balanced in my daily life” but expe­ riences “a sense of incredible high at these festivals, and there is usually, coming off of the festival, a matching low.” For others, the experience of leaving the festival is much more emotional. As Jo Anna described, “there is a tremendous let down when I break camp and return to the ‘real’ world. I know it will be fifty weeks until I get to return. Fifty weeks in which I will be forced to struggle with the ups and downs of everyday living. It takes a year to get over Winfield, and it takes Winfield to get over the year.” In com­ parison to the rest of the year, she explains that the two weeks she spends at Winfield “are like floating on a cloud, free from the cares of the world.” Returning back to her city life, Margo, the festivalgoer from Manhattan describes this emotional feeling bluntly: “It’s a wrench. It really shines a spotlight on the chaos and stress of life in New York City. It certainly takes a few days for me to get back in the swing of things here.” Moe, a 42-year­ old artist states that “after Winfield, I feel like I’ve been dropped from the sky and landed smack in the middle of my life.” Deena, the medical entry specialist, concurs and describes her slow reentry back into her normal life:

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After the festival, I always take Monday off. After five or six days of only three or four hours sleep, you have to rest. I end up taking naps between loads of laundry that smell like campfires. The first day back at work is a complete fog. You can’t describe Winfield to them so you just say you had a great time and hope no one asks you to think too hard. Second day back at work, I’m slowly coming back to reality. Half of me is still at the festival, while the other half is here struggling at work. Every day just gets closer to reality and you just start looking towards next year. Though they dread the long drive back home, unpacking the car, airing out the tent, and the slow transition back to “reality,” many festivalgoers feel glad to regain a sense of privacy, sleep in a warm bed, and abandon their campfire smoke laden clothing. Though many merely go back to their daily lives a bit tired and clothes and camp gear a bit soiled, and dive right back into their daily routines and ways of living, others claim that the festival experience elicits deep change and a new, fresh perspective that they take with them back into the real world. Though Victor Turner argues that a ritual pilgrimage leads to inver­ sions of status and the upending of social order, this is only temporary and returned back to the status quo upon returning. Despite the notion that social order is restored, festivalgoers like Maggie, the account specialist for a sporting goods company, often report feeling a sense of change when they return “back to reality”: When we break camp and return home, I am in good spirits. In fact, it just makes me anticipate coming back next year and meeting even more people and seeing the friends I made again. I also almost feel cleansed in a way. I have gotten back to the basics … Camping is so refreshing. You get away from your mundane daily routines. You realize that there is more to life than just the nine to five company you work for. You free yourself to art and music. You breathe! Breathe the beautiful clean crisp air, live amongst the trees, and bask in the warm comforting sun. It’s liberating and so peaceful. I come back to work a completely new person. The transition from festival world to real world is certainly a disorienting one. Through many experience the tail end of the pilgrimage back to their familiar place as a positive one, festivalgoers also experience a lost sense of communion at the end of the festival pilgrimage. While some begrudg­ ingly return back to their familiar lives and jobs and while others have a renewed sense of energy and perspective, still others are left with a sense of discontent about the striking difference between festival and real worlds. Questioning the reasons why at the festival’s end, festivalgoers have to

156 Performing self and identity in festival spaces return back to what he perceives as an inferior way of living, Lawman explains: You always leave with the notion that you’d like to live like this all the time: no setting an alarm clock, playing music all the time, eat when you want, stay up as late as you want, wake up when you want. Why can’t life be that way? It’s also a sad affair to have to leave all the friends you only see once a year or the new friends you’ve gained over the last few days. And hey, you spent all that time setting up your little home, and now you have to tear the whole thing down. There’s something deeply wrong about that. While droves of festivalgoers like Lawman and Maggie return back to their daily routines, Fred explains what happened at the Four Corners Festival one year as he and his wife were breaking down camp, “someone said ‘Winfield is in three weeks.’ We said: ‘Let’s go! lets go! Let’s keep this thing going, This is fun! Let’s go to the next one.’”

Notes 1 The bluegrass festival is increasingly prominent among these weekend tourist destinations, and become an extensive draw to those living in the West’s urban centers and cities further east. As evidenced by extensive features in local and regional newspapers, city and regional travel guides, and their prominence in the larger, traveling music concert and festival circuit, these events have become staples of New West regional culture and constitute a notable national draw. 2 This intense feeling arises through the process of ritual pilgrimage, a liminal period of ritual participation that Victor Turner (1969) describes when indi­ viduals experience a transcendence of hierarchy and travel through a “limbo of statuslessness.”

Works cited Bakhtin, Mikhail M. 1984. Rabelais and His World, Translated by Helene Iswolsky, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Bauman, Zygmunt. 1996. “From Pilgrim to Tourist – or a Short History of Identity.” In Questions of Cultural Identity, Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay, eds. London: Sage Publications, 18–36. Castells, Immanuel. 2010. Power of Identity, 2nd ed. West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell. Conquergood, Dwight. 1992. “Ethnography, Rhetoric, and Performance.” Quarterly Journal of Speech. 78(1): 80–97. Durkheim, Émile. 1915. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, A Study in Religious Sociology. London, New York, NY: G. Allen & Unwin; Macmillan. Gergen, Kenneth. 1991. The Saturated Self: Dilemmas of Identity in Contemporary Life. New York, NY: Basic Books. Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

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Grazian, David. 2003. Blue Chicago: The Search for Authenticity in Urban Blues Clubs. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Henry, Rosita. 1999. “Performing Place: Staging Identity with the Kuranda Amphitheatre.” The Australian Journal of Anthropology. 10(3): 337–356. Hetherington, Kevin. 2000. New Age Travelers: Vanloads of Uproarious Humanity. London, New York, NY: Cassell. Hetherington, Kevin. 2001. “Consumption, Tribes and Identity.” In The Contemporary British Society Reader, N. Abercrombie and A. Warde, eds. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 241–250. Irvine, Leslie. 2000. “Even Better Than the Real Thing: Narratives of the Self in Codependency.” Qualitative Sociology. 23(1): 9–28. Riebsame, William E., ed. 1997. Atlas of the New West: Portrait of a Changing Region. Center of the American West, University of Colorado at Boulder. New York, NY: Norton. Rouner, Leroy. 1996. The Longing for Home. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Stoeltje, Beverly J. 1992. “Festival.” In Folklore, Cultural Performances and Popular Entertainments, Richard Bauman, ed. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 261–271. Turner, Victor. 1969. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Chicago, IL: Aldine. Turner, Victor, ed. 1982. Celebration: Studies in Festivity and Ritual. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Vinitzky-Seroussi, Vered. 1998. After Pomp and Circumstance: High School Reunion as an Autobiographical Occasion. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Vinitzky-Seroussi, Vered and Robert Zussman. 1996. “High School Reunions and the Management of Identity.” Symbolic Interaction. 19(3): 225–239. Wuthnow, Robert. 1994. Sharing the Journey: Support Groups and America’s New Quest for Community. New York, NY: Maxwell Macmillan International.

7

“We’ve got grit” Community resilience, displacement, and rebuilding after the flood

Lyons, Colorado The town of Lyons, Colorado is a small arts and music community of 2000 residents nestled in the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. The town’s iconic, red stone canyon walls greet the plains at the confluence of the north and south forks of the St. Vrain River (creek), named after Ceran St. Vrain, a pioneer trader. Its strategic location as the “Double Gateway” to the Rocky Mountains and Rocky Mountain National Park provides a junction point for the two main vehicle routes from Denver into the park’s east entrance. Situated 45 miles northwest of Denver, and a half-hour drive from nearby Boulder, residents carved out Lyon’s small town, blue-collar identity as a gritty and authentic alternative to its more upscale, urban neighbors. The town of Lyons initially emerged as a base for Edward S. Lyon’s sandstone quarry enterprise in the 1880s, which provided striking salmon colored, decorative rock in sturdy, uniform slabs. Seen as the perfect mate­ rial for paving growing city streets across the United States, demand for Lyons’ high-quality sandstone led to a vibrant period of economic growth for the town. Like many other western towns tethered to extractive indus­ tries, shifting market conditions and global trade fomented unpredictable cycles of boom and bust. After WWII, a growing preference for cheaper and more accessible asphalt and concrete led to a downturn in demand for the decorative sandstone. The foundering industry nearly collapsed until niche markets for the material kept the Lyons quarry afloat. Situated at the east end of town, the sandstone mining operation provided the town with its primary industry until the recession in the early 1990s again slowed demand and eroded the local economy. At that time, it was frequently described as “a one stoplight town” that tourists simply would drive through quickly on their way to Estes Park, the main tourist village serving the national park. Since 1990, however, the town has gradually embraced tourism and rebranded its identity as a com­ munity of working artists, artisans, and musicians. Anchored by a vibrant downtown, the town of Lyons paid tribute to its mining past through its iconic red stone storefront facades and decorative sandstone walkways

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along its main street. Once a “hidden” refuge for bikers, bohemians, and starving artists and musicians priced out of nearby Boulder, it has recently attracted a growing number of creative class entrepreneurs who have arrived to support a vibrant range of locally owned businesses, including several street-side cafes and “farm to fork” restaurants, a brew pub, a whiskey distillery, art galleries, and several artisan shops, featuring locally produced jewelry, crafts, and clothing. In the past 20 years, the town’s population has nearly doubled, changing its culture and character in the process. Despite its quickly gentrifying core, Lyons retains a gritty working-class identity, especially among its longtime residents. Since the mid-1990s, Lyons has also been home to Planet Bluegrass, the premier organization for bluegrass event production in the Mountain West, including the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. The organization’s iconic ranch property also serves as the festival site for the RockyGrass and Rocky Mountain Folks Festivals and hosts a range of smaller bluegrass and acoustic music concerts throughout the year. Its prominent location at the western edge of town has served as a magnet for professional and amateur acoustic musi­ cians who built a vibrant and supportive local bluegrass music scene around it.

The 2013 flood On September 9, 2013, a cold front stalled over the Front Range and dumped over 20 inches of rain on Boulder County, Colorado over an eightday span. Usually, the region features a dry, high desert climate that sports 300 days of sunshine per year, but this uncharacteristic storm delivered the county’s annual rainfall average of 16 inches in only one week, culminating in what some weather experts called a “thousand year” rain event. Lyons and surrounding mountain communities bore the brunt of the storm damage when water began cascading over the Button Rock Dam, sending torrents of water down the steep canyon walls into the valley below. As floodwater entered the city streets via the swollen St. Vrain River (creek), it splintered into multiple rivulets, flooding entire neighborhoods and marooning the tight-knit community on a string of mud-caked and debris strewn islands. The flash flooding, which produced 20 to 30 times the average water flow through the town, led to significant loss of property, including 20% of the town’s housing stock, and damaged critical water, sewer, and transporta­ tion infrastructure. Accustomed to managing an annual budget of 1 million dollars, the town administrators were suddenly faced with a 52-million­ dollar infrastructure bill and a maze of bureaucratic rules and red tape. On Thursday evening, residents reported an eerie sense that something was not quite right as they could hear the rising floodwaters through their walls and windows as rain continued to pound their saturated rooftops. Shaped by the region’s arid climate, what little precipitation falls usually comes in the form of snow during the colder winter and early spring months or from isolated thunderstorms during warm summer afternoons. In most

160 “We’ve got grit” years, prolonged periods of rain are unusual and quite unexpected. They are events that residents often met with curiosity, novelty, and, at times, uneasy attention. Several people I interviewed expressed a growing sense of unease through­ out the week of the flood as the heavy rain showed no sign of abating. Jamie, who lives up the canyon from Lyons, explained: “It just kept coming down in sheets. And coming, and coming. It was relentless. After a few days, I started to get seriously freaked out about where all of this water was going.” On Friday morning, residents who had actually fallen asleep were awoken by the eerie howl of the town’s emergency siren which alerted them to the danger of the impending flash flood and urged them to seek higher ground immediately. Those that could access the roads and were brave enough to traverse the flooded streets and bridges gathered a few important keepsakes, rounded up their children and pets, and sought shelter with friends and neighbors out of harm’s way. K.C. was out of town at the time of the flood, but her partner and several musician friends and neighbors had gathered to collect her important items and bring them to safety should the floodwaters rise and enter her house. The night of the flood we were already starting to get some rain dam­ age. We definitely needed new gutters and we had been talking about it beforehand. But now rain had started to pool around the house. This was earlier in the night and so my partner—well, I was in Moab at the time—so I said to him, “Well I’m going to bed” and he was like “Well, I’m going to be up all night.” I said, “Why?” He says, “Well, I gotta get on a ladder and fix those gutters, I mean, there’s water pool­ ing.” “Really? That can’t wait until morning?” And our crawl space was open, it had no door. And he said, “Oh, I don’t think you under­ stand how hard it’s been raining and raining. It won’t stop.” I was like, “Okay. It makes me nervous. You just be careful.” And then I went to sleep and I got a call at like one in the morning saying, “What do you want me to grab? ‘Cuz it’s happening.” I had kinda forgotten about the water damage and I was woken out of a sound sleep. I was like, “Wait, what? What are you talking about?” and then he said, y’know, “What the fuck do you want me to grab? You have to tell me now because, there’s a flood.” And there’s all these sirens, like a million different sirens in the background, it’s all I can remember. And then the voice from right across the street where town hall is, it’s so loud that even on the days that they test it you want to crawl under the bed. It’s the voice saying, “Seek higher ground immediately.” It was just bone-chilling. Miraculously, K.C.’s house emerged from the flood largely unscathed: It took everything I had not to call every five minutes. “Is there water in the house? Is there water in the house? Has the water gotten in the

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house yet?” I called a friend who lives down the street and he’s like “I’m standing here, staring at your house and the water is going … around it.” Like a fucking miracle, y’know? Like other musicians affected by the flood, Carley depended heavily on her network of neighbors, friends, and fellow musicians for mutual aid, sup­ port, and logistical assistance, especially since she was out of town when the flood occurred. She continued, And then I called someone else, and said, “Where are you?” and he said, “I’m in your living room.” So, I had quite a few people over at the house, and because it’s so close to the river, people put stuff in like five different cars, just threw things in trash-bags, and my bandmate drove it up the hill. While her home suffered little damage, her friends and bandmates recog­ nized her home was in danger of flooding and grabbed important items like photos, musical instruments, her passport, and even her dog. She explained that her personal possessions, including her musical instru­ ments, ended up in several different locations across town which made it a challenge to track down once she returned home. While Carley emerged from the flood with her possessions scattered, her property was largely unscathed. Unfortunately, others, including her neighbors in the conflu­ ence area and the iconic Planet Bluegrass Ranch further upstream, suffered significant damage.

Saving Planet Bluegrass Planet Bluegrass Ranch is the home site and working office for the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and concert venue for the RockyGrass and Rocky Mountain Folks Festival. Purchased in 1992 by owner Craig Ferguson, it has since become a social and financial anchor to the community as its iconic events bring thousands of festivalgoers and millions of dollars of rev­ enue into the town over the summer festival season. Its performance stages also provide the town access to its large event spaces that allow for celebra­ tions, weddings, civic events, and concerts throughout the year. When residents realized the ranch was under ten feet of water, it symbol­ ized the premature death of the town and its identity as a mecca for acoustic musicians. Laura, an accomplished fiddle player was fortunate to live in a house situated atop a steep cliff above the river, which kept her property out of harm’s way. Its elevated location provided her and a dozen of her evacu­ ated friends a haven to weather the storm but also a panoramic vantage point to view the flood’s destruction. Down below, she and others saw the swollen St. Vrain raging through the festival site, smothering it with murky floodwater, mud, fallen trees, boulders, and other debris. Stepping onto her

162 “We’ve got grit” deck to view the flood’s impact on the Planet Bluegrass Ranch site for the first time, she was immediately struck by its significance. Planet Bluegrass is one of the greatest things to happen to this town. It’s the hub, the spot for bluegrass, not just for Lyons, but probably for the entire country. When I was standing on the cliff watching Planet Bluegrass drowning, it was just surreal. I really couldn’t wrap my head around it. Laura explained that she knew immediately that the loss of Planet Bluegrass would be both a symbolic and material blow not just to the community, but the larger national bluegrass scene that it supported. She added, even today “When I go back to that time, my heart feels like it’s breaking.” As the floodwaters receded, the ranch site was rendered nearly unrecog­ nizable, as the festival grounds were strewn with enormous rocks, boulders, gravel, mud, and silt intermingled with twisted metal, tree limbs, and debris from the homes, buildings, and roads destroyed further upstream. The St. Vrain River had jumped its banks at the north end of the property, and had re-routed itself directly in front of the main stage, the very same space where only a month earlier festivalgoers basked in the sun, listening to bluegrass on their blankets and tarps and jamming until the wee hours of the morning. Given its centrality in the town both socially and economically, Ferguson, the executive director, owner, and full-time resident on the Planet Bluegrass ranch decided to rebuild the facility without hesitation. While many believed this move to be premature and overly optimistic, he promised that its three signature music events would proceed as scheduled for the following summer. Tongue-mostly-in-cheek, he told Bluegrass Today, an online bluegrass publi­ cation with deadpan irony: “I’m ‘just power washing the property; and eve­ rything should be ok.” For those familiar with the conditions on the ground, the promise to proceed with the 2014 festival season induced considerable skepticism given the mountainous task ahead. From that day forward it was “a full court press” to get the site ready. The town rallied around the Planet’s recovery efforts as its revival embodied the symbolic recovery of the town itself. The recovery was not simply an effort to assist a neighbor-in-need, but was a fight for the sense of place and belonging that residents and festivalgo­ ers had cultivated there for over two and a half decades. Jason, a local musician whose band has played several Planet Bluegrass festivals, was struck by the incredible task that Craig and his staff faced recovering a business and his home residence while planning for the next festival season. “Coming into Planet Bluegrass after the flood for the first time and seeing the extent of damage here, I’m thinking there is no way he is going to pull this off. He has a festival here in ten months. How is that even possible?” Jacob explained that some people who were residents lost their homes, and some that were business owners lost their businesses. But for Ferguson, he lost both simultaneously.

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Not only does Craig have his house trashed from five feet down, you know, it was full of water, he had to figure out how to live, and get eve­ rything back up and going. At the same time, he also had to figure out how to rebuild his entire business and all the infrastructure here because all the buildings were completely flooded. Jason marveled at the ability of Craig and his staff to persist through these challenges all the while doing the routine work required of pulling off three major festivals. He didn’t have to worry about just Rocky Grass and Folks Fest, he also had to worry about running the Telluride Festival in June. So here you are, doing all of this recovery work on-site, and then that’s two and a half, three weeks where you’re down in Telluride just working on that festival while trying to also get this place up and going to be ready for a month later. Chad, a Planet Bluegrass employee explained how the initial recovery operation required a “whatever it takes” attitude and a dedicated spirit of improvisation to work through physical and logistical roadblocks. We bought the backhoe on Monday morning and got right to work try­ ing to make a road to get into the property. For the first two months, I wasn’t technically supposed to be able to get in to Lyons because I wasn’t a resident. So, I dressed up like a construction worker, I put a flashing light on my truck, and I told a different story depending on who was at the checkpoint. I always managed to get in, seven days a week, for months. Planet Bluegrass’ recovery effort pulled from a range of townspeople whose expertise and access to equipment could be mobilized quickly. While bureaucratic roadblocks prevented some city workers from completing nec­ essary projects, it freed them to employ their skills and expertise elsewhere. Kyle, a public works employee reported that the town banded together in the initial days following the flood and induced an intense spirit of coopera­ tion and trust among the residents: “Since we were basically out of paid work because CDOT (Colorado Department of Transportation) never gave us any clearance, Craig asked me to bring my Bobcat over to help him clear rocks and debris from his property.” Kyle explained that the post-flood transformed what would have been formal, contractual relationships into informal ones rooted in mutual trust, given the magnitude of the situation: We never talked about a payment. There was no bidding or contract, he (Craig) just expected us to be fair … I knew it was something I had to do for the town. I figured the money would end up coming my way …

164 “We’ve got grit” In the same way, everyone in the whole town was trading services and helping each other out. We just all did what we could. We even had a 16-year-old driving a truck to haul out silt. Everyone worked together to save this place, even if we hated each other before the flood. Josef, a local restaurant owner, explained how the work and determination of the people involved in reviving Planet Bluegrass served as an inspirational model for others in town who might otherwise be daunted by the enormous task of rebuilding. It’s overstated, but the word miracle comes to mind. The organization itself, busted their asses to get the festival grounds ready for 2014, which really inspired to get things together to host this influx of festivalgoers in other parts of town. When I asked him how this work inspired residents and businesses else­ where in town, Josef added: “It was a message of ‘Ok, this is happening. We can do this.’” They saw that the volunteers and other workers on-site “didn’t mess around, and just did it. They led by example, to a certain extent.” To business owners, the progress that was being made on-site and the promise to host the festivals that next summer “told us that we really need to get thing back up and running in a hurry, because we will have to host and feed thousands of people here in a few short months.”

Disaster community In her book A Paradise Built in Hell, Rebecca Solnit (2010) describes the palpable sense of community and neighborliness that routinely emerges out of catastrophe. While commonly held assumptions presume a break­ down in social order follows soon after disaster situations, Solnit’s research provides ample counter-evidence that neighbors and strangers are far more likely to exhibit pro-social behavior and deliver various forms of mutual aid, often to complete strangers. Solnit describes that in some cases, post-disaster environments give rise to powerful moments of “disaster utopia.” Induced by collective trauma, survivors of disaster often experience a strong and powerful suspension of social boundaries that gave rise to intense feelings of communal togetherness and unity. When the physical environment is destroyed and disrupted, it is the com­ munity’s network of social relationships that become central to post-dis­ aster life, the loss of which could threaten a town’s ability to recover altogether (Erikson 1976). Brian, an employee at Planet Bluegrass, explained how the residents who remained in town immediately after the flood had experienced a deep and palpable sense of closeness to their neighbors, some of whom they did not know or in some cases did not even like.

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I remember, during the flood, people would actually verbalize the fact that “I hope this feeling never goes away.” Everybody that didn’t evacu­ ate, they had these block parties in the middle of the street where not only people knew they were invited but you’d go and knock on a neigh­ bor’s door, where you didn’t even know their first name, to make sure that they were there; there was a concerted effort among all residents to really actively include everybody, even people you might have had some sort of grudge with beforehand. For Donna, the owner of a local café, the unstaged and impromptu nature of the gathering was an unexpected but welcome sight that served to gather close-knit neighbors and remind less well-connected residents that they were a part of something larger than themselves: Right after the storm, there was a big gathering downtown of folks that stayed, didn’t evacuate right away. Then someone started handing out ice cream because all of the electricity was cut off. They had to get rid of it or otherwise it was going to melt and go to waste. It was pretty surreal. You suddenly had this big party in the middle of the street with people hugging and smiling, and kids running around all the while sur­ rounded by a complete disaster zone. She explained that the gathering was similar to what you might see during a summer festival or a downtown community celebration and provided resi­ dents with an emotional release during an otherwise uncertain time. I know a lot of people would have lost their shit (panicked) if it wasn’t for seeing familiar faces in town safe and sound, and connecting for the first time after the storm … There was this strange sense of calm that things were going to be okay when we knew that everyone was in this together. Other residents emptied their freezers and had big, impromptu barbecues in their back yards and invited anyone and everyone who remained in the town to feast on the remaining “good” food before tapping into their emer­ gency supplies or depending on food from relief kitchens. K.C. explained that one of the houses she stayed at with musician friends during the initial days and weeks after the flood cultivated a temporary though powerful sense of post-flood community. She explained that she experienced a pretty “real sense of community” after the flood with other residents riding out the recovery at a local home nicknamed the “Cowboy House”: We just had group coffee and who knows who would stop by. Those were the times when would you say like, ‘Hey who wants to come over

166 “We’ve got grit” for coffee, Wednesday morning?’ or whatever, because a lot of people weren’t really working at the time. We could all either talk about the flood or not talk about it. In contrast to her daily routine and the routines of others, “It was just like … you don’t do that. Who has time when you’re working or have a family to take care of? Maybe in other countries people, or y’know, the old men at the coffee shop who get together for two hours every morning, do this sort of thing … I really miss that.” Ray Oldenburg suggests that coffee shops and other community gathering spots like these provide a community with “third places,” those outlets outside of work and home vital for social inter­ action and civic discussion (Oldenburg 1999) that are, unfortunately, often missing in post-disaster recovery situations (Gardner 2015). Brian, the Planet Bluegrass employee likened this sense of community and collaboration emerging from the recovery period as mirroring the ethic of inclusion commonly found in a campground jam session. I hear from outsiders a lot that Lyons stuck together better than a lot of communities that have been through similar disasters and I’ve wondered if music played a role. The music created here is this kind of community music centered around bluegrass, which has this ethos of “let’s all come together. Oh, you don’t know how to play an instrument, that’s fine. Just come sing, or whatever you know.” It’s really rooted in this inclu­ sion thing. And that’s how the relief effort unfolded. People showed up, brought the skills they had and everyone gave what they could. Struggling with the deeper significance, Brian pondered the symbolism of the recovery: “I don’t know if it’s just a metaphor or if there’s something deeper going on there. but it does feel like the flood recovery has been like one big jam session.” The strong sense of community that emerged after the flood was met with a cautious enthusiasm as many residents understood how the quickly evolv­ ing conditions around them could splinter the fragile post-flood relation­ ships. Others expressed a disorienting sense of post-storm guilt that grew from the pleasure and exuberance of re-connecting with neighbors. Gene, a longtime Lyons resident and dedicated attendee of the RockyGrass and Folks festivals explained that some of the gatherings had a distinct “festival­ like atmosphere despite the gravity of the situation.” He explained that see­ ing the familiar faces all together downtown seemed oddly normal, “like we were just gathering in the campground for another festival.” As she was describing the strong sense of community that emerged after the flood, K.C. recalled a nondenominational holiday service hosted at Planet Bluegrass attended by Colorado’s Governor Hickenlooper. One par­ ticular thing he said about the impacted resident stuck with her because of its unusual message:

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He said that we’re lucky in some ways, which struck many people as kind of strange at the time until he explained it. He actually said, “I’m not saying you’re lucky. You’ve been through a lot, but in some ways, not many people get the opportunity to live through this.” How many people get to experience the kindness that we were shown and the feel­ ing of community and coming together and getting over something together? I think it’s made us all stronger. When I asked K.C. if going through the flood made the town more resilient and better prepared for future challenges, she wasn’t so sure. “More resil­ ient? Sure. But I also feel like we’re really tired right now. But I actually think it’s maybe not made us more resilient. I think we have been tested enough for now.” If the flood did not make them more resilient, I encour­ aged K.C. to explain what other significant collective impacts the flood might have induced: It’s definitely made us deeper, spiritually. A lot of people, in some ways, being totally unplugged and detached from everything that is comfort­ able, really gave people the time and space to go a little deeper. So I think that we are all better people. Resilient? I’m not sure, because we are exhausted. But I do think we all have an extra layer of grit that not everybody has. While a palpable spirit of inclusive community organized the impromptu gatherings, events, and relief activities in the early stages of the town’s recovery, not everyone felt this same sense of inclusion as the town faced a crossroads between its pre-flood identity as a haven for upstart musicians and artists and its post-flood reality that lacked affordable places for many of them to live.

Community identity: Losing a sense of place The town’s Visitor Center, a tiny, one-room brick tourist information kiosk is located just south of Main Street in Sandstone Park. On a usual day, daytrippers to Rocky Mountain National Park might pass through to use the public bathroom and explore pamphlets and posters describing the range of outdoor activities, amenities, and events throughout the region. Soon after the flood, the Visitor Center transitioned into a place where residents and visitors alike could get information about the town’s flood recovery efforts from one of the center hosts. Along with the normal display of locally inspired gifts, the Visitor Center now sold a photographic book document­ ing the flood compiled by local high-schoolers, a children’s book inspired by a miraculous flood story, a benefit CD by the Watergirls—an all-female bluegrass ensemble featuring Lyons flood survivors, and a stack of black bumper stickers to raise funds for the recovery effort. Emblazoned with

168 “We’ve got grit” the phrase “We’ve Got Grit: Lyons, Colorado,” the stickers echoed a com­ monly shared sentiment about the town and its people during the recovery process. The town’s recovery was more than simply repairing or rebuilding damaged structures but preserving the working-class ethos that anchored its identity the previous few decades. At a literal level, “grit” spoke to the multiple layers of dirt and grime that consumed the daily post-flood lives of most residents. Grit is commonly defined as “loose particles of stone or sand” which the town certainly had in abundance and ironically, the extrac­ tion of which served its main industry for over a century. But grit also ech­ oes an attitude of resilience in the face of adversity, including the “courage, resolve, strength of character” needed to weather the economic and social challenges ahead; the “true grit” that characterized the rugged and hardliving Western frontier spirit. Many of the residents I interviewed articulated a third meaning, referring to concerted efforts to reclaim the working class authenticity that enveloped the town’s pre-storm identity, especially among its starving artists and musi­ cians. In the post-flood recovery, there was a concerted effort to preserve this “grit” that was feared to be lost as displaced residents searched in vain for safe and affordable housing or simply gave up and relocated elsewhere. There was also widespread concern that the town “wouldn’t be the same” as a wealthier wave of newcomers bought up land and purchased invest­ ment properties. They feared that the gentrification of authentic community spaces and displacement of locally-owned “mom and pop” businesses that occurred with the rapid development elsewhere in the region would render the town unrecognizable to the working-class base that supported it prior to the flood. In the post-flood environment, the struggle to preserve the town’s grit became a collective struggle for place, and especially for its artists and musicians, a struggle for the town’s soul.

The struggle for affordable housing In the post-flood environment, the town of Lyons faced considerable barri­ ers to preserving and rebuilding affordable housing, which is not uncommon after major disaster situations (Bernstein, et al. 2006). But even before the flood, the town was nearing its buildable capacity due to several geographi­ cal and environmental challenges. First, Lyons is situated at the mouth of two narrow canyons with steep walls on each side, and two forks of the St. Vrain River enveloping the northern and southern borders of the town before meeting at a confluence along the western edge of its downtown residential area. The jagged topography, environmental sensitivity, and access to water within the foothills ecosystem make the development of new properties extremely difficult. Second, in terms of land use, Boulder County features a well renowned “open space” policy that buffers its towns from undesirable urban growth, development, and sprawl by purchasing large parcels of undisturbed land and protecting it from residential, commercial,

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or industrial development. A cherished community asset, these open spaces create large tracts of land that preserve sensitive natural ecosystems and retain open mountain vistas while providing easy access to parkland trails for hikers, bikers, and runners. Third, the region has experienced significant growth and development over the past several decades, largely due to its abundant sunshine and access to outdoor recreation, especially in nearby Boulder, which has led to a significant increase in housing and rental costs throughout the county. David, a national touring musician whose wife and bandmate, Enion, lost their home to the flood explained: One of the beautiful things about Lyons is the property all the way around the town is protected open space, which means you can’t build it out. And because of that, it’s a sought-after community. It can only make the prices of the town go way up, they’re going to go through the roof. It’s a great community and was a great artist town before, if any place is going to go up in value, it is this place because you can’t build it up any further. We are in close proximity to the national park, a larger city, to Boulder, Denver. And given the natural beauty, people want to be here. After the flood, there were several additional factors that compounded the scarcity of affordable housing. First, the town lost 20% of its hous­ ing stock, which was concentrated among the smaller, older, and generally more affordable bungalow and modest single-story ranch style homes near the town center. Second, the flooding significantly expanded the flood plain area which meant that homes destroyed or significantly damaged within its boundaries could not be rebuilt. This included a large trailer home commu­ nity at the western edge of town which housed a significant number of the town’s service workers, artists, and musicians. Third, the slow and compli­ cated process of filing insurance claims, applying for federal disaster assis­ tance, securing the proper permits to rebuild or repair damaged properties, and the ability to secure a reliable contractor led to significant delays in getting owner-occupied homes and rentals back online. Socially, the town also faced significant challenges including strong and sometimes vocal NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) attitudes against the potential siting of new developments, especially those that emphasized affordable housing options. As is common with forms of “disaster capital­ ism” following other catastrophes, the Lyons flood attracted several out­ side investors and developers who saw the disaster as an opportunity to scoop up undervalued properties, or replace dilapidated homes and rentals with “McMansions,” second “vacation homes,” or boutique Airbnb vaca­ tion rentals. For those whose rental properties were condemned or sold, trailer homes destroyed, trailer parks re-zoned, or modest single-family homes deemed un-rebuildable, residents described how these external forces

170 “We’ve got grit” created a palpable wedge between the “creative working class” of musicians and artisans and their often wealthier neighbors whose properties emerged undamaged. David explained that the strong sense of community and openness per­ sisted long after the flood, but began to quickly erode once the town and its people faced hard decisions about the future of affordable housing in Lyons. He explained: Neighbors and people that wouldn’t otherwise know each other suddenly knew each other and were really open-hearted and supportive of each other. And that made the town a lot closer, an enormously closer and tighter community for about six months to a year. And then it became completely divided. It was a political divide between people trying make affordable housing and open up some of the open space to accommodate some of the people we were going to lose versus the people who were not damaged, many of who were relative newcomers to town. For Devon, many newcomers did not share the same sense of intimacy and connection with the affected residents as those who had lived in Lyons before, during, and immediately after the flood. They also did not as fully understand the implications that the loss of affordable housing would have on the town and its character. For the creative working class, the lack of affordable housing and the lack of political will to build it threatened not only their livelihood, but the very culture that the town had worked so hard to cultivate. Julia, a 29-year­ old waitress at several local restaurants and cafes who lived and worked in Lyons for several years, lamented the prospect that the cultural lifeblood of the community could be irretrievably lost if the town was unable to accom­ modate its most vulnerable residents. Ironically, those responsible for pro­ ducing and sustaining the rich arts and music culture at the center of the town’s identity were the ones who were at the greatest risk of displacement. After the flood, she lamented: “We don’t have a lot of diversity as it exists now. Our musicians and artists give us that last thread of grit, or you know, street cred, that a community needs.” Like many others in the community, Julia feared that the town she came to love would not only become inac­ cessible to those that made it “weird” and interesting but would lose its working-class base that supported its fledgling artisan economy, independ­ ent local businesses, and vibrant music scene. While Julie remained hopeful that the town could address the affordable housing needs, others were more skeptical. According to Jack, a college professor and resident of one of the undamaged neighborhoods above the town reflected on the larger implica­ tions of the town’s housing crisis. It took some people living here a few years to figure out that there is a real need for affordable housing. They walk into their favorite

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restaurant or coffee shop and wonder why the staff is different than the time before and the time before that. All of those “regulars,” the serv­ ers and personalities who they came to love a place for, are now gone, and things really aren’t the same. They’ve all moved to Longmont (the larger, adjacent town) and once they find a job there, they won’t make the drive into Lyons anymore. Amanda, a local artist whose husband is a well-known singer-songwriter in the local music scene, echoed these sentiments. She pointed to the immediate displacement of her entire neighborhood in the trailer park directly across the street from Planet Bluegrass as a sign that things will never return to what they once were. For Amanda, the loss of the town’s working-class base remains a hidden casualty that will only become apparent when it is too late. I met Amanda at a local café situated on the historic downtown main street, which serves as a major gathering place for coffee, conversation, and fresh baked goods. She appeared from behind the counter, hair pulled back, wearing a vintage dress and flour splotched apron. Taking a welcome break from the hot oven, she briefly crumpled down across from me on a wellloved couch in the main seating area of the café and slowly wiped the sweat from her forehead. She let out a deep breath, as if releasing steam from a kettle. Before long, our conversation about her post-flood ordeal seemed to revive her energy, and brought her to the edge of her seat, revealing her pas­ sionate intensity for the town and its people. Describing the people who were displaced by the flood and struggled to return, Amanda explained plaintively: “The people that left were just good people, good, working-class people. When we are all gone, they will all be like ‘we just destroyed what we loved about this place.’” For Amanda, the colorful and creative people is what made the town attractive to both long­ time residents and newcomers alike, which became a “double edged sword” when properties sold to a wave of non-residents willing to pay a high price tag to live in a quaint mountain town with easy access to city amenities. Worried about the eventual gentrification of the town that will accompany the displacement of former residents, she replied wryly, “Pretty soon, it’s gonna be all puffy coats and yoga pants in this town. I’m just saying.” Amanda and other longtime Front Range residents witnessed what hap­ pened elsewhere in the region as waves of newcomers drove up rents and property values, and as property owners sold their land to national and international developers. For those who moved to Lyons from Denver, Boulder, and other Front Range communities, they knew from direct experi­ ence what it was like to be displaced from or priced out of a community they once called home. While they remained confident that the town would be able to keep out “big box” developments and other national chains as they had successfully up to this point, they feared that the arrival of newcomers, paired with a fixed housing stock meant that rents had nowhere to go but up, pricing out those clinging to the bottom of the market.

172 “We’ve got grit” I sat down with Sally, a Lyons resident of 15 years and a nationally rec­ ognized bluegrass musician in the living room of her modest and cozy rental home situated above the confluence of the north and south branches of the St. Vrain. Around the room were stashed several instrument cases, music stands, songbooks, and random pieces of recording equipment. Sally leaned back in her well-loved vintage chair and explained how the town’s musicians were impacted by the flood. She concurred with several others I interviewed that the working-class artisans of the town “make Lyons, Lyons” but that many newcomers and other residents do not make the connection between the need for affordable housing and the people who needed it. She explained, The town needs to really understand and accept that it’s ok to have lowincome people in your community. And they really need to embrace this if they want to keep Lyons as cool and as funky as it already is. Geographically, the town’s Front Range foothills location made the loss of affordable housing more acute. Situated in a narrow canyon and sur­ rounded by protected open space, the town had reached its buildable capac­ ity even before the flood arrived, leaving little available land to house those displaced from the storm. Sally explained how the geography of the town intersected with its place identity: The problem now is that there is little buildable land yet nobody wants new homes, let alone affordable housing, in their back yards. They need to accept that it’s okay to have lower-income people living in the town. Unfortunately, mobile home is a dirty word here now … Many people are proud of the musicians but don’t want to support them. Right now, they aren’t so proud of those poor people …. I still feel like the musicians are welcome here, but once we let that door crack, and let in this—I’m just going to say it—bias against poor people, it changed so much. Sally explained that many people, especially wealthier newcomers really do not realize that a $1500 per month condo is not affordable to the person who was paying $400 a month for a piece of land to park their mobile home that they owned outright before the flood. Though she is fortunate to have lived in her current home for over a decade and found herself lucky that the current owner had not raised her rent, she lamented: “I’m a renter like most musicians are in this town and if I ever lost this place, I’m gone. It’s bye-bye Lyons. It’s no longer affordable.” The loss of affordable housing means that displaced musicians faced the unfortunate decision to either wait out the lengthy and tedious process of moving back home or moving on altogether. She continued, They can’t afford to stay in limbo. People don’t often realize that most musicians live in a perpetual state of poverty. Most don’t have a salary

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or a 401k (retirement fund). They don’t just live paycheck to paycheck, they live gig to gig, which can be completely unpredictable, especially after a flood or major crisis. For musicians who relied on a steady and predictable set of paying gigs, the overall disruption in their personal life coupled with the social disruption of the town was often too much to shoulder. K.C. reported that a common question to her and others in her situation was “Well, what did you lose?” But it was never so easy for musicians to answer nor was it easy for nonmusicians to understand, especially when their losses were cast not in terms of tangible, material possessions but in terms of canceled gigs and lost work. A lot of the media wanted to know what people lost. They understand what it’s like to lose a house, or an antique, heirloom instrument. It’s a bit more difficult to understand it when a musician says “I lost $1200 of gigs” because either they were trapped here and couldn’t get to their gigs or their gig got canceled because it was flooded. She explained that these physical items could be eventually replaced, but lost work cannot be as easily recovered, thus making the stakes more imme­ diate and pressing. She explained that for the people who rely on and play music for a living missing out on a couple weeks of gigs was really difficult for them. Especially when you’re already on the edge, your life is built on a house of cards anyway, and you’re always riding the line of making it and not making it. Something like (the flood) can really just push people over the edge. For those in this situation, making a rent or house payment or paying for repairs while waiting for insurance reimbursement was an untenable situa­ tion, leaving many to walk away from their homes and relocate. Fortunately, some musicians could tap into a vast storehouse of social capital accumu­ lated through their participation in the local music scene.

Tapping into scene networks After the flood, musicians tapped into the strong and weak social ties (Granovetter, 1973) cultivated within their music scene networks. They utilized these forms of social capital and leveraged their status as musi­ cians directly through fundraisers and appeals to help but also indirectly through their public profile to bring attention to the town and its struggles. The density of musicians in the town and their extended fan base served as critical resources as the Lyons moved from flood to recovery. As one resi­ dent explained, “you could throw a pebble anywhere in this town and have

174 “We’ve got grit” a good chance of it hitting a musician, whether they be casual pickers or nationally known touring artists.” Many used their status and role as musi­ cians and their skill in developing broad networks of bandmates and col­ laborators to mobilize direct assistance with the flood recovery, whether it be moving recording equipment, providing temporary shelter, sharing food and other resources, or simply just emotional support. I met with David and Enion, a married musician couple who lost their home in the confluence area after the 2013 flood, at a small, funky coffee house and breakfast spot situated on a quiet street and a short walk between Planet Bluegrass and downtown Lyons. This café served as a key meeting spot for locals during the days immediately following the flood as people regrouped and planned their next steps. This particular morning, they were playing live, acoustic music for a small brunch audience of locals and those in town for the RockyGrass Academy through the open “garage” style track doors and onto the covered patio out front. While they are well known in the local area, David and Enion are also national touring musicians who used Lyons as their home base, which is where they wrote and recorded a lot of their original acoustic music. After their gig, we sat at a small vintage table in the center of the res­ taurant portion of the café, as the brunch crowd began to dissipate, to talk about their experience after the flood and through the recovery phase. Enion, a classically trained violin player with a unique “gypsy jazz” tonality to her fiddle style, exuded a quiet and thoughtful intensity while reflecting on the flood. She explained that the flood impacted the ability of the music scene and its musicians to stay in town “in a big way,” especially as it exacerbated ongoing financial pressures on younger and less established musicians: Even before the flood, there was a pressure among some of the younger artists and musicians who had to move out of town because it was get­ ting less affordable. Because most of the housing that was lost due to the flood was lower income, lower middle class housing and rentals, a lot of people had to move out of town and unfortunately, most of those people were artists and musicians. David, her partner, a lanky, expressive mandolin player, is a bit more direct. He explains how the flood impacted different types of musicians, including themselves. The big difference I see is that professional and somewhat success­ ful musicians can afford to live here. Originally, we had young peo­ ple wanting to be in a scene and were always around, casually picking (playing music). But now the people that live here are musicians with successful bands who know each other and sit in with each other at gigs … It’s basically people out there making a living and doing this for years, people that are stable versus those that might be really good but

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are in the earlier stages of putting things together, the flood has been difficult for them. As time goes by, Enion explained that more musicians are moving back as housing becomes available, but “a lot of people couldn’t just wait around indefinitely” and moved to adjacent towns or away altogether. David interjected: People aren’t going to stick around and wait. Artists just can’t go and float somewhere indefinitely. We’re all sort of gypsies anyway and have to go where ever you have to go to make a living … But you might lose access to a great community to live in. While established professional musicians benefited from the residential stability and entrenched scene networks their status bestowed, the loss of their home, including much of their recording equipment and several instru­ ments, sent David and Enion into a limbo of uncertainty. David reported that this sudden and unexpected situation took away their home and their livelihood in one blow: Losing our house, that’s the real travesty because without notice, we are suddenly thrown into a situation where we are starving, we are sud­ denly not sure how we are going to make our living, that was the scary part of all of this. While they lost their home and much of their equipment, they benefited from the broad safety net provided by the social networks they cultivated within the local music scene and beyond. Their deep stock of social capital provided them with a nation-wide network of musicians, fans, and friends that they could lean on for financial and emotional support. We got a lot of support, probably as much support than anybody, because people knew us and because of the music community and artist community wanted to support us. And we needed it. That itself, to be honest, is probably the biggest factor impacting our recovery. We prob­ ably lost as much as anybody else, financially, but we just got so much support from so many people, emotionally and financially. I first heard about their situation from a fellow musician’s social media post seeking to “crowdsource” funds through Gofundme.com to assist with David and Enion’s recovery, which was then shared and reposted over one thousand times to various walls, groups, discussion boards, business pages, and fan forums on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Over time, I even began seeing my social media contacts outside of the acoustic music com­ munity posting and sharing calls to contribute to their relief efforts. In total,

176 “We’ve got grit” they raised over $20,000 from 245 different individuals, most of which had some connection to their music or their fan network. The outpouring of support was not isolated to David and Enion’s recov­ ery. Affected musicians and scene members used both formal and informal relationships across their friend and fan networks to raise funds for the town’s recovery and provide social, economic, and emotional support. For example, Nederland, Colorado’s Yonder Mountain String Band used their national reputation to raise $60,000 for the flood recovery effort in Lyons and at Planet Bluegrass, a portion of which was used to re-sod the festival grounds. In the weeks after the flood, local musicians created the Lyons Musician Relief Fund which was used to collect individual contributions and benefit proceeds from individuals and events as far away as Nashville and New Orleans and to distribute these funds to struggling local musicians. These funds were used to replace damaged equipment, provide rental assis­ tance, or support the flood recovery of displaced and returning musicians, many of whom lost homes, gigs, equipment, merchandise, or were without their regular income for several months. Musicians and their networks also provided immediate post-storm sup­ port by providing offers for temporary shelter, food, lodging, supplies, instruments, or other resources. At Planet Bluegrass, fans, neighbors, and musicians pitched in and provided support to ensure the organization and festival site would survive. For musicians and festivalgoers who had a long­ time, ongoing relationship with their festivals, saving “The Planet” was an urgent concern. Brian, a community outreach coordinator for Planet Bluegrass explained. It seems like people from all over are wanting to follow what’s going on in Lyons because they have this sense of attachment, especially if they’ve played a festival here or attended as a fan. In fact, a million dollars was raised by the Community Foundation in a couple months. It’s pretty remarkable. And you have to feel like the support from music lovers and musicians from all over the country was a big part of that.

The role of professional musicians I first met Brian, a hobby guitar, banjo, and dobro player through an inter­ mediate guitar workshop at the RockyGrass Academy and came to know him through the years as we crossed paths during the festival’s nightly jam sessions. Brian initially served as a festival volunteer, running sound and other tasks until he was eventually hired by Planet Bluegrass to coordinate community relationships for the festival. He explained that working in a small organization for over a decade, he has had his hands in all areas of the operation including booking bands and running sound equipment. A few months after the 2014 RockyGrass, we met at Planet Bluegrass to discuss the town’s recovery and the role played by the festival. Sitting at a

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picnic table atop the newly sodded lawn area near the reconstructed banks of the St. Vrain that ran through the festival ranch property, we discussed the role that musicians and festivalgoers played in the town’s recovery. Brian explained that their overwhelming response to the flood and the following year’s festivals provided not only a financial boost to the organization but the town as well. “There was so much gratitude from fans and friends of Planet Bluegrass in terms of financial contributions, requests to volunteer, and just messages of encouragement. It’s pretty clear this place really means a lot to a lot of people.” The town’s plight and the future of Planet Bluegrass were not only on the minds of festivalgoers but also on the minds of the impressive list of well-known professional musicians. Brian explained that their long and ongoing relationship with Planet Bluegrass festivals and the towns of Telluride and Lyons created a sense of urgency to contribute when and where they could: They had been coming and playing here in Lyons for 20 years. People like Sam Bush, Tim O’Brien have played our festivals almost every sin­ gle year. So they really did want to do everything they could to help us out. Chris Thile had to be paid for his sets because there’s agents and things involved, but then he turned around and gave his check right back to us for the opening set at Telluride. Alison Krauss re-routed her tour to be able to play Rockygrass, which would have been the smallest venue she played all summer and playing for a dramatic pay cut and doing it after the festival sold out. And at Folks Fest too, Ani DiFranco came back to play and was just overcome, just so moved by playing here again—she played the first (Folks) festival here in Lyons back in ‘94. So she had been around every five years or so and she had kinda seen the evolution of the town and the festival. So It was so important for her to play this festival. She even high-fived Steve (festival coordinator), and she’s a reserved person, y’know? Brian indicated that for many musicians, it wasn’t enough to send a mes­ sage of good luck, or provide a financial contribution, but to arrange their schedule to attend one of the 2014 summer festivals: So a lot of people were really moved by the significance of this year’s festivals. It’s really kind of a gift, you know, they wanted to see it, just to be around to witness it. And I think they all appreciated that it would be such an energizing, inspiring thing to be at this year’s festival. Brian explained that their active participation in the 2014 events and inclu­ sion on the festival lineup raised the profile of Planet Bluegrass’ scheduled events and helped to expedite ticket sales, which were used to directly fund the necessary repairs at the Planet Bluegrass ranch.

178 “We’ve got grit” The energy and attention invested by fans and musicians constituted a symbolic struggle to preserve an enduring sense of place. It was clear that Lyons and the Planet Bluegrass Ranch was an important part of their lives, even if only one they experienced directly for a week or weekend out of the year. Their physical, social, and emotional attachment to place manifested itself in a deep desire to return, even if after several years’ absence to support the town and see first-hand what had transpired. Gary, a longtime festival attendee and campground musician from California who had missed several years due to a busy summer schedule for his growing children explained that he “needed to get back” and “see what had happened to this place that has been so much a part of me.” He reported that when he saw the initial flood images on TV and on social media, his “heart skipped a beat and left a tremendous hole” after seeing a beloved place and area of the country to which he had developed such a strong connection. “Coming back was pretty cathartic for me. Parts of the festival and town were surely different, but it eased my mind to know both were not going to simply go away after the flood.” Realizing that the town still had a long way to recover, he explained how the trip back gave him a better picture of what the town endured. I made a point to walk around town and talk to some of the folks I got to know over the years, including some of the neighbors, shop keepers, restaurant owners and such. It’s pretty clear to me now what the town is up against and how there are still a lot of people here struggling.

Planet Bluegrass: Symbolic and financial anchor As the first post-flood RockyGrass festival and the one-year anniversary of the flood crept closer, the town and its residents walked a cautious line between commemorating or memorializing the disaster and celebrating the town’s achievements for the flood anniversary. This was quite difficult for residents and local businesses who felt a need to simultaneously celebrate the recovery while paying respect to families who lost loved ones or property during the storm. For many residents who lived in the confluence area and other areas that received heavy property damage, the flood disaster was ongoing and still unfolding months and even years after the storm. For these residents, the flood was neither over nor something to celebrate. Carley explained that there is this “underlying pang” across the town, a tacit understanding that “you can’t enjoy it too much because we’re not all home yet.’ While attending the free benefit concert there the day before the start of the 2014 RockyGrass Festival, I spoke with Brenda who was visibly con­ flicted and upset about the choice of using this site for the event. A former resident of the Riverbend Mobile Home Park, she lost her singlewide trailer to the flood and felt that the land’s transformation into a park and its use for the pre-festival concert were both premature and wholly inappropri­ ate. She attended the festival because she knew a lot of former neighbors

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who were attending, many of whom she hadn’t seen or connected with in months. However, her experience there was bittersweet: Having a concert here [in the new waterfront park that was the former trailer park] is really surreal … No, actually it’s a huge slap in the face to those who lost homes here. For many of us, this is where we lost eve­ rything and where our lives were turned upside down. And to have peo­ ple here sipping wine, oblivious—many of them complete outsiders who think of Lyons as a cute little music town—it’s just really disrespectful. I know some of them have no clue about where they are standing and are not meaning any harm, but this whole thing really leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Other mobile park neighbors voiced similar concerns about the initial use of the land for a temporary municipal park, a wedding venue, and now a tiny house resort. Steven, a former resident of Riverbend explained the painful irony. Here we lost a whole community of people who are now struggling to survive and struggling to get back to Lyons. We were told that we can’t rebuild our trailer homes here because the property is unsafe—it’s now in the floodplain. Steven explained that the town desperately needed affordable housing but the lack of political will and the stigma associated with trailer parks shaped how the land was ultimately used and for whose benefit. “If the town wants to use (Riverbend) to host weddings, or turn it into a campground for the festival, or build tiny houses for wealthy tourists? That’s okay apparently.” While some residents were conflicted by the flood of outsiders into the festive, party atmosphere of RockyGrass, especially while so many people continued to struggle, others highlighted the long overdue emotional release that the festival would provide the town as a whole. While discussing the upcoming festival with Scott, a town maintenance worker, he mentioned that everyone needed a well-deserved break from the town’s long and at times contentious recovery process. Resting for a moment near his idling backhoe, he observed: “The entire town hasn’t breathed for nearly ten months now, and it’s taken a toll. It’s finally time for folks to let loose and breathe out (at the festival).” Embedded in Lyons’ sense of place is a ritualized sense of time. Summer is festival season across the American West, but on Planet Bluegrass, June is Telluride, July Is RockyGrass, and August is the Folks Festival. Late spring and early fall included a range of special events including Yonder Mountain’s Kinfolk Festival, the Irish themed Festival of the Maebon, the Wildflower Pavilion Concert series, among various others. Local residents tune their cal­ endars around these busy weekends and either skip town to avoid the crowds,

180 “We’ve got grit” hunker down and lie low, or stick around and immerse themselves in the temporary festivarian invasion along Main Street toward Planet Bluegrass. For those that stay and embrace the throngs of festivalgoers, it serves as a welcome diversion of daily routines and becomes an extended weekend filled with music and festive reunions with longtime friends and familiar faces. As a ritualized event, it serves as an important marker of time and a predictable source of town pride to show off Lyons in all its glory. Many local businesses and restaurants plan for and depend on the summer festival season to increase their revenue and buffer their sales during the slower, calmer winter months. After the flood, the uncertain future of Planet Bluegrass and its festivals made their dramatic return even more poignant sign that things might eventually “return to normal.” Brian, the employee for Planet Bluegrass explained the emotional lift that the 2004 festival provided: The return of the Rockygrass Festival was a powerful, powerful week­ end. But for local people, I think it was especially emotional … they mark time, year by year with these festivals. So for residents to come back and see that this can happen again, it was huge. I think that people can translate that hopefulness to other aspects of the town, whether that’s the houses we lost or the parks. For town residents, given its role as the symbolic and financial anchor for Lyons, the recovery of Planet Bluegrass and the RockyGrass Festival was tantamount to the recovery of the town as a whole. The stakes were high, and Planet Bluegrass staff understood the pressure they were under. Brian explained, Financially, it was huge. Festival weekends are the biggest weekends of the year for the town, given the spotlight that those weekends shine on Lyons. And this year especially, in our world of many, many dark stories, it was like the feel-good weekend. While the Festival would provide a financial boost to the struggling town, its businesses, and once robust music scene, they also knew that the symbolic and emotional impact of its returning would be especially intense but also potentially cathartic and Brian elaborated. There are a lot of music events throughout the year that sustain the local scene, but the festivals are definitely the big ones that bring everyone together. So for Rockygrass to come off and for people to come from all over the country, it was really important for Planet Bluegrass and for the town. For residents directly affected by the disaster, the opportunity to tell their story to others who were genuinely concerned and interested was a welcome Explaining the cathartic nature of the weekend, Brian added.

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I think it was a nice opportunity too, for the people in the community to be able to tell their story to other people beyond just local Coloradoans. At Rockygrass, there was a lot of catharsis in that. Like sitting down on your tarp and the person next to you saying, “Oh you’re from Lyons? Oh, how did it go?” and have a chance to talk to someone who genu­ inely cared and wanted to listen. While the news cycle had shifted beyond Lyons to the next natural or politi­ cal disaster, the opportunity to talk about and show others how the town was impacted was a powerful opportunity to demonstrate their resilience in the face of adversity. Immediately after the flood, there was this big rush. People wanted to come to Lyons and see the disaster and people kept coming and vol­ unteering and found out that there’s amazing stuff happening. But the masses had kind of forgotten about it a little bit and it had fallen off their radar. Brian explained that the return of next year’s festival so quickly after the flood provided a timely reminder of the challenges the town had gone through as well as a visible, tangible success, but also an opportunity to educate the uninformed: “Among the visiting artists and festivarians, so many of them probably just didn’t realize how bad things were.” Every festival season, there is usually significant coverage of the summer festival lineup in local and regional daily newspapers and various weekly music and arts magazines. But this particular year brought additional atten­ tion to the town as onlookers across the country had monitored the pro­ gress to see if Craig’s promise would come to fruition. In fact, PBS News Hour filmed a feature segment on the festival and its role in the recovery during its nightly national broadcast. Brian explained the significance of this narrative: To have a success story on the other end, which was not like comple­ tion, but certainly a message that “Good things are happening” was an important one to tell. Then, people wanted to come and see the town and the festival firsthand, to see “wow, how did they pull this off?”

Emotional catharsis The 2014 RockyGrass event was officially billed by Planet Bluegrass as a “rebirth celebration.” While the inaugural post-flood festival provided a time to celebrate successes, it also provided musicians with a venue, a voice, and a vehicle to express that many musicians and residents had still not returned to their homes at that point. During the Sunday morning gospel set during the 2014 RockyGrass, The Watergirls delivered a stirring ren­ dition of the song “A Little Rain,” penned by band member Sally Truitt.

182 “We’ve got grit” Assembled as a full band for the first time only a few months earlier for a flood themed TEDx Denver event, The Watergirls was an all-female string band of Lyons musicians impacted by the flood. After a few impromptu practice sessions which not all members could attend, their three-song per­ formance of river songs brought the crowd to their feet in tears, and led to the creation of their benefit compact disc, the proceeds of which served the Lyons Musicians Relief Fund. At their RockyGrass performance, each member of the group added some ironic relief when they appeared on the main stage wearing dresses with rubber rain boots and between songs, when they introduced and identified themselves by their FEMA numbers. Like many around him, Jason found this moment to be particularly emotional, especially when KC Groves, the bandleader framed their performance: She said, ‘You know you guys are here and you’ve seen how the town and the festival has come back, and a lot of it has come back, but there’s still a big section of this town that has not come back.’ (emphasis hers). It was a pretty powerful moment. They brought up musicians in the town who still were not able to move back home and their kids and they all came up and that drives the point home pretty good. Just that whole set was probably one of the most emotional sets I’ve ever seen. Because they were singing about our community and showing the strength of our community, it really just brought it all home. It was a powerful, powerful experience to see a band of your friends and your community right there on stage, people that haven’t been able to move back. It was a pretty deep moment. For many musicians, whether on tour or in the studio, their craft pro­ vided a cathartic, creative outlet to channel their emotions and energies after the flood. In addition to their involvement with fundraisers and benefit concerts, several area bands cut new songs with explicit reference to the flood, or released flood themed albums. However, there wasn’t always a clear or direct path between the flood and its influence their music. David explained that after the flood, he and his partner Enion were “in more of an emotionally open state” that catalyzed the creative process. He explained how musicians were equipped with not only the tools to process the raw emotion of the experience, but also the capacity to produce new material: “We were in a really creative period, both of us, and ended up recording a record around the poetry of our experi­ ence. As musicians, music writing people, we could access the experi­ ence pretty directly, and it just came out.” He explained that translating the experience of losing a home and possessions was often not a literal or linear process that was reflected directly through their music. David explained:

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There was a point that we were so looked at, and we were in the center of it because we were one of the hardest hit and we are also some of the more visible people in town because a lot of people know us through our music … It wasn’t like a death, but it shook our foundation quite a bit. It was pretty overwhelming. And writing songs about “oh, look what happened to me” felt really wrong. I wrote a number of songs like that, and they just got put on the side. That’s not what I wanted to put out there. I wanted to put out a story of experience through another character about something that we shared in our experience as a com­ munity. So, some of my songs were more mythological in that respect than those that were more direct, like: (singing) “My house got hit by a river, pulled downstream and buried, we swam and got out alive.” It wasn’t like that at all. His wife and recording partner Enion elaborated that despite a conscious desire to write music about their experience, the more authentic route was to let it simply percolate naturally from their situation. At first, we were like, this big thing happened and we should write songs about it; maybe not our own experience, but the catastrophe as it hap­ pened to the town. I think we both wrote some songs about the flood pretty directly, but they didn’t seem as genuine as the songs that just came out more organically. Beyond the financial, volunteer, and logistical help that musicians and music fans provided, the vibrant social networks they cultivated in the local blue­ grass scene and the ritual nature of their weekly jam sessions and regular town concerts allowed them to reconnect rather quickly after the flood. K.C., a mandolin player who hosts a Tuesday night jam in a large dining room area at Oskar Blues, a local brew pub and restaurant explained how the jam provided an immediate, though partial return to normalcy for those in the throes of the flood recovery: So, it was less than a week after the flood, and several of us wanted to have our Tuesday night jam. We just couldn’t not have it. We’ve hosted our Tuesday night jam for ten years and we’ve never missed a Tuesday ever. Well, I think once it landed on Christmas and once it landed on New Year’s Eve, and we still actually considered having it. So I called Dale (the brewery owner) and I was like, “We cannot, we cannot miss a Tuesday. Can we do the Lyons Jam but in Longmont at one of your other restaurants?” And he was like, “Absolutely, and how about we make it a fundraiser?” I was like, “That’s a great idea!” So we got the word out about it, and Molly O’Brien came up and the Wernick’s (Pete and Joan) were there, everybody was there. Oh my god, it was so crowded.

184 “We’ve got grit” Because everyone in the town was evacuated and dispersed, the relocated jam was the first opportunity many people had to see each other. It was literally just the first place the whole fucking community could get together. It was a very powerful night … And people just realized how important Tuesday night is to people and their routines. It’s not just the Oskar Blues here in town, we could really just jam anywhere; though they’re the ones that started it and it’s like home, but it’s about the people and getting together every Tuesday, like “Hey, how’s it goin’?” or “Hey, I hear you’re gonna retire.” or “How’s your grandkid?” It’s kinda an older crowd. And, y’know, we celebrate each other’s birthdays and stuff. The Jam is kinda like another family, y’know? This time it’s a Tuesday night family. Brian added that without the music scene, the town would have had a far rougher and longer road to recovery. He explained: The Lyons music community is a major factor in the town’s ability to heal and overcome many of its challenges. There’s just so much stuff going on like the Concerts in the Park series at Sandstone Park this year were awesome and brought a lot of people back together. The concert series allowed displaced residents a reason to return, and for those who remained, it provided a chance to meet up and talk through their situation with their friends and neighbors. For others, it was a welcome distraction during which they could just “put their struggles aside and hang out for a few hours.” The routine work required of musicians to market themselves via social media and connect with fellow musicians for gigs, jams, recording oppor­ tunities, and other forms of collaboration created a built-in infrastructure of social capital that they mobilized quickly in the post-flood environment. K.C. described that musicians in town are such skilled networkers. It’s all about your email list and getting the word out, so we have these built-in networks of people. Yeah, that’s our bread and butter right there; our networks, our fans basically. We already have a captive audience, more or less. While these networks were especially strong within the local community, they extended outward to fans, friends, and family across the country and brought sustained attention and assistance to the flood and recovery long after the initial media attention had waned. K.C. explained that the impromptu fundraiser during the first Tuesday night jam after the flood catalyzed the Lyons Musician Relief Fund, raised a significant amount of money to assist local musicians impacted and displaced by the flood. She

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reported that “that night alone we raised like four-thousand dollars, by passing the bucket. People were just droppin’ in hundreds and checks for five-hundred. It was a huge outpouring of support.” Shortly thereafter, when people outside the area heard about the jam “they were like, ‘Well I want to donate and I didn’t get to go to the jam’ or ‘I don’t live in Colorado. How do I donate?’” Jason, a carpenter and accomplished guitarist lives in Lyons with his wife and two school-aged children. We met several years back when he was a regular guest at our nightly campground jam circle at RockyGrass. With a long ponytail mane and impressive goatee, his small and wiry stature gave way to a wildly energetic and soulful, bluesy presence with a guitar in his hand. When we reunited at the 2014 festival, his hair was trimmed into an array of short wispy spikes and he sported a modern pair of glasses, giving him an air of casual professionalism. He now gigs regularly with his touring bluegrass band and explained how his status as a musician was a doubleedged sword after the storm. On one hand, it provided immediate access to a safety net or people and resources ready to lend a helping hand. He explained that especially when the flood crisis was unfolding, the chaos and uncertainty “really brought people together.” He explained: In those early days, you had musicians from all over the community and surrounding communities come in and help alongside those in this community and just clean up. People that couldn’t come here and do work or donate money were then networking and getting information out to others who could. Jason explained even for those musicians who did not play music together or know each other well, there was a strong common bond that united them. He reflected: I remember, in the months and weeks afterwards, even if musicians didn’t really know each other, there was just this common bond anyways. It just made me feel even greater meeting people I’d never talked to before because we were both musicians even though we didn’t really know each other. There was just a certain sense, like this brotherly, sis­ terly kind of companionship and you’re feeling for each other because you all know you’re going through the same thing together. While some musicians benefited from their notoriety and exposure and the strength of their scene networks, many also faced particular financial diffi­ culties. Despite the enormous task of repairing his water damaged home, he needed to continue booking and playing gigs to support his family’s income after missing a month and a half of work, which took him and others in his situation out of town regularly after the flood. “I mean when you miss that much work, there is a lot of money that is not coming in and the bills never

186 “We’ve got grit” go away. That’s the thing about being a musician, you almost have to make your gigs at all costs.” He explained that despite the frustration of leaving his repairs on hold, the two months of gigs he had scheduled allowed him to get away from all this here and go play some music and basically, to get out of my head … it’s that rejuvenation kind of thing. Being a musician in a working band allowed me to just let my guard down and relax a lit­ tle bit, you know, just get away because if I didn’t have that I would’ve stayed here and kept working myself to the bone. As a member of a working band, Jason also mentioned that his oppor­ tunity to tour after the storm provided him and musicians like him addi­ tional opportunities to share his experiences with a fan base beyond the local region. When I asked him if the town would have recovered as effec­ tively without its vibrant music scene, he answered with an immediate and resounding “no.” After a pause, he elaborated: Because musicians and artists by nature rely on their fan networks, their community in this day and age goes far and wide. We all have our net­ works of people that we know around the country and the world and because of social media we were able to get the word out … the whole country knew about (the flood). When returning to his childhood hometown for a scheduled gig only a few days after the flood, he was floored, but not unexpectedly so, by the response of his fans: Even the gigs that weekend in Missouri when we went back, fans put a hat out and gave a bunch of money to come back into the commu­ nity for whatever use we could find for it. We brought back an extra grand or something like that. For my hometown concert so there were people coming up to me and contributing but then we also had the separate bowl for some extra change that said, “please put in some extra change to go back to Lyons to help the community.” And it was not just us. Pretty much anyone who lived in or had a strong connec­ tion to Lyons was doing a fundraiser. They just spread out and raised awareness and like, you see your friends on CNN you know and they’re being described as Lyons musicians and that helped bring even more awareness. It wasn’t some random little town in Oklahoma or Kansas or North Dakota that got flooded, you know. It’s not going to get the same attention as Lyons did because of where we are and the musicians that live here. Touring musicians like Jason who lived in or had meaningful ties to the town and its music scene became ambassadors of sorts, spreading the word

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about the conditions in Lyons and in the process, collecting funds that would help defray their mounting expenses and for their musician friends back home. Lyons is well known as a musical community so we got some donations in from all over and that kind of got spread around according to need for various people in town. So being a musician was beneficial in this weird way. The money isn’t something any of us would have sought out but, you know, we really needed it. For Jason, the arrival of unexpected funds allowed him to hire additional help to assist with his home repairs while he was with his band on the road. However, being on the road provided its own benefits for touring musicians. He explained that being away from Lyons for weeks at a time provided a psychological release and allowed him to process the enormity of the dam­ age to his property and the community as a whole. In hours, days, weeks, and months after the flash flood siren called people to higher ground, the 2013 flood recovery tested the “grit” and fortitude of the Lyons community. Residents tapped into a strong network of communal ties, a significant portion of which grew out of the deep musical and artistic roots that fed the small, quirky town. As a hub for its iconic acoustic music scene, the survival and revival of Planet Bluegrass played a key social and economic role in sustaining public attention to the evolving needs of the flood ravaged community. The portable community formed each summer within the ranch boundaries, and radiated outward into the vibrant local music scene, proved a vital sense of place and continuity for the struggling town. It gave festivalgoers something to preserve and to fight for, and for both musi­ cians and residents, it provided a stage to convey their deep emotional con­ nection to place as they struggled for the town’s identity and soul. For many Lyons residents and the loyal festivalgoers who returned there each summer, the portable community relationships they cultivated on blue plastic tarps in front of the main stage or at late-night jam sessions in the festival camp remained durable during the food event and throughout the town’s recovery.

Works cited Bernstein, Mark A, Julie Kim, Paul Sorensen, Mark Hanson, Adrian Overton and Scott Hiromoto. 2006. “Affordable Housing and Lessons Learned from Other Natural Disasters.” In Rebuilding Housing Along the Mississippi Coast: Ideas for Ensuring an Adequate Supply of Affordable Housing. Santa Monica, CA; Arlington, VA; Pittsburgh, PA: RAND Corporation, 7–16. Erikson, Kai. 1976. Everything in Its Path: Destruction of Community in the Buffalo Creek Flood. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster. Gardner, Robert Owen. 2015. “The Emergency Community: A GrassRoots Model for Post Disaster Redevelopment.” In Disasters’ Impact on Livelihoods and

188 “We’ve got grit” Cultural Survival: Losses, Opportunities, and Mitigation, Michèle Companion, ed. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. Taylor and Francis Group. 257–268. Granovetter, Mark S. 1973. “The Strength of Weak Ties.” American Journal of Sociology. 78(6): 1360–1380. Oldenburg, Ray. 1999. The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of the Community, 3rd ed. New York, NY: Marlowe & Company. Solnit, Rebecca. 2010. Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster. London: Penguin.

Conclusion The quest for community and place in the New West

I started this project with a relatively straightforward purpose: I wanted to better understand the meaning-making processes of those diehard fans of bluegrass music and festival culture who seek out and build vibrant port­ able communities in festival campgrounds across the contemporary American West. In the previous chapters, I traveled through the early days of bluegrass music and charted its path to the “New West,” where festivalgoers have been converging on rural, mountain communities for the past four decades to cul­ tivate an enduring sense of place, community, and identity within the festival camp. In the spaces between, I examined how individuals attracted to blue­ grass music and culture sought out the bluegrass festival as an “authentic,” mobile alternative to the anomic, isolating forces of daily life. After the historic flooding of Lyons, Colorado in 2013, I discovered that these temporary, portable communities provided an enduring presence as bluegrass music and its festival culture equipped the town and its residents with distinct practical tools, relationships, and resources that helped to reori­ ent their social world, rebuild frayed connections, and restore a lost sense of place. In this concluding chapter, I return to the themes and theories intro­ duced earlier in this study to explain how the bluegrass festival movement in the New West draws from symbols of tradition to grapple with the challenge of community, place, and identity in an increasingly fragmented society.

Courting community and place in a fragmented world Every summer, festivalgoers across the West and beyond fled their routine surroundings toward the open and welcoming environs of the festival camp. As described in earlier chapters, they made their annual pilgrimages to iso­ lated mountain music parks seeking environments that promote norms of reciprocity, authenticity, and self-expression that their work and home lives increasingly failed to provide. Explaining the challenge of community in the contemporary world, Richard Florida (2002) writes: Where old social structures were once nurturing, they are now restrict­ ing. Communities that once attracted people now repel them. Our

190 Conclusion evolving communities and emerging society are marked by a greater diversity of friendships, more individualistic pursuits, and weaker ties within the community. People want diversity, low entry barriers, and the ability to be themselves … The people in my focus groups rarely wished for the kinds of connectedness (Robert) Putnam (2000) talks about. If anything, they were trying to get away from these kinds of environments. Sure, they wanted community, but not to the extent that they were inhibited from living their own life and being themselves. Responding to these challenges, dedicated festivalgoers sought out the fes­ tivals’ camp as a space to create novel, portable forms of community that required neither the weighty commitment nor the burdensome institutional demands characterizing traditional forms of community. In their portable community, festivalgoers valued their autonomy over stifling communal demands, weak over strong ties, low over high barriers to entry, and mobil­ ity over geographical stability. Consistently in interviews and conversations, festivalgoers expressed a longing for inclusive, intimate, and simple forms of gemeinschaft (commu­ nity) that eluded many of the new suburban developments and gentrified rural towns that dominated the New West landscape, so they tapped the personal freedoms that their mobility afforded them to seek it elsewhere. Terkenli (1995) argues that the rise of geographical mobility and the “leg­ acies of industrialization and urbanization that are the basis of moderniza­ tion have resulted in the loss of physical community or region as home” (332) and disrupted the sense of community that existed in traditional locales. Because of this increasing mobility, he argues “the social world of the neighborhood and village are now less important as transitional zones between home and non-home settings” (332). Though certainly cor­ rect in his assertion that these forces have irrevocably altered the face of residential forms of community, Terkenli does not consider the grow­ ing impulse to seek communities untethered from geographically stable, rooted locales that often emerge within the transitional zones away from home and work. Eschewing the formal obligations or commitment required of permanent, residential neighborhoods, festivalgoers often spoke about their festival camps as if they were neighborhoods. However, many scholars argue that a community defined by an absence of formal commitment or institutional involvement is hardly a community at all. And when members of portable communities pick up and create forms of community outside of their imme­ diate geographical locales, their involvement in local politics, neighborhood activities, and public service necessarily wane (Putnam 2000). However, festivalgoers worked hard to maintain the relationships and memories they cultivated from one festival to the next. The most dedicated among them arranged their work and vacation schedules to ensure consistent attendance from festival to festival, year to year and built a significant portion of their

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lives around their mobile community of friends and “festival families.” As such, festivalgoers repeatedly used the words “community” or even “fam­ ily” to describe their close relationship to the people and physical spaces of the festival and festival campground. Others argue that the portable community formed at the festival sim­ ply provides a sense of communion, a purely psychic entity, rather than a true community, rooted in a commitment to social or civic institutions. As Selznick (1992: 364) argues, the “mass mobilization of detached individu­ als is not a paradigm of communal participation.” However, many indicted that their home communities seldom allowed unfettered access to its public realm, especially for those seeking to modify their community according to their own values and designs. They explained that the shapes of their home neighborhoods and towns were increasingly dictated by corporate inves­ tors, professional planners, and wealthy landowners. Feeling isolated and disconnected from forms of civic participation and decision making in their daily lives (Barber 1998), they looked elsewhere, seeking social spaces they have an ability to actively influence and shape. During the off-season, their civic engagement consisted of communicating and collaborating with festi­ val staff to ensure that campground rules and regulations did not prevent them from building the type of campground settings they always had (or aspired to create). It is clear that these festivals were subjectively meaningful and extremely important events in the lives of festival campers, as evidenced by the great lengths to which participants often went to attend and manage them from year to year. It is important to note that members of these portable festival commu­ nities experienced “community” not as a concrete geographical entity but as an emergent social phenomenon that unfolded across festival sites and events. They engaged in sustained and repeated interaction and established relatively stable, yet situationally flexible, practices from site to site, year to year through a collective process of collaborative emergence (Sawyer 2000). Over time, veteran attendees found a reliable social world of their own making and encountered a familiar cast of personalities in their stops along the festival circuit. In the process, they challenged traditional notions of geographically rooted community and illustrated that community, at its root, is not a “thing” or simply a “place” but an emergent phenomenon defined and constructed in and through regular, recurrent social interac­ tion. Transported in structure and form from event to event, the emergence of these portable communities demonstrated that a stable, rooted locale is neither a necessary condition for community participation (Correll 1995) nor for place formation. By establishing a consistent base of interactional rituals, norms, and etiquette (Becker 2000; Sawyer 2000), and sharing col­ lective social knowledge across the mobile festival circuit, participants cul­ tivated the vital ingredients for a stable, enduring community to flourish, including yearly commitments, strong relational attachments and a mean­ ingful sense of place.

192 Conclusion

Pilgrimage, place and the performance of identity The unique brand of mobile, portable, “plug and play” community found in bluegrass festival settings illustrates what Leslie Irvine (2000) terms the “institution lite.” As individuals flee from the traditional, capital “I” Institutions of family, religion, and community, they search for novel ways of meeting the needs that these relational anchors once met. Through small “i” institutions, or institutions “lite,” individuals reap “all the benefits of an institution, but without all of the obligations” (68). Because the festival set­ ting was voluntary and made few formal demands on participants outside the event, they return home or move on to the next festival with relative freedom. Rather than merely replacing religion, family, and community, the festival setting provided spaces where participants could freely celebrate communal interaction and work to maintain it without overly restrictive obligations. Reflecting a shift of identity in post-industrial societies from traditional institutional structures to one of “lifestyle,” individuals increasingly seek out stages for identity performance outside of these “Big I” Institutions (Bellah, et al. 1985; Dickinson 1997; Giddens 1991; Irvine, 2000). Whereas questions of personal identity traditionally revolved around the roots of home, work, and career, the rise of geographical mobility and a “seeking” lifestyle (Adler and Adler 1999) have anchored identity more fully in the routes of mobility, travel, and tourism. With the rise of the creative econ­ omy, the question of identity no longer revolves around “what do you do?” but becomes “where are you from?” “what do you do for leisure or recrea­ tion?” (see Florida 2002) or “where do you go for escape or retreat?” In the bluegrass world, the question is “what festival are you hitting up next?” As I discussed in Chapter 6, the pilgrimage to the festival site and the participation in festival life became central in festivalgoers’ search for more “authentic” sites to perform self-identity. They left their daily lives for pilgrimage to the small towns and rural areas hosting these events. In campground spaces, festivalgoers explained how the removed environ­ ment allowed them to retreat to more authentic performances of their “real selves” or otherwise different identities that in some way highlighted por­ tions of themselves that were not freely expressed in daily life. Away from home, Terkenli (1995) argues, “human horizons expand, and an individual may discover new aspects of the self that result in an inevitable reordering of the intimate world and a reevaluation of past, present, and future situ­ ations.” To be sure, the festival does not determine or script one’s sense of self or self-identity but frames identity through the logic, aesthetic, and structure of the festival. As Turner, Hetherington, and Pratt (Turner 1969; Hetherington 2000; Pratt 1989) argue, touring pilgrims often experience the liminality or “free space” within the festival site as a transformative, carni­ valesque space (Bakhtin 1984) in which they explore alternative identities and cultivate novel interactional spaces. In these liminal settings, societal

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norms, institutions, and categories collapse and coalesce into new forms that highlight the values of diversity, free expression, and autonomy fre­ quently lacking in traditional forms of community and sites of local public culture (Hetherington 2000). The emergence of portable communities suggests that the interactional dynamics fostered by festivalgoers reflect a conscious cultivation of larger goals, values, and practices which they see in short supply in modern American society. They also provide a symbolic response to what Philip Sheldrake refers to as a “crisis of place” in Western societies. He argues that this crisis stems from an overwhelming “sense of rootlessness, dislocation or displacement … At its root lies a decline in traditional systems of values and symbols” (Sheldrake, 2001). I contend that the mobile festivalgoers in the New West bluegrass scene resisted the problems of postmodern society through the symbolic resources of the music’s old-time aesthetic and its sym­ bolic associations with traditional folk culture. They often expressed feeling rootless, dislocated, and displaced by their mobility, but in the process, they revived bluegrass music and culture to reclaim traditional values and sym­ bols of community life. They tapped into enduring discourses of anti-(sub) urbanism and anti-modernization in American culture, and cultivate their nostalgic counterparts: wilderness, village, and rurality (see Lofland 1998) as their rhetorical foils. By leaving their hometowns and neighborhoods to attend the festival, they gained perspective and came to more strongly value what they perceived to be losing (Terkenli 1995: 331). Growing from the seemingly contradictory impulses for mobility and community, festival campers drew from a repertoire of traditional value systems they associated with small town life to reconfigure “community” in their own image. Festivalgoers longed for places that were rooted in history and steeped in tradition as a source of personal and regional identity, and they crafted these places in the portable festival camp. In his edited volume, The Longing For Home, Leroy Rouner (1996) argues that as Americans in an increasingly mobile society: we are nostalgic for the settled, secure life of small towns in the American heartland, where people once knew what they ought to do, and most of them did it. This is the soft, dreamy nostalgia of modern folk who have chosen mobility over stability in order to get ahead in life, and are sad­ dened by the price they have to pay. (1) Interestingly, the English word nostalgia is rooted in the ancient Greek nostos, which translates as “return home” (Terkenli 1995: 328). As demon­ strated after the Lyons flood of 2013, the notion of “home” or “home away from home” becomes especially important when one is displaced from, can no longer return home, or is rendered socially and culturally homeless in one way or another. Many literary and poetic references to home have been written either by someone in exile or when a home is in danger of being lost

194 Conclusion or changed in unwanted ways (Wolf 1980), a theme that is especially promi­ nent in bluegrass music. Identifying with Appalachian mountain dwellers who experienced exile or removal from their hollers and homes, festivalgo­ ers described that they often felt culturally and socially displaced through the forces of modernization, and sought to reclaim it through their revival bluegrass music traditions. As a “popular form of the American historical imagination,” (Cantwell 1984: 18) bluegrass music has prospered from “the one commodity which in America is ever in short supply—the past” (13). In his study of Old Pasadena, California, Dickinson (1997) contends that times of rapid change and insecurity are characterized by a deep desire for places of memory and nostalgia. Visitors to these places engage the cultural symbolism character­ izing landscapes of memory, and find anchors for identity in their “sta­ bilizing and authenticating past” (1). Providing a space for the rhetorical performance of self and community, public places of consumption like “Old Pasadena” locate the self in a contemporary setting but do so in the nostal­ gic context of a more authentic and idyllic past. The renewed interest in bluegrass music and culture in the New West provided a stark contrast to the norms and values driving contemporary society compared to those past ways of life perceived to be buried by mass culture and mainstream, urban, and suburban lifestyles. For participants of the New West bluegrass scene, festivalgoers couched their participa­ tion in terms of not only the social benefits it provided, but also in terms of what the scene was not, namely commercial, plastic, or inauthentic. They often described the intimacy of the festival and its communal interac­ tions in stark contrast to the surrounding landscapes. In the process, they portrayed sprawling and crowded communities, increasingly organized around the interests and values of a wealthy, powerful few, and featuring public spaces that had become overly commodified, homogenized, and privatized.

The festival as a vernacular public space Kling argues that a “fragmented, privatizing, service oriented urban polity” increasingly drives the contemporary city and its public spaces. He argues that “the postmodern city tends to neglect or dismantle the public spaces and public sensibilities that nurture the formation of an extended collective consciousness” and therefore “the reconstruction of any sort of mutually supportive, redistributive politics must look to the building of new public forms” (Kling 1993: 45). Many festivalgoers expressed concern that their current home environments are increasingly co-opted by the homogenizing forces of corporate culture, which challenge the relational intimacy of local, public life. Rooted in a traditional folklife aesthetic, they sought out and constructed the bluegrass festival campground as a way of building new forms of belonging.

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Henri Lefebvre (1991) organizes the locus of control of public space into two broad camps, dominated and appropriated: 1) those institutions and agencies that dominate and control space, such as “business and state, insti­ tutions, the family … corporate and constituted bodies of all kinds” and 2) and those “forces that seek to appropriate space,” namely “[v]arious forms of self-management or workers’ control or territorial and industrial entities, communities and communes, elite groups striving to change life and tran­ scend political institutions and parties.” (392). The potential of those who appropriate space to strategically “reclaim aesthetic space” and “escape by evading social norms” (129) are “capable of diverting homogenized space to their own purposes,” and through this, “a theatricalized or dramatized space is likely to arise.” (Lefebvre 1991: 391; Kling 1993). On the drama­ tized stage of the festival campground, festivalgoers tapped into the tempo­ rary space of the festival campground and transformed it to accommodate freer forms of self-expression, more intimate and inclusive forms of commu­ nal interaction, and more meaningful relationships with place than present in their daily lives. They reconfigured festival spaces in ways that facilitated a sense of autonomy, authenticity, and community increasingly absent from the “dominated” public realm. Reading the bluegrass festival as a vital form of public sphere dialogue, festivalgoers performed an alternative sense of place through the festival camp as a form of symbolic resistance to what many viewed as a declining sense of meaning and relational intimacy in their civic life. While political scientists and other scholars of public discourse focus on the official chan­ nels of communication in recognized venues to understand public opinion, Gerard Hauser reminds us that citizens often form informal, “reticulate” publics and voice their concerns in a vernacular public sphere outside of official public channels (Hauser 1999). Reading the rise of bluegrass music and festival culture in the American West as a form of vernacular public discourse allows us to examine the various ways culture is used as a venue and vehicle for forming opinions and expressing attitudes about our social and political world. As the public sphere becomes increasingly colonized by corporate interests, bureaucratic norms, and the wealthy elite, lay citizens increasingly seek alternative spaces to express their ideas and seek solutions to shared social problems. Festivalgoers explained that an important feature of their participation is rooted in their opportunity to have a legitimate voice and ability to actively shape the evolution of their community. The rapid development of the New West landscape has radically displaced and transformed pre-existing com­ munity relationships, leaving residents and new transplants scrambling for a renewed sense of place, community, and regional identity. Many expressed a desire to have open, inclusive public spaces in which they could gather with a diversity of other individuals and interact with others in ways that are more reflective of their “true” selves and identities. However, the realities of New West living have also driven up prices in communities that feature

196 Conclusion a vibrant downtown, a strong sense of history, and an active public sphere to the point where many newcomers, native Westerners, and displaced dis­ aster victims can no longer afford to live in these places. Considering these trends, face-to-face community is believed to be vanishing into the pages of history. However, it exactly in these pages where participants in bluegrass festival life seek connections to a simpler time and place in American cul­ tural memory to reclaim what they fear they are losing. By tapping the cultural symbols of Appalachian folklife, bluegrass reviv­ alists in the New West sought to restore social relations to a model more akin to Ferdinand Tonnies’ notion of gemeinschaft, a form of face-to-face community “connected with a past or disappearing ways of life” and reflec­ tive of the “movement from the solidarity of the village and the country­ side to the individualism and anomie of the modern city.” (Lasch 1991, Simonson 1996: 325). Fusing the mobility of modern life with the anchors of tradition, festivalgoers constructed a social space where they could retreat, albeit temporarily, from the quickly developing landscape. Geographer Yi Fu Tuan (1977) points out that individuals seek out open and uninhabited space to flee the often stifling and oppressive crowding of densely populated urban areas. Explaining the tension between fixity and mobility in modern life, Tuan writes that “human life is a dialectical movement between shelter and venture, attachment and freedom” (54). Despite the urge to escape the crowding of urban life and identify with space “as a common symbol of freedom,” individuals continue to long for a return back to these “enclosed and humanized” spaces for a more meaningful sense of place (51, 54). As newcomers to the intermountain west moved away from the crowded land­ scapes further east (and west) for a renewed sense of space, they did so in a context that emphasized the importance of cultivating a deeper sense of place. Though the quest for individualism and autonomy is a part of the Western mystique, individuals cannot fully escape the enduring pull of com­ munity and a meaningful sense of place.

Hope for community The struggle to balance community and individualism, fixity and mobil­ ity, space and place, past and present, and permanence and change experienced by many of the festivalgoers in this study provides valuable insight into how people create meaning from their interactions with oth­ ers through the lens of culture. Why are festivalgoers leaving their home neighborhoods behind to create mobile forms of community? What is it about the rapid growth and development of western landscapes that leaves festivalgoers wanting, leading them to seek out deeper connections to place in festival campgrounds? What can the accessible and inclusive norms of community developed there suggest about the organization of public spaces beyond the festival grounds? How can our public spaces and public spheres be managed to allow more authentic and autonomous

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forms of public self-expression? The sentiments described in the growing bluegrass festival movement highlights what festivalgoers perceived to be wrong with or missing from our existing civic and social landscape, and therefore provide deep insight into what could be done to change our resi­ dential communities for the better. These insights are extremely useful for city managers and community development departments who work to design and manage public spaces to accommodate greater inclusivity, participation, and agency of citizens to enact change in their community. The responses of festivalgoers also indicate that these spaces must involve community in their design and must involve citizens intimately in the planning of its events, traditions, rituals, and celebrations. The sentiments expressed by bluegrass festival­ goers also demonstrate the importance of place in cultivating a viable community. Festivalgoers explained that an important component in con­ structing a sense of place is the opportunity to have a legitimate voice in the shape that their communities take. They expressed a deep desire to be intimately connected to the rituals, traditions, and practices that define the community and its members. Additionally the mobile and tran­ sient setting of the bluegrass festival as a site of placebuilding can provide interesting insight to other forms of portable community. The processes through which bluegrass communities emerged could shed light on the processes through which disaster evacuees, Romani or Traveler communi­ ties, refugee camps, religious pilgrims, or other forms of diaspora become emplaced in mobile or temporary settings. Far away from home, it may be useful for those interested in cultivating meaningful, temporary places of shelter and belonging for displaced populations to better understand the elements that transform temporary spaces into more permanent and meaningful places (Gardner 2015). Finally, the resuscitation of memories of the past can provide clues into the alternative worlds that members of a collectivity seek to create or main­ tain when faced with the specter of cultural change. Viewing cultural per­ formance through the lens of cultural memory, scholars can tap into the vast storehouse of images, stories, myths, and histories circulating in and through cultural texts and performance to achieve a more thorough under­ standing how individuals use and appropriate memories of the past to cope with issues and problems in the present. Memory can serve certain social needs because, according to Maurice Halbwachs (1925), it: gives us the illusion of living in groups which do not imprison us … If certain memories are inconvenient or burden us, we can always oppose to them the sense of reality inseparable from our present life … not only can we roam freely within these groups, going from one to another, but within each of them—even when we have decided to linger with them in thought—we will not encounter this feeling of human constraint in the same degree that we so strongly experience today (50).

198 Conclusion By creating cultural memories that assist in grappling with the public prob­ lems that face us, communities can use the symbolic past to better cope with and understand their interactional present. Reading cultural production, consumption, and performance as a site of politicized, rhetorical discourse, spectators of both politics and popular culture may begin to read the rise and revival of bluegrass music and festival culture and the related appeal of films such as O’ Brother Where Art Thou as more than “merely” popular culture. In doing so, we may begin to better recognize how broader cultural movements intersect with the pulses and rhythms of daily life, and equip us to better understand and strategize our collective responses to environmen­ tal change.

Works cited Adler, Patricia A. and Peter Adler. 1999. “Transience and the Postmodern Self: The Geographic Mobility of Resort Workers.” The Sociological Quarterly. 40(l): 31–58. Barber, Benjamin. 1998. A Place for Us: How to Make Society Civil and Democracy Strong. New York, NY: Hill and Wang. Bakhtin, Mikhail M. 1984. Rabelais and His World, Translated by Helene Iswolsky. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Becker, Howard. 2000. “The Etiquette of Improvisation.” Mind, Culture, and Activity. 7(3): 180–185. Bellah, R., R. Madsen, W. Sullivan, A. Swidler and S. Tipton. 1985. Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. New York, NY: Harper and Row. Cantwell, Robert. 1984. Bluegrass Breakdown: The Making of the Old Southern Sound. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Cohen-Cruz, Jan and Mady Schutzman. 2006. A Boal Companion: Dialogues on Theatre and Cultural Politics. New York, NY: Routledge. Correll, Shelley. 1995. “The Ethnography of an Electronic Bar: The Lesbian Cafe.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography. 24(3): 270–298. Dickinson, Greg. 1997. “Memories for Sale: Nostalgia and the Construction of Identity in Old Pasadena.” Quarterly Journal of Speech. 83(1): 1–27. Florida, Richard. 2002. The Rise of the Creative Class: And How Its Transforming Work, Leisure and Community in Everyday Life. New York, NY: Basic Books. Gardner, Robert Owen. 2015. “The Emergency Community: A GrassRoots Model for Post Disaster Redevelopment.” In Disasters’ Impact on Livelihoods and Cultural Survival: Losses, Opportunities, and Mitigation, Michèle Companion, ed. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. Taylor and Francis Group. 257–268. Giddens, Anthony. 1991. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Cambridge, UK: Polity. Halbwachs, Maurice. 1925. On Collective Memory. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Hauser, Gerard A. 1999. Vernacular Voices: The Rhetoric of Publics and Public Spheres. Columbia, SC: South Carolina Press.

Conclusion

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Hetherington, Kevin. 2000. New Age Travelers: Vanloads of Uproarious Humanity. London, New York, NY: Cassell. Irvine, Leslie. 2000. “Even Better Than the Real Thing: Narratives of the Self in Codependency.” Qualitative Sociology. 23(1): 9–28. Kling, Joseph. 1993. “Complex Society/Complex Cities: New Social Movements and the Restructuring of Urban Space.” In Mobilizing the Community, Robert Fisher and Joseph Kling, eds. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 28–51. Lasch, Christopher. 1991. The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations. New York, NY: Norton. Lefebvre, Henri. 1991. The Production of Space. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Lofland, Lyn. 1998. The Public Realm: Exploring the City’s Quintessential Social Territory. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter. Pratt, Ray. 1989. “Popular Music, Free Space, and the Quest for Community.” Popular Music and Society. 13(4): 59–76. Putnam, Robert. 2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. Rouner, Leroy. 1996. The Longing for Home. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Sawyer, R. Keith. 2000. “Improvisational Cultures: Collaborative Emergence and Creativity in Improvisation.” Mind, Culture, and Activity. 7(3): 180–185. Selznick, Phillip. 1992. The Moral Commonwealth: Social Theory and the Promise of Community. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Sheldrake, Philip. 2001. Spaces for the Sacred: Place, Memory, and Identity. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Simonson, Peter. 1996. “Dreams of Democratic Togetherness: Communication Hope from Cooley to Katz.” Critical Studies in Mass Communication. 13(4): 324–342. Terkenli and Theano, S. 1995. “Home as Region.” Geographical Review. 85(3) July: 324–334. Tuan, Yi Fu. 1977. Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Turner, Victor. 1969. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Chicago, IL: Aldine. Wolf, Christa. 1980. A Model Childhood. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.

Appendix A: Methodological notes

While studying the local bluegrass scenes, I collected and recorded field observations of festival settings, jam sessions, and campgrounds on a small notepad. I initially wandered into festival camps and engaged in casual con­ versations with festivalgoers about their experiences in the festival site and inquired about why they chose to attend. Though I never really entered my initial conversations with an explicit agenda for gathering data, individuals would often provide me with tremendous insight into the special elements of bluegrass music culture that kept them coming back. I would frequently return to my tent, or a nearby porta-potty, my ethnographic “backstage,” to jot down these insights or perhaps document particularly interesting obser­ vations or comments overheard during my forays into the festival site. When I returned home, I compiled my jottings (Bernard 2014) into more formal field notes on my laptop computer which I later coded and analyzed the­ matically, identifying sociological themes and patterns. These initial jottings and notes provided my initial framework for more formal observations and interviews later in the research process. I often carried a 35 mm camera with me, especially to document the physical environment and spatial elements of the setting that could not be captured fully through my field notes. I often returned to these photographs to “take me back” into the festival setting as I was logging my field notes to better capture the scene and setting as I wrote. I also analyzed these photographic images of the festival, particularly the festival campsite, to better understand participants’ use and configuration of physical space. After spending several years in the bluegrass scene, I had accumulated a quite impressive network of friends, pickin’ buddies, amateur and profes­ sional musicians, and festival promoters and staff. As such, I had a large group of individuals who were eager to talk to me about my research and sit down with me for taped conversational interviews. I first identified respond­ ents by relying on convenience sampling methods (Cochran 1977) from my initial group of friends and acquaintances I met informally at festivals or at open jam sessions. Through chain referrals and snowball sampling meth­ ods (Biernacki and Waldorf 1981), I established contacts with individuals

202 Appendix A located in the multiple strata and status groups within the bluegrass scene. Soliciting insights from casual listeners to well-renowned professional musi­ cians, the bulk of my data were collected through one to two-hour, face­ to-face, in-depth interviews which I customarily recorded at a local coffee shop, restaurant, or at the interviewee’s home. I recorded each of these formal, conversational interviews with a tape recorder or digital record­ ing device and transcribed them shortly thereafter. Once transcribed, I sys­ tematically coded data from interviews and my field notes and organized them thematically, using the key terms and vocabularies participants used to describe their attraction to and participation in the festival scene. When I asked why they attend bluegrass festivals, the overriding theme articulated by participants was that they longed for intimate and authentic forms of community that they found in increasingly short supply in contemporary life. From my interviews, I identified distinct clusters of terms, “vocabularies of motive” (Mills 1940), that helped to explain the broader social context for their behavior. To situate the rise of bluegrass music and festival culture in the contem­ porary American West, I often asked my interview respondents to identify and discuss what they saw as the most pressing social issues confronting the local region. Almost unanimously, respondents identified that urban and suburban sprawl, loss of place and community character, and environ­ mental decay spawned by rampant and uncontrolled growth and develop­ ment were the most serious problems facing the modern American West. Participants consistently couched their participation in bluegrass music and festival life as a form of resistance to the increasing isolation and fragmenta­ tion of their daily environments. Though festivalgoers denied that politics was important in organizing their festival experience, they regularly couched their participation in politicized terms. When I asked participants why they attended, they frequently stated it was “fun” and “relaxing” and provided them with an informal setting to listen to and play music. However, when I probed deeper and asked them why it was “fun” and “relaxing” and why they cultivated their leisure at bluegrass festivals, they often responded that it gave them a space to escape the “real world” of contentious partisan poli­ tics, saturated media landscapes, and invasive communication technologies. They stated that the festival provided them with a space where they could go “off the grid” to create novel forms of community, engage in intimate and inclusive social interaction, and return to a place and time that was consid­ ered simpler and more authentic than their increasingly complex lives and simulated modern environments.

Works cited Bernard, Russell. 2014. Research Methods in Cultural Anthropology: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. Landon, MD: Alta Mira Press.

Appendix A 203 Biernacki, Patrick and Dan Waldorf. 1981. “Snowball Sampling.” Sociological Methods and Research. 10(3): 141–163. Cochran, William G. 1977. Sampling Techniques. 3rd ed, New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons. Mills, C. Wright. 1940. “Situated Actions and Vocabularies of Motive.” American Sociological Review. 5(6): 904–913.

Appendix B: Festival performance as social drama The interactionism of Kenneth Burke

The theoretical foundations of this project developed during graduate school as I explored the relationship between symbolic interaction and rhetoric, primarily through the work of Kenneth Burke. Burke spent his long career as a literary critic and rhetorical theorist, but within the symbolic interac­ tionist tradition in sociology, his potential contributions have been limited, in part by his unconventional approach.1 Joseph Gusfield explained that Burke was an enigma to many sociologists due to his propensity to cross and blur conventional disciplinary lines (Gusfield 1989). However, by skillfully traversing the terrain of classical rhetoric, literature, history, anthropology, sociology, and philosophy, Burke developed dramatism, an extensive theory of language as a form of symbolic action that should be of great interest to symbolic interactionists. In this appendix, I flesh out a few of Burke’s key contributions to sym­ bolic interactionist theory, specifically his “dramatistic” approach as it informs my larger theoretical framework. I begin with Burke’s sociological approach to literature, music, and other works of art as “equipment for living,” resources that provide us with interpretive tools, frameworks, and strategies for understanding, enduring, and enacting change in the world. More than merely a reflection of dominant cultural meanings, music, art, and literature play a constitutive role in framing social experience and inspiring various forms of social action. Functioning through the “dancing of an attitude” (Burke 1941: 9), cultural forms like art and music serve as metaphors for understanding and grappling with human drama by direct­ ing our attention to situations in specific ways, and affecting our collective responses to them. As such, dramatism provides a fruitful method for exam­ ining and analyzing the interactional processes that frame human action. Examining music and festival culture through a dramatistic lens allows us to better understand the myriad ways that participants create and alter collective meaning through their leisure practices, in this case, listening to and making bluegrass music in an intentionally cultivated campground set­ ting. Specifically, I use Burke’s dramatistic understanding of motive and motive vocabularies to situate participants’ festival activity in a larger “con­ text of situation,” and read it as a symbolic response to perceived changes

Appendix B 205 in the built and human environment in the New West landscape. Reading these vernacular cultural expressions as a form of social performance, I argue that festivalgoers tapped the cultural memory and imagery embedded within bluegrass music as key cultural resources to understand and grapple with the perceived loss of community in American civic life. In the New West context, bluegrass fans utilized the perceived interpersonal intimacy and celebration of extended family life found in early bluegrass music as a rhetorical contrast with their experience living and working in increasingly isolated and fragmented social environments. Burke’s rhetorical theory provides an understanding of how power oper­ ates in and through language to create action and human cooperation. In A Rhetoric of Motives (1950), he establishes a definition of rhetoric that moves beyond Aristotle’s ancient art of persuasion to focus on the concept of identification. Here, identification is the process through which language brings people or things together through a shared interest, or “substance.” Individuals create identification through the strategic use of language or other symbols to align one’s values, meanings, or attitudes with another individual or group. Identification is possible when an audience sees its interests as in harmony with the individual or group. While individuals can use language to unite individuals symbolically, as a dialectical term, iden­ tification implies its opposite, division. Just as language can unite a group by creating a rhetorical “us,” it simultaneously generates dissociation by creating a necessary “them” or “other” as a symbolic contrast. In this study, I used Burke’s concept of identification to understand how festival partici­ pants utilized distinctions between community and individual, authentic and inauthentic, traditional and modern, and “festival life” and “real life” to fortify scene boundaries and to anchor their scene identities.

The social drama of festival performance Dramaturgical or dramatistic approaches to social life highlight the emer­ gent, performative nature of social action. As a mode of investigation and cultural interpretation, a performance-centered approach addresses the two central questions of ethnography: “What is going on here?” and “What does it mean?” (Conquergood 1992: 87). According to Barbara KirshenblattGimblett (1998), performance-oriented approaches to culture “place a pre­ mium on the particularities of human action, on language as spoken, and on ritual as performed” (75). Viewing ethnographic practices as ways to high­ light the “performances” of everyday life in situated, public contexts, my interpretive schema is organized dramatistically (Burke 1945/1969; Gusfield 1989; Goffman 1959, 1967, 1980; Turner 1969). Performance centered approaches to the study of social life draw attention to the staged, public nature of social behavior (Goffman 1959) while providing a way of exam­ ining social action as a part of a larger “vernacular” dialogue surrounding shared public issues (Hauser 1999).

206 Appendix B While the Shakespearean phrase “all the world’s a stage, and men and women are merely players” is a useful heuristic for understanding the staged, public nature of interaction, I join others in viewing it as an inade­ quate metaphor for social life (Goodall 2000; Conquergood 1989). Rather than viewing human performance as driven by our various social roles and scripts as if we were actors on a stage, a performance-centered approach views social action and human life itself as inherently dramatic. Goodall (2000) states that “dramatic action is the baseline for interpreting what people say and do. People act on the world, we just don’t move along with it. People create meanings, we just don’t receive them. We actively, some­ times mythically, imagine our lifewords. Then we walk, purposefully, and dramatically, into them” (116). Individuals perform everyday life on the social stage, but through these performances and interactions, individuals reflexively make, break, remake the very roles and relationships that guide their behaviors. Accordingly, I see social and cultural life as a constitutive and rhetorical accomplishment in which individuals actively interpret, process, and behave in response to the meanings that we make in the world. As an active pro­ cess, individuals do not merely enact their social roles and status positions, but simultaneously make, remake, and even break them through human agency. If culture is an ongoing performance (Bruner 1986), then perform­ ers “critically bring the spaces, meanings, ambiguities, and contradictions alive in their performances” (Conquergood 1989: 56). It is the goal of the ethnographer to examine and attempt to understand and make critical sense of these spaces, meanings, ambiguities, and contradictions for a more thor­ ough and self-reflexive examination of social life. Highlighting the political and rhetorical character of cultural performances, Dwight Conquergood (1992) maps performance as the “borderlands terrain between ethnography and rhetoric”; it is the “new frontier for staking joint claims to poetics and persuasion, pleasure and power, in the interests of community and critique, solidarity and resistance.” In contemporary Cultural Studies, performance is “now the commonplace, the nexus between the playful and the political” (80) that foregrounds a more emergent understanding of culture, not as simply a static and enduring structure, but a dynamic social process rooted in language and interaction. I argue that a performative approach could help to revive symbolic inter­ action’s engagement with the larger social and political contexts of our research, and in doing so address key criticisms that symbolic interactionism undertheorizes the social and political contexts of human interaction by re-prioritizing an emphasis on “scene” described below. As a stage for social performance, culture is the venue through which responses to these concerns are played out and enacted for a public audience. By examining these sites of culture as they are situated in their local social contexts, schol­ ars can read these texts, performances, and artifacts as forms of vernacular dialogue, rhetorically shaped understandings of public issues (Mills 1959)

Appendix B 207 that are expressed, interpreted, and evaluated at the level of everyday inter­ action (see Hauser 1999). In Art as Experience, John Dewey (1934/1980) states that: “the first stirrings of dissatisfaction and the first intimations of a better future are always found in works of art” (345, 346). For Dewey, art is the primary vehi­ cle through which cultural undercurrents are formulated, articulated, and expressed. As a musical art, bluegrass music provides a window into a rich tapestry of social sentiment, both reflecting the original social and cultural conditions facing the life-worlds of the early bluegrass musicians and their audiences, and the conditions facing musicians and fans today. From his earlier work, Experience and Nature (1925) Dewey elaborates, The level and style of the arts of literature, poetry, ceremony, amuse­ ment, and recreation which obtain in a community, furnishing the staple objects of enjoyment in that community, do more than all else to deter­ mine the current direction of ideas and endeavors in the community. They supply the meanings in terms of which life is judged, esteemed and criticized. (Dewey 1925: 204) As a vital, but often undervalued contributor to the ongoing dialogue of the public sphere, bluegrass festivals, as a site of cultural production and consumption, provide a common language and vocabulary, “equipment for living” (Burke 1973) through which festivalgoers interpret, understand, and articulate their reactions to shared social concerns, namely the decline of community, the sprawling development of the New West landscape, and disaster-induced displacement. Beverly Stoeltje (1992) argues that the pri­ mary purpose of a festival is to bring individuals together and communicate messages about the society in which they live and the role of the individual within it. Because of this communicative role, “every effort either to change or to constrain social life will be expressed in some specific relationship to the festival.” (263), which makes the festival a prime setting to explore col­ lective interactional responses to simmering social sentiments and tensions.

The interactionism of Kenneth Burke Kenneth Burke viewed symbolic interaction, specifically language, not sim­ ply as a vehicle for expressing cultural meaning, but as a form of social action in its own right. Embedded in a larger social drama, “the Scramble, the Wrangle of the Market Place, the flurries and flare-ups of the Human Barnyard” (Burke 1950: 23), Burke demonstrates how humans use lan­ guage to explain their behavior, while pointing out that simultaneously lan­ guage uses us by framing our interpretations of situations and orienting our responses to them in particular ways. Through the resources of language, Burke explains how our words and terminologies impute a sense of motive.

208 Appendix B Defined as the “springs behind activity” (Gusfield 1989: 11), motives serve not as an ultimate source of behavior but as a concept used by people to make actions understandable to themselves and others. By investigating the words that people use to explain their behaviors in specific social contexts, we gain a more complete understanding of their frameworks for responding to the social forces that surround them. In A Grammar of Motives, Burke (1945/1969) provides us with a useful analytical scheme for understanding social action. His dramatistic “pentad” represents a set of symbolic forms that guide social action and its interpre­ tations (Gusfield 1989), which includes the scene, act, agent, agency, and purpose, corresponding loosely to the where, what, who, how, and why of human behavior. Paired together, these forms provide a useful method for understanding the ways that each interact to shape events, behaviors, or interactions. In the context of this study, the five elements of the pentad represent the following: • Scene (background context; where): The late 1990s to early 2000s that were characterized by rapid and widespread regional growth and devel­ opment of the western landscape, particularly in the intermountain West. • Act (what took place): The production and consumption of traditional bluegrass music and festival culture, including the building of portable campground communities. • Agent (what person or kind of person): Mobile networks of fans and musicians who regularly attend and camp at bluegrass festival events. • Agency (how the act was done; through what means): Portable tent and camper communities are carved out by participants in the autonomous campground spaces accompanying bluegrass festival events. • Purpose (why): Festivalgoers participate in search of a simpler, more authentic alternative to mass culture. As a practical response to cul­ tural change, disaster, and loss of home and place, feared to be lost with changes in the natural and built environment, participants style and plan camps to reestablish intimate and inclusive forms of social interaction. Burke posited that each of these forms can be paired with another to high­ light their mutual influences, a relationship he referred to as a “ratio.” Each of these ratios can then be used to analyze and explain, for example, how and to what extent the background context (scene) impacts the actions that took place (act), or the type of person called to engage in such action (agent). While a grammar of motives explains the underlying forms that guide social action, the language used to express these forms can be analyzed as a distinct set of vocabularies or terminologies that give a window into the moti­ vations underlying social behavior. In his classic article “Situated Actions and Vocabularies of Motive,” C. Wright Mills explains that “motives are

Appendix B 209 the terms with which interpretation of conduct by social actors proceeds … they stand for anticipated situational consequences of questioned conduct. Intention or purpose are names for consequential situations, and surro­ gates for actions leading to them” (Mills 1940: 904, 905). The vocabularies employed by individuals to explain and justify their behavior can be exam­ ined and clustered to understand the underlying reasons people do what they do (or at least why they say and think they do what they do). In this study, I examined the motive vocabularies surrounding participants’ inter­ est in and dedication to bluegrass festival life by using the terms they used to explain their behaviors as situated in the larger context of the situation (scene). When I would initially ask festivalgoers why they attended festivals or bluegrass festivals in particular, they explained initially that it was a fun and relaxing setting. When urged to dig below the surface, reliably, festival participants articulated a consistent vocabulary of community, intimacy, simplicity, and inclusivity that drove their interest in festival life, and often highlighted the importance of scene, the larger backdrop of community change that surrounded them in a New West landscape.

Note 1 Most notably, Burke influenced the work of various sociologists and anthropol­ ogists, including Erving Goffman, Joseph Gusfield, and Hugh Dalziel Duncan, Robert Perimbanyagan, Laurel Richardson, Richard Harvey Brown, Iain Mangham, Michael Overington, Victor Turner and Clifford Geertz, though his work found its closest academic home in departments of rhetoric, literary criti­ cism, and communication.

Works cited Bruner, Jerome S. 1986. Actual Minds, Possible Worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Burke, Kenneth. 1941/1974. The Philosophy of Literary Form. 3rd ed. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Burke, Kenneth. 1945/1969. A Grammar of Motives. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Burke, Kenneth. 1950/1969. A Rhetoric of Motives. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Burke, Kenneth. 1973. “Literature as Equipment for Living.” In Philosophy of the Literary Form: Studies in Symbolic Action. 3rd ed. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 293–304. Conquergood, Dwight. 1989. “Poetics, Play, Process and Power: The Performative Turn in Anthropology.” Text and Performance Quarterly. 9(1): 82–88. Conquergood, Dwight. 1992. “Ethnography, Rhetoric, and Performance.” Quarterly Journal of Speech. 78(1): 80–97. Dewey, John. 1925. Experience and Nature. Chicago, IL: Open Court Publishing Company. Dewey, John. 1934/1980. Art as Experience. New York, NY: Perigee Books.

210 Appendix B Goffman, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Goffman, Erving. 1967. Interaction Ritual: Essays in Face-To-Face Behavior. Chicago, IL: Aldine Pub. Co. Goffman, Erving. 1980. Behavior in Public Places. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group. Goodall, H.L. Jr. 2000. Writing the New Ethnography. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press/Rowman and Littlefield. Gusfield, Joseph. 1989. Kenneth Burke: On Symbols and Society. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Hauser, Gerard A. 1999. Vernacular Voices: The Rhetoric of Publics and Public Spheres. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara. 1998. Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Mills, C. Wright. 1940. “Situated Actions and Vocabularies of Motive.” American Sociological Review. 5(6): 904–913. Mills, C. Wright. 1959. The Sociological Imagination. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Stoeltje, Beverly J. 1992. “Festival.” In Folklore, Cultural Performances and Popular Entertainments, Richard Bauman, ed. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. 261–271. Turner, Victor. 1969. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Chicago, IL: Aldine.

Index

Adler, Peter and Patricia 11, 111 affective alliances 42, 129 affordable housing: struggle for 168–175, 179 American West see New West; Old West anomie 43, 196 Appalachia: cultural life 9, 13, 20, 37, 40–42, 52–54, 60, 129; displacement from 24–25, 43; economic development and decline 21, 24–25, 43–45, 51; representations of folklife 13–14, 21–22, 25, 37, 40–45, 54, 57, 125, 193, 196; stereotypes 23, 40–41 Aquila, Richard 52 aural tradition 21 Austin, Jeff 61 authenticity 8, 13–15, 20, 23, 25, 27, 37, 40, 42, 47–49, 55, 61–64, 79, 97, 129–130, 158, 168, 189, 193–195; authentic community 7, 48–49, 55; authentic self see real self backstage 136, 201 Batteau, Alan 40 Becker, Howard 116 Bellah, Robert 112 bluegrass festival: camps see festival camps; in contrast to daily life or “real world” 15, 59, 70, 78, 105–107, 122–123, 127–128, 132, 135–143, 147, 152, 154–155, 189; festival time 71, 73, 77, 79, 139; history 26–27, 29; instructional workshops 26, 47, 124; norms 16, 82–84, 114–115, 119, 143; postfestival hangover 16, 141, 154–155; traditional festivals 44–45, 117

bluegrass jamming: campsite “picking” 5, 10–12, 26, 30–33, 46, 57–58, 89, 117–120, 124, 166, 183; jam etiquette and interaction 117–120 bluegrass music: audiences 22–24, 31, 37, 41–42, 124; as cultural symbol 13, 17, 37, 41–43, 54, 59, 65, 70, 78, 107, 189, 193; defined 6, 20; revival of 13, 14, 25–28, 45, 63, 193–194, 198; rise in popularity 37, 51, 59, 62, 130, 194; social history of 13, 59, 107–108; traditional 20–21, 24, 33, 39–42, 55, 57–58 bluegrass musicians: amateur 26, 32, 46–48, 58, 125, 159, 174; amateur/ professional interaction 124–125; displacement of 170, 176, 181–183; musician networks 24, 30, 33, 130, 161, 173–176, 183–186; musicians’ festivals 33; professional 22, 24, 26, 32, 46, 55, 159, 169–176, 182, 185; role in disaster recovery 177–178, 181–187 Bluegrass on the River Festival 64 Bluegrass Unlimited 57 blues music 48, 57–58 Bourdieu, Pierre 46 bureaucratic norms 8 Burke, Kenneth 37, 39, 204–205, 207–209 Cantwell, Robert 41 caravanning 79–80 carnivalesque 16, 116, 145, 192 Carter Family, The 22, 40 chronotope 79 civic life 112, 114, 190–191, 194, 205 Cobb, Maggie 33

212 Index collaborative emergence 191 collective effervescence 144 Columbia Gorge Bluegrass Festival 102 commercialization 63–65, 97, 130–131, 140, 194 communitas 143 community: communities of memory 111–112, 190; as emergent phenomenon 191; emotional communities 60, 113, 123; grassroots community 63, 131; loss or decline of 7, 9, 50, 58, 69, 92, 110, 114, 190–196, 205; post-disaster community 156–167; sense of 14, 32, 43, 50, 60, 69, 94, 153, 164, 166, 182, 189–192, 195; temporary forms 15, 56, 69, 111, 190–191; traditional forms 7, 43, 50, 54, 107, 110–111, 190–193 community resilience see resilience Conquergood, Dwight 137, 206 consumerism see mass consumer culture context of situation 37, 205 countryside 79 creative class 9, 60, 104, 111, 159; creative working class 170 cultural capital 46 cultural memory 28, 42, 194–198; and music 38–39 Dahlonega Bluegrass and Folkways Festival 44–45 Danaher, Bill 24 Delanty, Gerard 112–113 Del McCoury Band, The 57 Dewey, John 207 Diehl, Kelia 39 disaster capitalism 169 disaster recovery 175–181 disaster utopia 164–167 displacement 24, 38, 43, 51–52, 55–56, 59, 168–173, 193 dramatism 204 Duekheim, Emile 144 Duffy, Michelle 69 emotional catharsis 181–182 equipment for living 39, 204, 207 ethnographic backstage 201 ethnographic path 9–13 family 13, 22, 37, 42, 55–57, 60, 113, 129, 184, 192; festival family 58, 104, 144, 190

family festivals 117 fan networks 61, 77, 175, 184, 186; online discussion forums/ social media groups 76–77, 95, 105, 149, 151, 186 fellowship 80 Fenster, Mark 42, 129 Ferguson, Craig 161–163 festival camps 3–4, 7, 14, 32–33, 69–92, 96–108, 115, 117–120, 121–123, 125–126, 144–156, 189, 193, 196; camp characters and personalities 147–152; communal interaction in 9, 14, 55, 63, 70, 85–91, 94–95, 115, 121–125, 127, 195; land rush and set-up 14, 80–92; mapping space 97–103, 146; as neighborhoods 126, 190; organization of space 15, 65, 75, 82–85, 89, 98–101, 123; planning 73–77; rituals 26–27, 32, 75, 77, 80, 87, 94–95, 115, 119, 153–154; tearing down 152–156; tent vs. RV camps 100–102; themed camps 33, 72, 74–75, 88, 90, 94–95, 146 festival crews 61–62 festivarian 1; festivarian code 116; festivarian dress code 145 fictive kinship 56, 62, 104, 122, 144; see also kinship field notes 201 Findlay, John 50 Flatt, Lester 10, 23; with Earl Scruggs and the Foggy mountain boys 20 Florida, Richard 111 folk music revival 25–27 Four Corners Folk Festival 122, 135 frame shift 143 free space 116, 137, 145, 192 Frith, Simon 38 galactic cities 50 Garcia, Jerry 31, 58 gemeinschaft see community gentrification 168, 171, 190 geography of nowhere 49 Gibson Guitar Company 46 Goffman, Erving 37, 70–71, 135–136 Grand Ole Opry 22 Grateful Dead, The 30, 31, 57–58, 60, 62, 115, 116 Grazian, David 48, 62, 129 Great Depression, The 22 Greensky Bluegrass 30

Index Grier, David 125 grit 159, 167–168, 170 Groves, K.C. 182 Gusfield, Joseph 204 Halbwachs, Maurice 197 Haney, Carleton 25 Hartford, John 42 Hebdige, Dick 45 Hetherington, Michael 78–79 High Mountain Hay Fever Bluegrass Festival 46, 53 hillbilly music see old time music home 5, 13, 14, 37–39, 42, 55–60, 74, 103–106, 111, 190, 193; festival camp as home 80, 103, 106, 126, 146, 153, 156; homecoming 56, 105; home place 56, 58; longing for lost home 55–59, 193; welcome home 3, 5, 60, 103–104 homology 45 Horning’s Hideout 77, 97, 99 Hot Rize 10, 127 identification 205 identity: collective 38, 80, 95, 100, 189; community identity see place; festival 146–150; personal 79, 95, 138–140, 147, 192–193, 195; regional 49, 69, 97, 189, 195; situated 141–142 inclusion 8, 15, 61–62, 115–121, 166, 190 individualism 28, 32, 60, 190, 196 Infamous Stringdusters 30, 61–62 institution lite 192 intimacy 13–15, 62, 83–85, 106–107, 121–125, 190, 194 Irwin, John 30 jambands 18, 30, 45, 60 jamming see bluegrass jamming Jim and Jesse and the Virginia Boys 10 jottings 201 Kinfolk Festival 60, 179 kinship 13, 14, 37, 43–48, 56–57, 60–62, 113, 144–145; see also fictive kinship Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara 205 landscape 7, 9, 13–14, 28, 38–43, 48–56, 60, 70, 79, 137, 140, 194, 196 Lefebvre, Henri 195

213

Leftover Salmon 30 Lewis, Pierce 50 lifestyle enclaves 111–112 lifestyle refugees 137 Limerick, Patricia Nelson 49 liminality 78, 116, 132, 143, 192 Lipsitz, George 38 Lyons, Colorado 11–12, 16–17, 60, 100, 158–187; flood 12, 16, 159–187, 189 Lyons Musician Relief Fund 176, 182, 184 McCoury, Del 57 Maffesoli, Michel 60 Martin, Jimmy 10 Martin Guitars, C. F. 46, 118 mass consumer culture 37, 45, 47, 49, 62–65, 72. 97, 105, 130, 137, 140, 194 mass media 26, 63–64, 130–131 Merlefest 98–99 methods 11–13, 201–202 migration 21, 27–28, 38, 49–52, 137 Milligan, Melinda 71, 96 mobility 7–8, 14, 27, 32, 38, 52, 59, 64, 70, 110, 112, 190, 193, 196 modernization: 6–7, 15, 110, 112, 137, 190, 194; resistance to 25, 40, 49, 53, 137, 193 Monroe, Bill 10, 13, 31, 41, 48; and the Bluegrass Boys 10, 20, 23–24 Monroe Brothers 6, 22 motive 15, 115, 131, 204–205, 207–208 music: as a cultural timepiece 38; as equipment for living 39, 204, 207; as marker of place 38–40, 55; as repositories of cultural memory 39, 55; and social change 39 nature, connection with 28, 32, 102, 127–129, 140 Nederland, Colorado 11, 176 neo-tribe 60; see also tribes Neumann, Mark 79 New Age Travelers 78–79 Newcomb, Horace 25 Newport Folk Festival 26 New West 1–2, 9, 13, 27–28, 32–34, 48–53, 65, 69–70, 114, 126, 189–190, 193, 195–196, 202, 205 NIMBY 169, 172

214 Index non-place 51, 98 Northwest String Summit 77, 97, 99, 104, 105 nostalgia 37, 42, 48, 55–57, 59, 107, 193–194 O’ Brother Where Art Thou 30–31, 62, 198 Old and in the Way 31 Oldenburg, Ray 166 Old Time Fiddler’s Convention, Galax, Virginia 56 old time music 21–23, 26, 40, 45 Old West 1, 28, 48, 52, 75; mythic West 52 Oskar Blues 183–184 pentad 208 performance 8, 205–206; of tradition 44–45 Peterson, Richard 20, 41, 129 phatic communication 114 pilgrimage 1, 14–15, 55, 77–81, 86, 132, 135–143, 152–155, 192 place 9, 12, 14, 37, 51, 59, 65, 114, 167–168, 172, 192–193; and collective memory 95–96; in contrast to space 93–94, 97–98, 196; defined 93; emplacement 14, 69, 83, 93–98, 197; performance of 14, 65, 91, 93–94; place attachment 9, 54–55, 70–72, 96, 178; and regional identity 28, 37–40, 49–50, 54–55, 69, 96–97, 193, 195; relationship to music 37–40, 55, 189; sense of 32, 37, 50, 54–55, 70–72, 87, 111, 115, 162, 177–179, 187, 189, 196–197 Planet Bluegrass 12, 16–17, 60, 80, 84, 151, 159, 161–164, 171, 174, 176–182, 187 play 96, 137 portable community 6–9, 15–17, 32, 37, 62, 65, 69, 110–114, 131, 138–139, 187, 189–193, 197; characteristics 8, 15, 112–114, 119; continuity of 94–96, 104–105, 115–116, 119; defined 110 Portland Old Time Music Gathering 45 presentation of self 45; see also identity performance privatization 51 prosumer 130 public backstage 136

public space 194–197 public sphere 51, 91, 191, 194–197, 207 radio 22, 26, 30, 65, 130; festival radio 71, 105 recording industry 22–24, 26, 130 religion 25, 78, 192 research methods see methods resilience 9, 167–168, 181 rhetoric 9, 14, 91–92, 194, 198, 204–207 Riebsame, William 28, 49, 137 rite of passage 78 Roanoke Bluegrass Festival 25 RockyGrass Festival 11–13, 16, 57–59, 63, 73–74, 80–84, 86, 89, 100, 104–106, 117, 152, 159, 161, 177–182, 185; Band Competition 61; RockyGrass Academy 47, 84, 124, 174, 176 Rocky Mountain Folks Festival 16, 159, 161, 163, 177 roots 59–60, 113, 192; roots music 33, 63 Roscigno, Vincent 24 Rosenberg, Neil 22, 26–27, 130 Rowan, Peter 124–125 rural life 32, 42–44, 48, 52, 54, 107, 127, 140, 193 sampling 201 scene 12, 30–31, 37 Scruggs, Earl 6, 10, 23–24, 40; with Lester Flatt and the Foggy mountain boys 20 seekers 9, 31, 60, 111, 192 self: postmodern self 137–138; real or true self 132, 135–141, 145, 154, 192, 195; sense of 137 simplicity 13, 15, 41, 48, 54, 56, 59, 107, 125–132, 190 social capital 86, 113, 146, 164, 173–176, 183–185 social networks see social capital social space 6, 8–9, 14–15, 38, 55, 65, 69, 93–94, 97, 101, 108, 115, 121–122, 191, 194–196 Solnit, Rebecca 164 spontaneity 79–80 sprawl see suburban sprawl Stanley Brothers, The 10, 20, 31, 40 Strawberry Music Festival 95

Index string bands 22–23 String Cheese incident 30 subcultural capital 46, 76 subcultural networks 16, 113 subculture 60, 115 suburbanization 7, 43, 49–52, 65, 112, 190, 196 suburban life 48, 54–55, 126, 194 suburban sprawl 6–7, 48–49, 50, 52, 55, 140, 146, 168, 194, 202, 207 symbolic action 204–207 symbolic interaction 9, 204, 206–207 Telluride, Colorado 1, 29, 31, 177; Town Park Campground 3–4, 100, 151 Telluride Bluegrass Festival 1–7, 13, 16, 31, 59, 72–74, 90, 94, 100, 104, 105, 123, 128, 149–150, 159, 163, 177 textile strikes 24 third place 166 tolerance 8, 116, 117, 121, 137 tourism 27–29, 49, 52–53, 78–80, 113, 158, 192 tradition: aesthetics of 43–46, 48; preservation of 54, 108 traditional dance 46

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tribes: urban tribes 60, 104; festival tribes 146–147 Tuan, Yi Fu 93, 196 Turner, Frederick Jackson 28, 51 Turner, Victor 78–79, 143, 155 urbanization 7, 25–6, 49–51, 112, 137–138, 168, 190, 193, 194, 196 vernacular rhetoric 14, 91–92, 94, 195, 206 vernacular village 14, 91, 93–94, 108 Vinizky-Seroussi, Vered 136, 141 vocabulary of motive 15, 202, 208–209 Walnut Valley Festival 59, 74–75, 83, 85, 88–90, 94–95, 100, 104–106, 135, 140, 147–149, 150 Watergirls 167, 181–182 Waters, Ethan 60 Wernick, Pete. 10, 127, 130, 183 Wilkinson, Charles 49 Winfield, Kansas see Walnut Valley Festival work songs 40 Yonder Mountain String Band 60, 176, 179