Kentucky ROMP Bluegrass Festival Celebrates 20th Year
Traveling to a “bluegrass roots and branches” music festival in Kentucky is like ordering lobster at a restaurant in Maine or gumbo in Louisiana. Expectations are high. If they don’t know bluegrass music in Owensboro, Kentucky—less than 40 miles from Bill Monroe’s birthplace—then who does? And how could an event named “ROMP” (an acronym for ‘River of Music Party’) be anything but a lot of fun?
But a multi-day music festival conjures unbidden, preconceived notions. Of a mud-slogging, uninhibited, love-peace-and-music event on a dairy farm in the 60s. Or a well-ordered, sedate concert setting, like going to see the Boston Pops on the banks of the Charles River. ROMP is neither of those, though one could argue from the sights and sounds emanating from the park grounds, it borrows from both worlds. Today’s festivals are not just for spectators: they’re more interactive, bring-your-instrument-and-family events.
Celebrating its 20th anniversary and hosted by The Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and Museum, ROMP has welcomed an impressive lineup over the years, a veritable Who’s Who of picking royalty. Dropping names is too difficult, but to give a sense of it…. Jesse McReynolds and Vince Gill in 2012. Merle Haggard and The Punch Brothers in 2013. John Prine and Billy Strings in 2015. Marty Stuart and Tommy Emmanuel in 2022. And some recurring home-state favorites, like Ricky Skaggs and Sam Bush.
The Venue
It has become a musical pilgrimage for some, a bucket-list adventure for others. Some people go to theme parks in Florida, but ROMPers find their way to Kentucky, where the grass is blue, the horses are fast, and the bourbon is strong. Kentucky fiddling is faster than any roller coaster, and the music is…magic. This year over the course of four days, June 21-24, 2023, nearly 24,000 people discovered that for themselves.
The approach to Yellow Creek Park, where the festival is held, is mostly rural, with modest homes springing up like dandelions alongside cows grazing on grass that (reality-check) appears to the naked eye to be….green. (Maybe it’s like going to Bermuda and expecting to see pink sand when it’s a light “blush” in good light.)
The Daviess County venue features a stocked fishing lake with hiking trails, picnic shelters, and playgrounds, along with disc golf and pickleball courts. The Jim Lambert Pioneer Village on the grounds is called into service as the location for artist workshops and after-hours music and dance, with musicians performing from the porch of a historic cabin.
The festival kicks off on a Wednesday, with scheduled performances beginning that night, to allow RV and tent campers time to get settled. Some get started as early as Tuesday morning, queuing up in a nearby church parking lot to claim the most prized camping spots.
A happy and enthusiastic army of volunteers line the entrance like summer camp counselors, welcoming, directing, and demystifying the entry process. Campsites are segregated into different areas to accommodate those wanting to stay up all night picking and partying, families who need quiet hours, campers with all-night generators, and folks that fall somewhere in the middle. Electric hookups are limited and mainly reserved for sponsors and vendors. The range of camping getups pretty much reflects society, from a minimalist triangle of canvas over a sleeping bag to sleek motorhomes nicer than the average house.
Shower trailers (with hot water, even) are set up on-site, as well as ample portalets, to accommodate those staying in make-shift homes for a few days to remain just steps away from the action. Quickly recognizing that performances extend into the wee hours (not even counting impromptu jamming), campers joke that a “disco nap” is necessary. That’s the term for a “short sleep” during the day, but is easier said than done when enthusiastic pickers get cranking. Experienced festival-goers know to pack an essential item for peace-keeping: ear plugs. They won’t silence all outside noise—ebullient singing, a bedtime Brawny man sawing logs (aka snoring) in the tent next to yours—but will mute it just enough for much-needed recovery sleep.
The Music
Kentucky is as proud of Bill Monroe, Father of Bluegrass, as North Carolina is of Earl Scruggs. Naming his band The Bluegrass Boys in 1938 after his home state, Monroe described the music as “Scottish bagpipes and ole-time fiddlin’. It’s Methodist and Holiness and Baptist. It’s blues and jazz, and it has a high lonesome sound.”
And to the festival planners’ credit, the ROMP lineup managed to check all those boxes. The Nashville based McCrary Sisters took attendees to church for sure, shoutin’-and-singing, stay-a-while, Holiness style. Between Ricky Skaggs, Rhonda Vincent and The Purple Hulls, surely all the other denominations were covered, as they slipped gospel numbers into their sets. Plenty of “ole-time fiddlin” (and some new-time too) was heard from the likes of Ketch Secor in Old Crow Medicine Show, and from IBMA 2021 and 2022 fiddler of the year, Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, of the Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway band, along with others. While the chanter and drone of Scottish bagpipes might not have made an appearance per se, certainly bands like New Orleans’ Tuba Skinny covered a lot of instrumental territory, including brass and washboard. Celtic influence was discernible in many of the sets, including Ricky Skaggs’, so much so that Peter Rowan even commented on it from the stage.
ROMP organizers go to great lengths to make the festival family-friendly, selling no alcohol and giving extraordinary attention to a lineup of activities especially for kids. Everything from making flower crowns to wear during the festival, to kid-friendly yoga, to build-your-own 5 string banjo from recycled materials. The youthful Bluegrass Brothers Band gave little ones a glimpse of what they could aspire to.
On Saturday evening during headliner performances, children and ROMP kid’s program leaders led a parade (or fairy-conga-line might be a better description), dancing through the crowd with illuminated parasols, wings, and an assortment of festive regalia. Bubbles were spawned and released in such quantities in front of the stage, they flitted and flailed like dancing children liberated from the confines of gravity.
The Infamous Stringdusters may have verbalized the sentiment of many ROMP performers when they said, “There’s something about playing bluegrass type music in Kentucky.” The band that is described as “progressive acoustic/bluegrass” added, “You have to put the word ‘type’ after it when you follow Ricky Skaggs. Now that’s bluegrass music.”
Ricky Skaggs introduced his band, Kentucky Thunder, with, “There ain’t a one of ‘em from Kentucky, but they’d like to be.” He summarized his diverse career by saying, “We got out of the wilderness of country music into the promised land of bluegrass.”
After kicking off his set with “Rolling in my Sweet Baby’s Arms” and “Appalachian Joy,” Skaggs said, “We’ve done two songs already. It’s time for a Stanley Brothers song: they’re part of the Mount Rushmore of bluegrass.”
Growing up on a cattle farm in nearby Bowling Green, Sam Bush had an ample repertoire of venue-appropriate material, including a song, “Beaver Creek Mansion” that spelled out K-E-N-T-U-C-K-Y, reminiscent of Tammy Wynette’s song of marital divide.
The Purple Hulls, including twins from Texas, Katy Lou Clark and Penny Lea Clark Gimble, opened their set with a song written by Charlie Chaplan…an example of how far the tendrils of “bluegrass influenced” music can stretch. Nat King Cole covered “Smile,” as did Sammy Davis, Jr. and Michael Jackson, so one could say the Texas troubadours are in good company.
They followed it with a Cole Porter tune, “Don’t Fence Me In,” popularized by Roy Rogers and even Kate Smith and Bing Crosby. Katy Lou explained that Penny married the grandson of Johnny Gimble, a well-known western swing fiddler and member of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys band. As a result, they have taken even greater interest in adding western swing to their bluegrass.
“Do you know what a purple hull is?” one of the girls asked the audience, rhetorically. “It’s kind of like a black-eyed pea, except better. They’re worth their weight in gold in east Texas. We put our way through college, picking them.”
The Slocam Ramblers started in Toronto, which is known as “The Queen City,” banjo player Frank Evans explained. “Turns out it’s not the only place known as that. We play out and people say, ‘You named your record after our city! And I say, ‘We sure did! It’s our favorite place to play.’”
Songs that demonstrated their breadth are Jim Croce’s “Don’t Mess Around with Jim,” Buddy Miller’s “Forever Has Come to an End,” and some “bluegrass-bluegrass” as they called it, “No Vacancy.”
As Peter Rowan’s band performed Saturday night, a cherry red hot air balloon rose slowly behind the stage and the tempting aroma of barbecue wafted from the vendor area. Revelers availed themselves of wood-fired pizza, ice cream, and other food-stuffs provided by the on-site food trucks. Rowan introduced a number he said was the first song he ever sang with Bill Monroe: “The Old Kentucky Shore.”
Old Crow Medicine Show sang one for the Queen of Rock and Roll, as Ketch Secor put it, “Proud Mary.” The band also covered a lot of territory with Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Great Balls of Fire,” a gospel number, “Take Away Those Chains” and of course, “Wagon Wheel.”
Secor asked what they could possibly follow that with and suggested one they used to sing by the Kentucky campfire, launching into KISS’s “I Want to Rock and Roll.”
Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway opened with the retro-honky tonk tune, “Side-Saddle.” With lyrics like “I don’t want to ride side-saddle…I just want to ride bow-legged like the boys,” Tuttle fans may well imagine it speaking to the award-winning guitarist forging a place for herself in a male dominated industry.
Walking to the late night performances involved strolling in the dark across a footbridge that was illuminated like colorful translucent pegs on the black background of a nostalgic Lite Brite toy. The nearby gardens and trees twinkled with whimsical mushrooms and owls, the festival mascot. Even a cutout of a crescent orb positioned in the edge of the woods served as a photo op, presumably encouraging festivalians to imagine their own “moonlit night when the stars were shining bright.”
When Damn Tall Buildings from Brooklyn, New York, performed on the after-hours stage Wednesday night, they mentioned it was the trio’s first time in Kentucky. Introducing a song, “Cold Rain,” guitarist and lead singer Max Capistran said, “Where we’re from, that’s called ‘snow.’”
Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame Museum Events
Although headliners on the large outdoor stage likely prompted ticket sales, some of the ancillary events on the schedule offered the most memorable, intimate performances. The Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame Museum in downtown Owensboro hosted bands in the lobby and theater early in the day and a free shuttle provided transportation from the park to and from there, the distillery, and downtown hotels. The shuttle schedule began at noon, the same time as some of the museum events, so it required driving if one wanted to arrive on time. (Volunteers acknowledged that the schedules should be tweaked in the future to better align.)
But even if driving was required, it is an easy trek to downtown and well worth the effort to go. New visitors to Owensboro are likely awestruck by the beautiful riverfront behind the museum, including a park with some of the most elaborate playground structures anywhere, and a view of the American Queen riverboat.
Inside the museum lobby, during concerts hosted especially for ROMPers, attendees were able to get so close, one was even able to compliment Rhonda Vincent on her dress and she responded, “Thanks, I just got it.”
Bluegrass broadcasting celebrity, Kyle Cantrell (presently of Banjo Radio), hosted an interview session with Ricky Skaggs on Friday, discussing his rich history in the music profession and in preserving traditional bluegrass.
On Saturday, Radio Bristol’s Farm and Fun Time show was taped live from the museum’s Woodward Theater. The radio show is normally recorded live once a month in Bristol, Tennessee and began in 1946. “This is the first time we’ve taken ‘Farm and Fun’ on the road,” program director Kris Truelsen said. Truelson’s retro-style band, Bill and the Belles, serve as host and perform songs and custom old-timey jingles for the program’s sponsors, around featured performances. Guests were The McCrary Sisters and Peter Rowan’s band.
The McCrary Sisters sang songs like “Amazing Grace” to the tune of “The House of the Rising Sun” with a powerful organ keyboard sound and full instrumental backup. “I’ll take you there” was another lively number introduced by one of the sisters, promising, “We’re going to take you to heaven with us.”
As one sister picked up the other’s shoes and they left the stage, Truelsen said, “How do you follow that? I know. With a Toyota jingle.”
Reminiscent of his time as a Bluegrass Boy in Bill Monroe’s band in the 1960s, Peter Rowan opened with “Blue Moon of Kentucky.” Rowan said that a journalist once asked Bill if he didn’t think Elvis Presley made a travesty of “Blue Moon.” He responded, “No sir. Those were powerful checks.”
Before leaving the museum, ROMPers were able to tour the exhibits, including an area just off the lobby that essentially served as a bluegrass instrument petting zoo. And there was scarcely a time when the upright bass wasn’t cradled in the arms of a musician like he was about to tango, while others chimed in with fiddle, guitar and mandolin, organizing an impromptu bluegrass jam.
Artist Workshops
The ROMP schedule also included artist workshops held outdoors under a modest-sized shelter with picnic tables. Organized by Dave Howard of the Louisville Folk School, they covered a wide gamut, from instrument-specific classes to bluegrass jamming and songwriting.
Tips from the fiddle workshop included using apps like DrumGenius or Strum Machine, and to practice with recordings so you can tell when you’re out of tune, out of time. Also, to start simple, with a three-chord easy song. “It doesn’t have to be ‘The Devil Went Down to Georgia.’”
In the “Close Harmony” workshop, Bibelhauser Brothers advised, “It helps to figure out what your range is. If you’re jamming with folks, be realistic about what you’re capable of doing. Change the key if necessary. Be flexible as a lead singer to get those harmonies.”
In the Songwriting workshop, Peter Rowan explained that you have to go to and learn from the poets of your time. He was playing with Bill Monroe about the time Bob Dylan became known. Rowan said songwriting is like painting a tree, and sometimes the painting becomes a different tree than you planned. “Songwriting and songs is what keeps us going,” he said simply.
Ketch Secor participated in a Q&A where he talked about turning the 36 seconds of Bob Dylan’s unfinished recording into the ubiquitous hit, “Wagon Wheel.” He confessed that he listened to all of Dylan’s recordings, “including the bad ones.” He shared stories like the time John Hartford visited his first grade class with his banjo case in hand and young Secor was convinced a snake was curled up in the round part of the case.
Fans familiar with Secor’s frenetic performance style on stage with Old Crow Medicine Show may have been surprised to learn that he helped found a Christian school in Nashville. And that he etched on the back of his fiddle the names of the five children killed in the Covenant School shooting in Nashville earlier this year, feeling passionate about the cause of keeping children safe.
The People of ROMP
When asked his favorite thing about the festival, one attendee said, “I like to people-watch.” Rompers clearly understand the principle of festival reciprocity. Novelty hats, tie-dyed shirts, or overalls worn while carrying around a personal, wood clogging platform for spontaneous bursts of mountain dance feed the energy of performers. One lean, platinum blonde-haired man frolicked (there’s just no other word that will do) while holding his cell phone high in the air in video recording mode. He’d sweep it in the direction of bands, then the audience, and every 10th step or so, would do a little skip, rather like a walking hiccup. One can only imagine the sort of Blair Witch Bluegrass Project he’ll have when he gets home.
Sunday morning as campers quickly disassembled tents and deflated mattresses at daybreak, in anticipation of some incoming weather, the same-time-next-year sentiment prevailed. Those staying in downtown accommodations marked their calendars when reservations would open for next year.
“It’s a good verb: ‘romp,’” Paul Hoffman from Greensky Bluegrass declared from the stage. The mandolin player who appeared to have come to Owensboro by way of Nazareth added, “If you look it up in the dictionary, there’s a picture of you all dancing.”
