Hoquiam’s residents with their passion for things that get people to be in touch with their history and reminiscences easily fell in love with Bluegrass music. So, once a year they celebrate everything about this type of song with local and visiting performers both amateur, professional as well as celebrity musicians get together in the historic Hoquiam Olympic Stadium to play, listen and feel everything in a Bluegrass tone. As the pioneer of Bluegrass music Bill Monroe once described the genre: “Scottish bagpipes and ole-time fiddlin’. It is Methodist and Holiness and Baptist. It is blues and jazz, and it has a high lonesome sound. It is plain music that tells a good story. It is played from my heart to your heart, and it will touch you. Bluegrass is music that matters.”
The Grays Harbor Annual Bluegrass festival is attended by people from all walks of life, they come to Hoquiam city to partake of good music, good food, and good friends. Bluegrass music has always been welcome in Hoquiam, Washington and the Grays Harbor area, its long history of working class and their daily struggles to keep alive through hard work and doggedness, logging the surrounding forest long before the genre existed in its present form maybe explains the people’s natural connection to this type of music.
During the festival you will be amazed as to the different pace and rhythm that each bluegrass band churns out their music, some fast and catchy with a nip of country genre but still not to be mistaken as such and other tunes being melancholic and heartfelt that the audience would feel like praying to the divine. This crescendo of notes is climaxed by the showdown between two of the bands members who alternately play tunes that are spontaneously dished out in an effort to wow the crowd and inspire or rather challenge the other guy to do better and this is all played out with two entirely different instruments, such as a mandolin going against an acoustic guitar or a banjo. Can you picture the excitement running through the audience at that point?
Most traditional bluegrass bands use a mixture of stringed acoustic instruments that deliver continuous melodies that touch the heart and soul of those who listen in a lively sort of manner, instruments like the banjo, acoustic guitar, violin and mandolin are all played together or in sequence or support to the main musicians’ efforts.
Instrumental solos are a crowd pleaser and you will get a lot of these amazing displays of pure raw talent during the Bluegrass festival. Band members try their best to outdo other bands or even their own band mates not so much so to show who is the best soloist but rather to entertain the crowd and give them a good time.
Visitors to the Grays Harbor Bluegrass festival are encouraged by the city and its residents to go around and mingle in good fun and enjoyment, with most visitors being very familiar with the city and already having acquaintances or established friends from previous visits to Hoquiam and the Grays Harbor area.
Some bluegrass bands add other instruments to their arrangement, instruments such as pianos, harmonicas and electric guitars and violins make for an interesting combination of sounds, but of avid fans they refer to this as “Newgrass” a sort of progression from the more traditional and purist form of the genre. Another distinct characteristic that bluegrass music has is the “high lonesome sound” a vocal harmony in four parts with a jarring blending of high pitch and baritone at the bottom and end mixed together to deliver a melody that is awaited by avid fans and scholars alike.
Being part of the Annual Grays Harbor Bluegrass festival is an experience not worth missing. People from all around go to Hoquiam city and experience live music, good food and good hospitality from the people of Hoquiam who love and know their bluegrass music.
Check out Wade Entezar catches the Gray’s Harbor Bluegrass Fwstival Music for the working class