Blue Waters, Bluegrass Festival enters 15th year

The Blue Waters Bluegrass festival celebrates its 15th anniversary, Aug. 12-14 at Waterfront Park in Medical Lake.

"We've seen festivals come and go," Kevin Brown, Blue Waters music director, said. "We've got a good group of people who have been involved for several years."

Brown said the festival has had a steady growth in the last five years. He enjoys seeing new people coming to the festival for the first time.

"One of my favorite things to see is families camping here for the weekend and kids having the opportunity to see and hear the music," Brown said. "It's almost like a town has been built (around the festival)."

Brown said the lineup for this year's festival consists of a mix of progressive and traditional bands.

One of the headliners is Chatham County Line, who play Saturday at 9 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m.

The band enters its 20th year as a group and, according to the Blue Waters website, "brings a deep reverence for traditional American roots music and timeless bluegrass instrumentation to original songs."

Brown said Chatham County Line is one of his favorite groups from North Carolina.

"Their sound is described as 'Americana', it's softer," Brown said. "They do traditional bluegrass and perform with a single microphone, which makes for a fun performance to watch."

Longtime duo Jody Stecher and Kate Brislin will perform on Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. Brown said Brislin and Stecher met each other at the Expo 74 World's Fair "fell in love and have toured together since then."

"The two of them have this gorgeous harmony," Brown said.

Front Country will perform on Friday at 9 p.m. and Saturday at 7 p.m. The band, which started playing bluegrass in San Francisco's Mission District, consists of singer-songwriter Melody Walker as lead vocals, along with mandolinist Adam Roszkiewicz, guitarist Jacob Groopman, violinist Leif Karlstrom and bassist Jeremy Darrow.

"They are very progressive and (have) high energy," Brown said, adding that Walker has a "gospel voice."

The Slocan Ramblers will bring some international flavor to this year's festival. The band has become one of the rising groups in the Canadian roots music scene, winning the 2015 Edmonton Folk Fest Emerging Artist Award.

Brown described the group as "traditional and high energy." Although the festival has featured bands from western Canada, this is the first time an eastern Canadian group has performed at the festival.

"They reached out to us to see if they could perform (at Blue Waters)," Brown said. "They're very excited to come here."

The Lowest Pair features the dual banjo picking of Kendl Winter and Palmer T. Lee, which released their most recent album, "The Sacred Heart Sessions," in February 2015.

Some bands from the Pacific Northwest include the Barn Owls, a Seattle-based trio, Farmstrong, a band from Sequim, Wash., Bluestreak, out of Spokane, and The No Going Back Band.

The youth camp returns for the third year. Young musicians will receive instrument and vocal instruction and perform on stage Saturday at noon. The Slocan Ramblers will help with this year's camp.

Brown said the camp's attendance has doubled in the two years. He credits JayDean Ludiker for her hard work and dedication, calling her the "backbone of the camp."

There is also an open mic on Friday at 5 p.m. and a gospel singalong on Sunday at 11 a.m.

"The line between audience and performer gets blurred through the workshops and open mic (sessions)," Brown said. "Sometimes performers will play with audiences in the parking lot. There are not many genres of music where you have a lot of access to performers."

Al Stover can be reached at [email protected].