Thanks to the support of the St. John's Folk Arts Council, there's a new musical organization in the province: The Bluegrass and Oldtime Country Music Society of Newfoundland and Labrador. The movement that started it began last August when a bluegrass workshop and bluegrass stage performances by four acts -- Raymond McLain and Mike Stevens, CROOKED STOVEPIPE, KENTUCKY TUNDRA and BART AND THE BREADPICKS -- were included at the annual Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival. The workshop, on Sunday morning, was very well attended, and during the discussion period at the end, Frank Davis raised the idea of a local bluegrass association, since he'd found we are the only province in Canada that didn't have one. He collected a list of names and addresses.

Using this list along with announcements on VOWR and elsewhere, we advertized a public bluegrass jam session for October 25th at the Masonic Hall in St. John's. The turnout was impressive -- over fifty people. More names were collected and on November 12 our website went up.

We hoped that the East Coast Music Association (ECMA), which was holding its annual awards show in St. John's in February, would include a bluegrass showcase as it had at the two previous shows in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. When we heard that this was not going to happen, we decided to go ahead with our own bluegrass showcase on the ECMA weekend. We knew many music industry people would be in town for the event. We wanted them to find out what we already knew: that bluegrass music is "happening" here in a way that it never has before. Meanwhile, our second jam session, on January 18th at the Topsail SUF Hall in Conception Bay South, had attracted over 70 people on a snowy winter afternoon.

On the evening of Friday February 13, 2004, our showcase concert was held in downtown St. John's at the Kirk, a local church hall. It featured four bands: BIRCH MOUNTAIN BLUEGRASS (from Nova Scotia), CROOKED STOVEPIPE, KENTUCKY TUNDRA, and BART AND THE BREAD PICKS. Tickets went on sale the week before and were sold out two days before the event. The large audience -- which included our special guest, Lieutenant Governor Ed Roberts -- responded enthusiastically to Newfoundland's first bluegrass concert.

For our next event, we decided on a concert that would bring bluegrass to the growing number of people on our list from outside of St. John's in the Conception Bay North area. On June 5th we presented a show at the Sheila NaGeira Theatre in Carbonear with performances by CROOKED STOVEPIPE, BART AND THE BREAD PICKS, THE TUNDRA TRIO, RYMAN COUNTRY (Mollie and Clayton Kennedy), and the AVALON RAMBLERS featuring Jimmy Linegar. Like our February concert at the Kirk, this show was sold out.

A second event is planned for Conception Bay North on the afternoon of July 18th -- a jam session at the Lion's Den in Carbonear.

Several of the performers who've been involved in our concerts and jams will appear at this year's Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival -- CROOKED STOVEPIPEon the main stage, and BART AND THE BREAD PICKS on the Neil Murray stage. Oldtime southern style five-string banjo will be represented there too by Rik Barron, performing with Dave Panting.

Meanwhile we're beginning to think about the possibility of a bluegrass festival somewhere in the province -- probably outside of St. John's -- in 2005. For news about bluegrass and oldtime country music in Newfoundland and Labrador, as well as pictures of performers from various events and articles about local historical figures like Jimmie Linegar and Jackie Walsh, take a look at our website. If you want to be informed about upcoming events, the site has a place where you can submit your address.