Bluegrass father and mandolin master Bill Monroe famously characterized the genre as having a “high lonesome sound.” This week, expectations are high, but it doesn’t look like there will be anything lonesome about the International Bluegrass Music Association’s first year in Raleigh.
“North Carolina’s a good bluegrass state, so it makes sense,” said Woody Platt, banjo player for Brevard band Steep Canyon Rangers. The band hosts tonight’s awards show, but started among friends picking on the quad together at UNC.
The IBMA’s World of Bluegrass Week kicked off on Tuesday with a business conference, but the big fun — the International Bluegrass Music Awards followed by two days of music around downtown Raleigh — begins tonight. The convention called Owensboro, Ky., Louisville, Ky. and Nashville, Tenn. home before announcing last May that Raleigh would host the 2013, 2014 and 2015 conventions.
Organizers, artists and fans alike have been abuzz about the new host city. Anson Burtch, longtime bluegrass fan and Durham resident, said Raleigh offers a unique opportunity for the convention to be at home, so to speak.
“Some of the best bluegrass musicians — the most being (banjo pioneer) Earl Scruggs — are from here,” he said.
“The state and the city have a huge appreciation for the music, and we don’t have any other music conventions and there’s no music quote unquote ‘headquartered’ here,” he said.
Burtch continued, “I mean, we have a great music scene, Merge Records and Yep Roc Records and bands like Whiskeytown that went on to produce national acts, but we’re not the home to any kind of music,” he said.
Platt echoed Burtch’s smaller-town sentiments about Raleigh.
“Nashville is so crowded and so busy, and IBMA is kind of a little small blip on the radar in Nashville. I think in Raleigh, it’s going to be a big deal, and it’s going to be treated like a big deal,” he said.
Denny Edwards, president and CEO of the Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau, said the state’s deep bluegrass roots are part of what helped convince the IBMA to make the move.
“We promoted this and sold this as really a state of North Carolina event versus just a greater Raleigh event,” he said.
“And I think that played an important part in us winning this bid because we were able to take advantage of the history of bluegrass all the way from Asheville to the coast,” he said.
Though the spotlight is on North Carolina’s contributions to bluegrass, the draw of the IBMA reaches far beyond the Tar Heel State. Shannon Turner is a music writer who lives in Nashville, and she’s making the trip from Music City to Raleigh for this year’s awards and festivities. This year will be her second time attending the IBMAs, and she said she’s eager to see what Raleigh has to offer.
“I think everybody is kind of holding their breath in positive anticipation about this coming to Raleigh in general,” she said.
“To me, wherever it is, it’s going to be somewhere that I want to go and participate, and see how bluegrass is doing as an industry and to promote it in the best way that I can — and to hear great music and see great artists, because the lineup’s incredible,” she said.
Platt, who will perform with Steep Canyon Rangers several times throughout the weekend said he most looks forward to the general easygoing atmosphere the convention facilitates.
“Bluegrass is such a great community. The promoters, the agents, the reporters, the people that review the music, the sound companies, the bands — everybody seems to know each other, and it’s very familial,” he said.
“It’s like a big happy family. It’s just fun to have the opportunity to see everybody in a different setting,” he said.
But camaraderie and an appreciation of bluegrass history aren’t the only things folks hope to get out of the weekend: the city of Raleigh expects the whole weekend to draw in between $5 million and $10 million to its economy, according to Edwards.
In addition to the official IBMA events, the city of Raleigh has also partnered with the North Carolina Pork Council to host this year’s North Carolina Whole Hog Barbecue State Championship — something Edwards said he hopes will draw even more people downtown this weekend. Edwards estimated the city expects to see up to 60,000 people downtown between tomorrow and Saturday.
Suffice to say that both the city and IBMA have a lot riding on this weekend. But it everything goes as well as everyone hopes, IBMA and Raleigh could go together like pickin’ and grinnin’.
“There’s nothing but positive vibes coming out about it. I think it can only be a great thing. I saw one guy say he expected it to be historic, and that’s a pretty big deal,” Turner said.
diversions@dailytarheel.com
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