The Hub Bluegrass Club in Williams Lake is hosting its 10th annual Bluegrass Concert on Sunday, March 24.
The concert wraps up the 108 Cabin Fever Bluegrass Workshops March 20-24 and features instructors from the workshops.
Nationally acclaimed Bluegrass performers will include John Reischman; Nick Hornbuckle; Trisha Gagnon; Trent Freeman; Chris Jones; Sally Jones; Tim Eccles; Keith Hill; Randy Pokeda; Jason and Pharis Romero; and the Five on a String Bluegrass Band.
The Hub Bluegrass Club is a non-profit organization and $5 from each ticket sold will go to the Cariboo Foundation Hospital Trust for the purchase of a digital mammography machine and a bursary to further education in Bluegrass music, says event spokesperson, Rosetta Paxton, who provides the artists’ biographies.
John Reischman is one of the acoustic world’s top-ranked mandolin players and composers. His mastery of the instrument is showcased in the powerful bluegrass band John Reischman and the Jaybirds.
Nick Hornbuckle has a unique playing style: a two-finger blend of modal, claw-hammer technique and Scruggs-style bluegrass rolls showcased on all the Jaybirds’ recordings.
Juno Award nominee Trisha Gagnon’s reverent yet playful songs have the power to refresh the soul through artful depictions of the things she finds most inspiring: landscape, family, and the divine. With world-class upright bass skills, a poet’s command of language, and a voice dubbed “irresistible” by Sing Out!, Gagnon has made a name for herself playing with the bands Tumbleweed and John Reischman and the Jaybirds.
Trent Freeman’s new recording, Rock Paper Scissors is artistic, inspired, edgy and beautiful as it blurs the lines between jazz and folk.
Freeman has toured and recorded with many bands and artists such as The Wailin Jennys, John Reischman, Wyclef Jean, and countless others. Another collaboration of his, a folk string quartet called The Fretless, recently won a Western Canadian Music Award for best instrumental album of 2012, and two Canadian Folk Music Awards for both Instrumental Group of the Year, and Ensemble of the Year.
Singer, songwriter and guitarist, Chris Jones is the founder and front man of The Night Drivers. Thanks to his role hosting SiriusXM’s Bluegrass Junction, he is the most widely heard broadcasting voice in bluegrass. In 2007 he earned IBMA’s Awards Show Song of the Year Award as a co-writer of Fork in the Road, the title track of the year’s Album Of The Year by the Infamous Stringdusters, and the organization’s Broadcaster Of The Year trophy.
Singer and songwriter Sally Jones won numerous award nominations for her solo album Sally Jones with her band the Sidewinders and critically acclaimed Pinecastle recording Love Hurts. Before branching out on her own she spent a decade as guitarist and harmony singer with artists such as Tom T. Hall, Marie Osmond, Harley Allen and Andrea Roberts.
The Five on a String Bluegrass Band includes three-time Canadian Flatpicking Champion Garry Stevenson on guitar lead and baritone vocals; Gordie Sadler on banjo, lead and tenor vocals; Hugh Ellenwood on fiddle, lead and bass vocals; Dan Mornar on upright bass, lead and tenor vocals; Tim Eccles on mandolin (guitar and banjo), lead and tenor vocals.
Randy Pokeda, of Williams Lake, is one of Canada’s top musicians having mastered the electric and acoustic guitars, resophonic Dobro guitar, pedal steel guitar and plays banjo at times. He is an accomplished session musician, producer and freelance player. Pokeda owns a recording studio in Williams Lake where folks from around B.C. come to have their recordings done, Paxton says.
Jason and Pharis Romero live at Horsefly where they make banjos, resophonic guitars and music together and with friends. Last year they were named New/Emerging Artists of the Year by the Canadian Folk Music Association for their A Passing Glimpse album. Their recently released second album is called Long Gone Out West Blues.
Keith Hill is an accomplished fiddler and guitar player and workshop instructor who has judged at many Old Time Fiddle Contests.
The concert is Sunday, March 24 at the Gibraltar Room starting at 7 p.m. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Advance tickets $25 and available at the Cariboo Memorial Recreation Complex. For more information call 250-398-7665.
