Andy Thorn, Drew Emmit and Vince Herman of Leftover Salmon played Saturday at WinterWonderGrass in Steamboat Springs. The band is credited with jump-starting the jamband genre in 1991.
In their song “Never Been to Spain,” Three Dog Night infamously sang, “Well I’ve never been to Spain but I kind of like the music.”
In 35 years of living in Colorado, I somehow had never been to Steamboat Springs before this weekend. Now, having been there, I loved the music.
The music in question was played at the 13th annual WinterWonderGrass, a bluegrass and roots music festival in Steamboat this past weekend.
As a concert and music festival lifer, one of the first things you learn is that it’s never just about the music; it’s the journey, the drive, the company. The drive from Wolcott to Steamboat was gorgeous and a throwback to the Colorado that greeted me when I first came here in the ‘80s. I was impressed by how the town has kept its western roots in ranching while blending with ski town culture
I came in hot to the festival, a three-day affair, and the first full set I caught on the main stage was Mountain Grass Unit, a four-piece bluegrass band from (mostly) Birmingham, Alabama, one of the fastest rising bands in the bluegrass scene. I had tickets to Belly Up to see them last summer, but the show got canceled. It was worth the wait.
The band is Drury Anderson (mandolin, vocals), Luke Black (guitar, vocals), Josiah Nelson (fiddle, vocals) and Sam Wilson (bass,vocals).
It was fitting that MGU was the first band I saw (I would see them two more times over the weekend). While there was plenty of firepower in the jamband scene represented (including the progenitors of the genre Leftover Salmon and heavyweights The Infamous Stringdusters), the story of the weekend at WWG was the new generation of bluegrass and bluegrass-adjacent bands that have emerged since COVID.
The Kitchen Dwellers and Billy Strings came on the scene around 2010 and 2013. Close to a decade went by without a major band emerging in the genre. But coming out of the pandemic, there has been an explosion of bands in the progressive/jamgrass world who are following the lead of Billy Strings and taking bluegrass to levels never before seen.
Jay Cobb Anderson, guitarist and vocalist in Fruition, took the stage with his infant son during a set by Daniel Rodriguez on Friday at WinterWonderGrass in Steamboat Springs.
Along with MGU, Colorado bands are leading the bluegrass renaissance with Magoo, The Fretliners and Clay Street Unit (more country/Americana), all trailblazing their own paths and building strong fan bases.
Other emerging standout bands from the weekend that had people talking were Broken Compass, Bronwyn Keith-Hynes (traditional bluegrass) and Tophouse.
“The wealth of rising and emerging artists has been a wonderful evolution to watch through the last several years,” Scotty Stoughton, festival founder and promoter, said. “They’re playing great shows but also paying homage to the past artists that influenced them and honoring the history of the music. Seeing them inspire the audience is a really cool evolution.”
Stoughton pointed out that it’s not just Bill Monroe, Tony Rice and John Hartford that the young bands are honoring, but they are playing the songs of bands like Leftover Salmon, Greensky Bluegrass and Billy Strings, new songs that are becoming part of the lexicon of bluegrass.
In addition to the main stage, WWG has three music tents that feature music both during main stage sets and set breaks. On Friday, Daniel Rodriguez, formerly of Elephant Revival, performed several sets during the day. I caught two of them. He was joined by a band that included Silas Hermann on mandolin. Herman is the son of Leftover Salmon lead singer, vocalist and festivarian Vince Herman.
Having been to over 1,000 shows in my day, I love it when I see something new. Fruition’s guitarist and vocalist Jay Cobb Anderson joined the band for a sit-in with a roughly 2-month-old baby strapped to his chest. Whether it was due to a lack of child care or a desire to expose the baby to bluegrass at a very young age, it was definitely a first.
Stoughton said he felt there has been a shift in his audience from coming to WWG to see certain bands to appreciating the overall music.
“The festival this weekend brought the foundation and the spirit of Bluegrass,” Stoughton said. “Every band had support this weekend. Everybody was into all the bands on site. The baby bands, the big bands, the audience didn’t care. What always affected me in bluegrass was the community element, the camaraderie, the compassion and empathy for one another. It really felt like we kind of hit a milestone of trust with every single fan who came. It wasn’t like, ‘I’m here to see a particular band. They were like, ‘We’re here to see the music.’”
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