WINTER PICK & COULD THE COLDEST BE OVER?

I decided that winter must be over when the first bug of 2015 splattered onto my windshield just out of Livingston as I headed back to Billings on Sunday, January 25. (A hatch may have begun on the Yellowstone, but with all the iced up banks it would be hard to cast a fly out there. Need to think nymphs anyway.)  What a perfect weekend it had been for driving to Gardiner, MT, near the Mammoth Hot Springs of Yellowstone National Park. The roads were in excellent condition with only a few gusty crosswinds around Big Timber on Friday.   Robert and Nichelle Grosvenor and their group of eager volunteers had again organized a super jam for Winter Pick. One entire building of the Super 8 motel was reserved for jammers.  Bluegrassers from a wide area showed up. The farthest away was a bass player who had traveled all the way from Yankton, SD. He played doghouse bass, but had another I had never seen. It looked for all the world like a baritone ukelele, but when plugged into a small amp it produced amazing big bass notes from such a small instrument. Besides the expected pickers from Livingston, Bozeman, and Billings, a very sizeable contingent has been attending annually from Helena. Included were the Payne's, Dave and Candy, who host the annual Old Time Fiddlers Picnic during August at Livingston.  An old friend and ex-Laurelite, Bob Strand, with wife Susie, had come all the way down from Ft. Peck. The Miles City boys (Milestown) drove more than 300 miles to attend.  (NOTE TO SELF: I need to practice those old Bob Will's western swing tunes to play with Jim. My "Faded Love" was OK, but I really sucked on "San Antonio Rose.") Well known  guitar flat picker and singer, John Lowell, was there on Friday night as well as Texas Style fiddle teacher and one-time national champion, Lisa Barrett. She had to challenge the grassers with "Huckleberry Hornpipe." Generally speaking my opinion is that contest fiddlers should just stick to  their own thing at the contests.  They can become excellent BG fiddlers though, and Allison Krause is a great example of that. Byron Berline built a couple of BG bands around his version of contest tunes including "Sally Goodin'."  So what do I know? Of course Berline gave us the very popular "Gold Rush" from his days as a "Bluegrass Boy." Old Bill stuck his name on many tunes, but we think this one came 90% from Byron. 

There were two long days with  more jams going on than ever before. Music could be heard coming from all three floors and frequently three or more rooms to choose from on each. A very good aspect of this type arrangement is that only normal size hotel rooms are available. That makes jam sizes very reasonable with no huge room for "monster" jams.  I don't believe those help anyone outside of rank beginners just learning to chord. In smaller jams who ever is up kicks off their tune and everyone there has a turn at it. Lots of fun (and some frustration for me).  Some picking went on until 3 AM or later. Most pickers just looked for a jam without their chosen instrument and filled in the void there. As usual, banjos and fiddles were in slightly short supply with tons of guitars everywhere and reasonable numbers of mandolins. There even seemed to be an excess of bass players this year..  Many good pickers found this a great place to practice a second instrument beyond their skills on a primary one.

A virtual cornucopia of food was available 24 hours each day.  In addition to lots of finger food, large slow cookers full of hot foods appeared like magic. Hams, turkeys, and pizza came out of the suite's oven while big stockpots of soups and stews bubbled on the stove top.

                                 The above is only on of several tables loaded with lots of goodies.

As this is Montana, after all, there was plenty of wild game meats and summer sausages to choose from as well as many types of cheese and fancier hors d'ouerves. (I probably misspelled that, but what the hell, you know what I mean.)  A guitar picker from Joliet had cooked up some old fashioned garlic sausage they had made from two pigs that were butchered and totally stuffed into casings. I ate two big chunks. (I made sure my last [and I do mean LAST] "girl" friend loved garlic and you know why.) My butchering family made tons of fresh garlic sausage at Spear Meat Company, once known as Billings best meat market. It was a big favorite of the Volga-Germans who moved into the Yellowstone valley to farm sugar beets.  I even made some myself in December  when I stuffed and smoked my stash of Koch family "Christmas Sausages" and lots of Cajun Andouille. My contribution for Winter Pick was a triple Crockpot with Cajun foods: Jambalaya, Red Beans & Rice, plus a Shrimp & Crawfish Etoufee. Most of it disappeared so hungry bluegrassers must eat just about anything. I included some of my Andouille in the Jambalaya, but sneaked some Hot Links into the Red Beans and Rice. No Tabasco sauce needed in that pot!

We all left Gardiner with good memories and plans on returning next year. Thanks a million, Robert and Nichelle. You are terrific people and contribute so very much to the music scene in Montana. We all owe you a lot. See you next year.