Bluegrass festival about friends, music

MOSES LAKE - One of the most fun things about bluegrass music, according to those who attended the Five Suns Bluegrass Festival over the weekend, is its adaptability.

Take a song - say, something by bluegrass legend Bill Monroe. In some musical genres, players play what's written; it's simply not done to experiment with it.

Experimentation is not only done, it's encouraged when playing bluegrass. "It's taking a tune that's out there and making it your own," Debbie Dickerson, of Spokane, said.

Five bands performed Friday and Saturday nights, but there was music going on all weekend over in the campground. That's the way bluegrass is - players just can't resist getting together for a little jam.

"So fun. So fun," Dickerson said. "It's the freedom. You can play anything you want to."

"It's porch music," Paul Wenberg, of Graham, said, where people bring their mandolins and guitars, bass, banjos and violins, and see what happens. "Even beginners sit in," Mel Wenberg said, who was trying out a new song on the violin as her husband accompanied her on guitar.

Justin Walsh and his wife Tati, of Coulee City, went rafting with their friend Ron Geer, of Moses Lake, and on the trips Geer would bring along his guitar. "Next thing your know we had to buy another boat just to bring the instruments," Geer said. (The aluminum bass travels downriver in a coffin, the only box they could find that was big enough, Justin Walsh said.)

That's how bluegrass works, according to the people who play it. A person hears a little music, meets some players, gets interested, picks up an instrument, just for fun. "For us, it was going to a festival," Jake Jacobs, of Sequim, said. "We met the people and they were the friendliest people on the planet." Jacobs took up the banjo, while his wife Jeanne plays the violin.

"It's infectious," Paul Dickerson, of Spokane, said.

"It's like a family reunion," Geer said. Bluegrass fans, fans who become players, musicians, all form a bond. "It becomes like a family of people who play music together," Jacky Fausset, of Cle Elum, said.

Linda Dowler, of Spokane Valley, took off to the festival on her own, which worried her dad a little, she said, but she wasn't worried. And when she did have car trouble her fellow bluegrass musician friends rallied around to help her. "There definitely is a family."

"It's one of the few places where the old help the young and the young help the old," Debbie Dickerson said. The Dickersons and Dowler were jamming with Aaron Castilla, 17, of Spokane. He's been playing since he was 8.

There's one more advantage to bluegrass, Paul Wenberg said. "Remembering all those lyrics keeps your mind as sharp as a tack."

"It beats Sudoku," Jacky Fausset said.