Wilson Creek gearing up to jam

WILSON CREEK — It’s time to rosin the bows, tune up the banjos and dust off the mandolin strings for the third annual Wilson Creek Bluegrass Jam.

“It’s a laid-back jam,” said organizer Shirley Billings. “Anybody’s welcome to come, no matter what talent level they are. If they’re just starting out or if they’re great, or even if you just like music and want to just hang out.”

Like last year, the Bluegrass Jam will be the second weekend in June, Friday the 13th through Sunday the 15th. The event draws local bluegrass players from all over the area, most of them devoted amateurs who love the genre.

“We have some of the same people who have been coming for the last three years,” Billings said. “We have the Lewis County Pickers who were here before, and some groups out of Moses Lake. Just local, nonprofessional, good pickers and singers (who) just make a band and get up there and open mic it for a couple hours.”

Friday is an informal day, Billings said, with people gathering in groups as they please to make music and finishing up with a potluck dinner. Billings’ family band will play that evening at the Harvest Moon Saloon, she said.

Most of the action will be on Saturday. There’s an open mic at 4 p.m., and at 7 p.m. there will be a headline performance by the Panhandle Polecats, a band of five siblings from North Idaho who have been playing together most of their lives.

“Our grandparents play guitar and piano and we wanted to play with them,” said Bonnie Campbell, who plays guitar with the Polecats. “So, we all bought instruments when we were like 10 or 12, and we liked bluegrass, so we just started playing that.”

Besides Campbell, the Panhandle Polecats consist of her twin brother Austin Little, who plays banjo; Jenny Marks on bass; Molly Wilbur on mandolin and Hank Little on dobro – a specialty guitar with a metal plate behind the strings and a few other unique differences. Their mother Shirley will join in on fiddle for a few songs, Campbell added.

The ladies do most of the singing, Campbell said, and her brothers keep up the between-number banter.

“Hank does a lot of odd knowledge throughout the set, little trivia about who was born on this day, and random jokes,” she said. “When the boys are on fire, they’re pretty good at going back and forth.”

Saturday is also Wilson Creek’s Little Big Show car show and community festival, and Billings said the jam integrates well with that.

“We enjoy the car show, and I guess there’s going to be a community-wide yard sale that day too,” she said. “The bluegrass people who come in from all over, they like to give back to the community that they’re in.”

The whole thing takes place in Wilson Creek’s town park. There will be microphones and such set up because otherwise it would be hard for sound to carry, Billings said, but other than that, it’s acoustic and informal.

“I really want to bring people out and get people together again,” she said. “We’re all neighbors around here, whether you’re in Odessa or Moses Lake or Harrington or Coulee City.”