HOQUIAM’S BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL – Music of the working class

The Annual Grays Harbor Bluegrass festival is an event that you definitely want to be part of! The residents of Hoquiam City have always been proud with their love affair with this genre of music that got its start from the end of the Second World War and continued on to be a favorite among communities who like Hoquiam are made up of hard working people who like to hear good stories that touch your heart. Bluegrass bands both professional and amateur, fans from all walks of life gather for a few days in Hoquiam’s Olympic Stadium to sample the high lonesome sound that is distinct with true bluegrass melody.

The Grays Harbor Annual Bluegrass festival is attended by people from all walks of life, they come to Hoquiam city to partake of good music, good food, and good friends. Bluegrass music has always been welcome in Hoquiam, Washington and the Grays Harbor area, its long history of working class and their daily struggles to keep alive through hard work and doggedness, logging the surrounding forest long before the genre existed in its present form maybe explains the people’s natural connection to this type of music.

Bluegrass music delivers a variety of emotions to the table when listened to and the audience is promised to enjoy the lively creative exchanges that characterize bluegrass music, all of this straight from the heart fiddlin and guitar play, the musicians daring each other to outdo the string of tunes his guitar or mandolin has played in quick succession as both are egged on by the audience to continue with their instrumental showdown of sorts.

The source of soul for bluegrass music is of course the musician and the musician relies on his chosen instruments, traditional instruments for a bluegrass band would be acoustic stringed instruments like the acoustic guitar, banjo, upright bass, fiddle and mandolin. All of these stringed instruments deliver a fast reverberating melody that definitely affects the crowd.

In the Hoquiam Bluegrass festival you will learn that this genre is notably quite different from traditional or mainstream country music, bluegrass musicians rely heavily on acoustic stringed instruments. In Bluegrass the gist of the performance is the instrumental solos that are played ad lib style and is creatively very challenging to the performer and very much enjoyed by people who get to feel the rawness of emotion brought out by the music, flowing out of the instruments may it be a fiddle or acoustic guitar.

Bluegrass music is very much alive in Grays Harbor and Hoquiam city, the festival brings together fans, bluegrass scholars and of course bluegrass musicians who enjoy each other’s company and talent. In Hoquiam’s Bluegrass festival it is not unlikely that some of the bands will play gospel songs and for the uninitiated this is considered as part of the bluegrass repertoire.

Some bluegrass bands add other instruments to their arrangement, instruments such as pianos, harmonicas and electric guitars and violins make for an interesting combination of sounds, but of avid fans they refer to this as “Newgrass” a sort of progression from the more traditional and purist form of the genre. Another distinct characteristic that bluegrass music has is the “high lonesome sound” a vocal harmony in four parts with a jarring blending of high pitch and baritone at the bottom and end mixed together to deliver a melody that is awaited by avid fans and scholars alike.

Love delicious home cooked meals and gracious company with your bluegrass? Go get yourself to Hoquiam and be part of the Bluegrass music festival where the music played in the historic Olympic Stadium definitely celebrates the sweet life of the working man.

Check out Wade Entezar does the Gray’s Harbor Bluegrass Fwstival music that matters

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