Last year, my band Miners Creek played the second stage at a small festival in Hanson, MA called Bluegrass on the Bogs. This is a great little festival put on at a place called Camp Kiwanee bordering an old cranberry bog (absolutely gorgeous scenery). They’re a non-traditional festival specializing in regional bands and by regional bands, I mean bands from the Northeast, not bands who only tour regionally. They had some pretty big names in the bluegrass scene this year, including the fabulous up-and-comers, The Lonely Heartstring band who just signed with Rounder Records, and Mile Twelve who just got back from a tour of Ireland. These are bands that play the big festivals.
Last year, we got asked to return this year and play the gospel hour. Now, anyone who knows our family knows we’re not very gospel-y. We don’t go to church. We’re not religious in any way, shape, or form. We’re pretty much agnostic through and through. So when presented with the challenge of playing an entire hour of gospel music we were at a bit of a loss. We spent the year listening to gospel albums, going to the gospel hours at various bluegrass festivals, we even asked Beartracks for their set list after their gospel set at Jenny Brook Bluegrass Festival last year.
We put together a list of songs that were not only gospel songs, but that spoke to us on a personal level, which was a tricky balance to strike. We didn’t want anything too preachy or too Jesus-y because we didn’t want to come across as insincere, but we didn’t want to offend the more religious crowd either. In the end, I think we came up with a good set. We got a chance to stretch and expand our abilities with challenging harmonies and instrumentation and ultimately we had fun. It was so gratifying to stand on stage yesterday morning and look out at the audience singing along to Angel Band and Gospel Plow.
It was also the best weekend ever, because my best friend, Jenny got to come with us and even played along with one of the songs that she recorded with us on our first album (I’m So Lucky).
Thank you for reading. Hopefully, I’ll be able to post more frequently. If you’d like to be the first to get knew blog posts from me be sure to subscribe!
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