A campy good time awaits Lodi bluegrass lovers

Apr. 13—Break out your banjos, rosin up your fiddle bows and head out to the Lodi Grape Festival grounds on Tuesday if you want to tap your toes to some down-home bluegrass music.

The California Bluegrass Association is hosting its seventh Spring Campout April 16-21, where dozens of musicians, students and enthusiasts come together to enjoy one of the oldest genres in American history.

"We love it," campout coordinator Deb Livermore said. "The Grape Festival people are so easy to work with, and everyone is really nice. We're excited to be coming back this year."

While bluegrass is the focus of the campout, a variety of other musical styles can be heard over the six-day period, including old time, gospel, Americana, folk, and even swing jazz.

Livermore said the event is simply friends and family pitching tents and hanging out, playing music or creating new material.

The event — which leads up to the 56th Annual California State Old Time Fiddle and Picking Championships — typically attracts about 250 attendees each year.

Livermore said new people are attracted to bluegrass each year, thanks to its increasing presence in pop culture.

"Bluegrass is becoming more popular," she said. "We have new people come out to the campout each year. We're hearing it on TV shows, and even commercials will have music featuring banjos and fiddles."

Those who attend the campout range in age from 8 to 80 years old, and can play music at a variety of levels, Livermore said, from novice, to in-between to masters of their instruments.

Music will start playing at about 10 a.m. each day of the campout and sometimes continue on until 2 a.m., she said.

"It's small, but well attended," Livermore said. "It's just family getting together, having a good time, eating, and playing music they love."

This is the fourth year the California State Old Time Fiddle and Picking Championships will be held inside Jackson Hall at the Grape Festival, set for April 19 and 20.

Last year's event featured about 60 contestants from ages 7 to 93 years old.

A fiddle is actually a violin, but fiddlers have given the instrument a slang name. Where violinists typically play slowly, fiddlers tend to play at a more upbeat tempo. The idea behind fiddling was originally to get people's feet moving.

Old-time fiddling grew out of square dancing, and the songs are focused on a rhythm people can dance well to, along with some repetition.

From there, it grew into bluegrass, western swing, and other fiddle styles more focused on the music. But old-time fiddling still puts the focus on danceability.

The contest was founded in 1966 following the post-World War II boom in bluegrass, as well as folk and country music.

Initially, the competition traveled from city to city along the Highway 99 corridor, eventually settling in Oroville, where it had been held for three decades before the move to Lodi.

In 2019, organizers said the contest was moved to Lodi with the hopes of finding new blood among competitors and the audience. And because Lodi is closer to the Bay Area than Oroville, as well as centrally located in California, organizers hoped to attract people who had not been able to attend the contest in the past.

Championships will begin with two senior brackets competing in both the preliminaries and finals on Friday. The Senior-Senior category will feature fiddlers older than 70, while the Senior category will include players aged 55-69.

The evening will conclude with the "Anything Goes" round, where contestants can play anything with which they can make music. Barrett said one year someone was able to play a saw.

Saturday's competitions will feature every other age group, broken up into a variety of brackets that include adults, young adults, juniors, junior-junors and pee-wees. There will also be Twin Fiddles competitions in the afternoon.

Admission to the competition is free, and begins at 3:35 p.m. on Friday, April 19. Registration begins at 2:30 p.m.

Saturday begins at 8 a.m. with registration, and awards will be presented at 10 p.m.

RV camping at the fairgrounds is $40 a night, and tents or vehicle camping is $10 a night. Reservations are required and can be made by contacting Deblivermore@CaliforniaBluegrass.net.

For more information about the Spring Campout, visit californiabluegrass.org/cbaevent/spring-campout.

For more information about the fiddle championships, visit www.csotfa.org.