San Francisco Bluegrass & Old-Time Festival

Returns to the Bay Area

MARIN INDEPENDENT JOURNAL

FEBRUARY 2, 2001

By Paul Liberatore

Larry Carlin is sometimes known as the "Bill Graham of bluegrass" in Marin.

"I've been called that, but I don't put it on my business card," he says. "But as far as trying to spread the word about bluegrass in the North Bay, I'm it. I'm trying to make a bluegrass scene in Marin County."

Thanks to Carlin and other local aficionados of this traditional American music, there is a growing bluegrass subculture out here, but it exists below the mainstream music market.

"You have to be plugged in to know about it," he says. "You have to know how and where to find it."

For the next 11 days, though, bluegrass will be hard to miss.

Carlin is one of the organizers of the second annual San Francisco Bluegrass & Old-Time Festival, an ambitious event with live shows, workshops and films in San Francisco, Berkeley and Mill Valley.               

The festival opens at 7:30 tonight with a concert at the Noe Valley Ministry in San Francisco headlined by Marin's Peter Rowan, one of the most prominent figures of progressive bluegrass since the 1960s.     

It closes Feb. 12 at Sweetwater in Mill Valley, with a sold-out show by the Laurel Canyon Ramblers and special guest David Grisman. That show was added after a Feb. 11 concert at Sweetwater with Grisman and the Ramblers sold out quickly. Some standing-room tickets may be available the night of the performances.

Also sold out are concerts next Thursday and Friday at Freight & Salvage in Berkeley with bluegrass original Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys.

But there are still tickets left for concerts showcasing many of the top bluegrass and old-time-music groups in the Bay Area, including the Kathy Kallick Band, the Crooked Jades and Marin’s David Thom Band, which plays next Friday at the Plough & Stars in San Francisco.

Last year’s debut festival went so well that Carlin and the other festival founders expanded the number of days from eight to 11 and added films, workshops and more live shows.

About the enduring appeal of bluegrass, Carlin says, “To me, it’s real American music, played on acoustic instruments. It has a lot of soul and feeling. I just fell into it in my college days, and that’s where I’ve been ever since.”

A singer and guitarist, Carlin plays with partner Claudia Hampe in a duo called Keystone Crossing. They will be opening for Ralph Stanley next Friday at Freight and Salvage in Berkeley with bluegrass original Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys.

A longtime resident of Sausalito, he also performs with the Marin bluegrass band Wild Blue.

For the past two years, he has produced a monthly Bluegrass Gold show at Sweetwater. He also hosts a twice-monthly bluegrass jam at the Ross Valley Brewing Company in Fairfax.

When he isn’t playing or producing, he writes a monthly column for Bluegrass By the Bay, a publication of the Northern California Bluegrass Society, and churns out reviews of bluegrass CDs for Bluegrass Breakdown, the California Bluegrass Association newsletter.

In January, he began a monthly e-mail newsletter, Carltone’s Corner, which lists shows in Marin that feature bluegrass, folk, country and Americana music. To subscribe, contact larryc@carltone.com. Listings are also available on his Web site at  www.carltone.com.

In Marin, clubs like Sweetwater, Rancho Nicasio, Cafe Amsterdam and 19 Broadway in Fairfax have presented bluegrass shows. And Carlin is encouraged by the burgeoning bluegrass scene at places like the Atlas Cafe in San Francisco’s Mission District, where a young crowd is being introduced to his old music.

“A third generation is coming out to see bluegrass and old-time music,” Carlin says. “It’s been growing enormously in the last couple of years.”