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From The Movie "Bluegrass festival"

21-23 August 1987, Roundeye's Park, Arcanum, OH

(No Label JLMG V-101) 1987

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This seems to be a quite a rare VHS tape which Jack Lynch recorded at "Jack Lynch's Bluegrass Festival & Movie Filming" event at Roundeye's Park, Arcanum, OH sometime between 21-23 August 1987. The show was one of several bookings around that time which saw the CMB's perform in seven states & clock up around at least 5,400 miles within four weeks.^[1] On the video Ralph comments about having travelled 800 miles from Huntingdon, NY to the show^[2], which seems a bit odd as overlapping this festival the CMB's were billed at the 7th Annual E&W Production, Petersburg, Michigan (20-22nd Aug). Petersburg is only about 170 miles from Arcanum, but it's possible that they played there on one day (or two) and then did a gig in Huntingdon NY before their appearance at Arcanum.

The set-list captured on the video is almost identical to the first set from the Thomas Point Beach Bluegrass Festival in Maine from 6th Sept 1987. Even the inter-song dialogue is pretty similar with Ralph jokingly claiming that he wrote Pretty Little Indian when he was thirteen... Tapes of other shows from this period indicate that the first five numbers were often used to introduce each of the band members. The Thomas Point Beach recordings, however, also include the two medley sequences and the Stanley Brothers perennial Choo Choo Coming.

The 6th Sept appearance at Thomas Point Beach was later released as a 2xCD-R set Live At The Thomas Point Beach Bluegrass Festival, with a small amount of the inter-song dialog removed.

Picture and sound quality on this VHS tape isn't great and it's all shot with just one camera. There are also issues with the syncronisation of the audio and video which is ok at the start but is out by a few seconds elsewhere... I've tried to correct this and put the result on youtube.

Also billed on the festival were: The Lewis Family; Johnson Mountain Boys; Larry Sparks; Dave Evans & River Bend; Country Gents; Goins Brothers; Gary Brewer; Bluegrass Strangers; Jack Lynch & The Nashville Travelers; and the intriguingly titled Uncle Schuylor Snottgrass & His Kinfolks!

From the label on the VHS cassette, Jack Lynch released the tape in 2006, some 19 years after the event. This itself is a bit odd, as DVD's weren't exactly new by that point - Ralph's Homespun tape had for example been reissued on DVD in 2005...

Thanks & kudos to Jamie Kindleyside for the heads up on this one! If you're into Americana / indie music / blues be sure to check out his youtube channel.

• Ralph Stanley: banjo, vocals
• Sammy Adkins: guitar, vocals
• Jr Blankenship: lead guitar
• Curly Ray Cline: fiddle
• Jack Cooke: bass

^{[1] From adverts and festival listings in 'Bluegrass Unlimited' Ralph is advertised at these dates:- 7-8th Aug, North Central Ohio BGF, Coonhunters Club, Plymouth East Rd, Greenwich, Ohio; 13-15th Aug, Hazard BGF, Jacklot Hollow, Hazard, Kentucky; 20-22nd Aug, 7th Annual E&W Production, Petersburg, Michigan; and 21-23rd Aug Jack Lynch's BGF & Movie Filming, Arcanum, Ohio; 29th Aug, Waterloo Bluegrass Concert, Waterloo, New Jersey; 3rd-6th Sep, Southwest Virginia Music Festival, Lebanon / Tazewell, Virginia; 5th Sep, Delaware BGF, Gloryland Park, Glasgow, Delaware; 6th Sep, 9th Annual BGF Thomas Point Beach, Brunswick, Maine; 10-12th Sep, 13th Annual Meadowgreen Park BGF, Clay City, Kentucky.
NB: on some weekends, the band would be playing a single day on more than one festival, but it's not always possible to determine which, unless mentioned in the advert.
[2] After You're Still To Blame Ralph says: "We're glad to be here... finally. I believe as Curly told you as we came out on stage we drove about 800 miles from Huntingdon, New York since 9.15 last night & I think we had pretty good luck to make it...". According to Google maps, Huntingdon NY is about 686 miles from Aracanum, OH.}