Cam Salay is a jack of all trades when it comes to music.
When the musician for over 25 years is not playing local gigs, he’s teaching guitar at his home in Brackendale.
As the inspiration behind the 15th annual Bluegrass Festival held here in Squamish at the Brackendale Art Gallery on May 6, Salay is looking forward to the upcoming twangs and strums of traditional instruments. “It should be a really foot-stomping good time,” he says.
The show starts at 8 p.m. with two headliners, HonkyTonk Dilettantes who are “super old-time country” where Salay promises “swing and fun dancing”, and The Lonesome Town Painters who perform traditional bluegrass.
The jam session by donation in the afternoon featuring headlining musicians, shakes down just as much as the main event.
The owner of the gallery fondly called the BAG, Thor Froslev approached Salay years ago because the Brackendale community loved the banjo tunes. “I’m just a vessel,” says Froslev with a laugh. “I just love doing it. It brings the neighborhood together and it’s a community thing.”
Collaborating with somebody down the road makes him overjoyed to bring together bands showcasing a variety of bluegrass sounds.
Since 1970, Froslev and his wife Dorte, have been a part of the community building the entire gallery themselves. “Our heart and soul is in it,” he says.
One of the three headliners, guitarist for The Lonesome Town Painters, Angelo Eidse, says the first time he saw his favourite band play the wooden, quaint gallery he thought, “I have to play here someday,” adding “It was the perfect place to see a bluegrass show.”
The quartet has forged a friendship and been together for three years. Eidse says the show is in great shape with plans to break out new material and re-introduce their album that dropped last August.
Most songs have a three-part harmony singing with “lots of switching up on songs and variety,” says Eidse. It is something they worked very hard on — singing.
“That speaks to the tradition,” he says as more modern bands focus on the instrumentation.
Joining them to headline are their friends, The Honkytonk Dilletantes, and Eidse says they have been meaning to play a show with them for a while now. Plans are to get together and put on an encore.
Eidse encourages people to come to the jam session early in the afternoon that is open to the public.
“We will play tunes at a slower place,” he says. “A lot of people want to play the music but it is very participatory music, bluegrass. If you go to a rock festival, you’re not gonna see bands gathering in a parking lot.”
“You get better by playing these jam sessions,” he added. “It’s a culture that has been perpetuating itself since the 1970s.”
The Bluegrass Festival shakes down on Saturday May 6.
“We’re going to pull out all the stops and do our best,” Eidse says.
