All right, good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome in his time now for our community connection right here on Kay one, the one you trust, and we do this about every year. We have a little fun because I'm an old country boy at heart and i love bluegrass music. And we've got a big bluegrass festival coming up here. And I got Steve Cannon on the line. Hey, Steve, how you doing doing well?
Tom? How are you guys up there this morning? Oh?
You know, just picking and grinning? Yeah, So what we got coming up and when we got.
A guming well, you know, we have that the International calho On, the International Bluegrass Festival happens in Guthrie every year and it's coming up here on October ten, eleven twelve. So we're just a couple of weeks out if if that, depending on my mask. And it's the time of the year it's getting cooler and hopefully we don't have any any major storms. But uh, yeah, we got a big festival going on. And this year we have our headliner is a band called Jig Jam Jam Yeah. Uh, it's
an Irish band and they're from Ireland. Yeah, and they're gonna be here and We're super excited to having their high energy, foot stump and style bluegrass music. So they have a lot to live up to. Somebody named in Ireland's answer to the new Grass Revival. Boy happen to know who that is. That's that's a lot of that's a big shoes to walk in to follow. We also have the lead singer of the Turnpike Troubadours, Evan Selker.
He's gonna be playing, uh doing a solo show for us, and it's gonna be really cool because I don't know Evan's played with with a I'm sure he's played with other musicians, but you know, he's been comfortable playing with his musicians for a long time. And so see how he does playing with some fellow buddies. You got John Moore,
he's the horse Doctor out of Colorado. He actually played played with Byron in uh in a couple of different bands, the band California and Bluegrass et cetera and very talented multi instruments the Fretliners coming Back. They're a group that has won the band competition out of Tell Your Rye Bluegrass Festival and the Rocky Grass Festival. They've wanted both band competitions the same year.
I love the name the fret Liners.
Yeah, well, one of the guys in the fret Liners actually grew up at our festival. Really and yeah, he grew up at our festival. And I have to look back in the records and I haven't made this, I haven't done, haven't my due diligence on it, but I believe he came through the youth band youth instrument competitions. Wow that we have well I talked to a pre pre recorded the pre interview about the youth band competition,
youth instrument competition. Yeah, that's that's pretty cool. And there's that we have Actually another guy that's done it too, so I'll talk about him in just a minute. Darren and Brook Aldridge a married couple. Uh. Brook was four time IBM A five Female Vocalists of the Year. Uh Darren played with the Country Gentleman and it's very uncommon to find married couples that play together. There's another couple we've had at the festival in the past, Kenny and
Manda Smith come to mind. But excited to have that couple come in and they do some gospel music and and uh positive Bluegrash music is what they're what they're about, So excited to have them come. We've got Alan Munday coming back. Ala Munday, I didn't know this until I was actually researching. He was actually born in Norman. Another musician that Byron brought into the festival. He's also was inducted in the American Banjo Hall of Fame right here
in Oklahoma City. So excited to have him come back this year. Trap Mallecks and Moore a couple of people up there in your neck of the woods that would know who those people are. Thomas Trapp and Johnny Maulneck, Stephen Moore, a great set of pickers and musicians. And we got a couple of Western swing groups, Oklahoma Swing, which is based right here in the Oklahoma City area. And then a group out of Austin the Walk and Talk Susie's. And you would think by that they were
all named Susie, but not one of them are. So they do a little bit of wettern swing. We've got a band out of Maryland called Tornado Rose who's making some waves in the bluegrass music scene, and coming back this year be a solo artist called by the name of Tim McDonald Tim's Dunn h an album with Byron and Vince gill Uh. He was a US Army veteran, and we don't talk about that enough about the musicians that have background. But he's not playing his own thing
or doing something with somebody else. He is a full time musician for the rocker Rick Derringer. I'll be daring you know that Hoochie Coo song.
Yeah, if he's not picking the bluegrass, he's picking that rock and roll Hoochie coop.
Yes, rock and roll, you got it, Yes, you got it. So h we got some regional bands still win Cowboy, Jim Garling, Gypsy Twang Uh will make their first appear on the main stage. Monica Taylor, she's over from Perkins and operates the Old Church over there. You may hear some music over there from time to time. And the Good Friends Bluegrass Band. A member of that band is actually the member of the committee that is in charge of the youth band competition and the youth instrument competitions.
So the gentleman with all the knowledge about that is his name is Ron Mashore. So if you're a youth and you're looking to be in the band competition or the instrument competitions. You can get a hold of Ron Mashore via the Bluegrass website OIBF dot com and Ron can set you up and give you all the right information. Last year, I think we did We're set up for six different instruments, but I think we did five. On the instrument competition last year we just fiddle, mandling, guitar, banjo,
and bass. There is also a resonator, but I don't think anybody entered that one last year. So there is lots of stuff going on, lots of music. We have music from noon till about ten o'clock Thursday, Friday and Saturday. We got food vendors down there. We actually probably ought to mention are some of our sponsors, Oklahoma Arts, Council of the City of Guthrie and the National Endowment for the Arts. So if you need some more information, you can go to the website OIBF dot com.
Wow, this is gonna be great. And you know, we have touched on the the young people portion of this and a couple of them that have come through the young person's portions of the of the festival. It's one of those things that you got to start in some place and this is a great avenue, great on ramp for the young people.
Exactly. Yes, I've mentioned earlier about another individual. We have a young man who was mentored by Byron, but he actually came through the competition. His name is Henry Byron Burgess and he was named after Byron. So Henry is now I believe he's seventeen years maybe eighteen years old. Seventeen years old or eighteen years old right now, and he is actually out playing with Rick Ferris, who is one of the national Bluegressers, national acts in the bluegrass scene.
But he's out on the road at that age right now, and we're super proud of him. He's doing a fantastic job of playing and living up to what Iron instilled in him. So there's probably more. I know that there are more musicians that have come through the festival that I don't I can't tell you about, but we're excited about that. And by the way, one of the things you were talking about the young people, one of the things we have not talked about ever is we have
a special deal for college students. We do, and we don't promote it because we only have a limited number, but we give away tickets to a valid college ID. So anybody shows up with a valid college I D. They can get in free. So, uh, we try to publicize it a little bit to colleges, but we've only reached out this many. There's only so much of us. Like peanut butter, you get spread too thin, you can't even taste it. Yeah, there you go.
Hey, for for all of us who really want to go out and buy tickets and invest in a good time, how do we go about making a purchase of tickets ensure that this goes on forever?
Well, that's the one thing. You'd have to go right now. You go to the website OYBF dot com and then there's a ticket page right there and you can you can purchase your tickets right online. At this point when the festival starts, well, we've be selling tickets at the gates, so you can come there and get them. Those are our two avenues and we hope everybody has the opportunity to come and obviously everybody is a big word.
But.
We couldn't fit everybody in there. Well, here we are in Guthrie at the Cottonwood Flats. There's camping available. You can bring our RV bring a tent, uh sleep in your car. And obviously we have food vendors there that I mentioned earlier. Uh uh, I'm not sure you could eat. You could survive on kettle corn, but man, the kettle corn is really good. So uh there's a whole lot of other stuff to you. There's merchandise. We got some uh some archy stuff out in the back of the uh
from the main stage area. Uh So bring your ponchos just in case it rains or maybe the ward off the rain, and bring your bring your lawn chairs. Sounds good.
The date time, what are the dates against Steve?
That'd be October tenth, eleventh, and twelfth.
And all roads will lead to Guthrie, Oklahoma that weekend.
We hope they do. We hope they do. And Tom, we really appreciate you working with us again this year. Oh hey, it's my.
Pleasure there, Steve. I always look forward to to this time of year when we get together there and talk a little bit of music and have a little fun.
Yes, thank you very much.
All right, take care brother, be good you too. Alrighty folks, you've been watching and listening to our program, our community connection right here on K one. The one you try to