HONESDALE- “When the king has gathered around him all the savants and artists,” once wrote poet Ezra Pound, “all his riches will be fully employed.” 

On Saturday morning, as all the artists and vendors were setting up for the 3rd annual Roots and Rhythm Festival at Central Park in Honesdale, artist Dane Tilghman had an artistic revelation, an epiphany of sorts, pondering this commentary.  Pursing his lips and silent, the wrinkles on his forehead dissolve and he says, “You know, to some, the blues is like a religion.”  That same day, the sign-board of the First Presbytarian Church of Honesdale read, “To be almost saved is to be totally lost”. 

Whether  saved by the blues  or lost in it, you most certainly enjoyed yourself if you were anywhere in Honesdale on Saturday.  Halfway down Main Street, at 10 a.m., Big Daddy Dex and the Groove could be heard playing “Sweet Home Chicago”, the organ resonant and rapturous, as if Ray Charles incarnate were clambering away at the ivories. 

On the main stage, the day kicked off with the coalescent soul sounds of The Evan Goodrow Band, bringing Boston Berkley College of Music licks to small-town Pennsylvania.  While Goodrow and company ripped on stage, Dennis Keller, aka “Macramé man” told out-of-towners the stories of times-past woven into his hemp necklaces on 9th street.  Dane Tilghman still sat in the shade, reminiscing about blues music in his cool way.

Goodrow Band having finished and finally taken a seat in the grass with the crowd, attention moved to the 9th street stage and Studebaker John and the Hawks.  Studebaker John and company, who kicked-off the weekend at The Fireside on Friday, brought with them from Chicago their own style of blues, complete with ZZ Top-esque slide-guitar, Buddy Rich-inspired drum solos, driving basslines, and a little harmonica that might take one back to a time when the Rolling Stones could play with no Hell’s Angels necessary.  John and the Hawks played three sets, each in-between the main stage acts. 

“We had such a good time last year,” commented Ed and Laura Ebjo, who drove all the way from Long Island, New York for the festival, “we had to come again.”
The day carried on with the rockabilly flavors of Roy Wilson and The Buzzards who, with their greased hair and steel-toed boots, might have stepped right out of Happy Days and high-fived The Fonz before rocking out with intense, juiced-up versions of Johnny Cash and Chuck Berry tunes, along with some of their own originals.  They were followed by the rocking and true-to-its-roots country stylings of Dale Watson, who the Austin Chronicle says is “the stuff country music legends are made of.”

 By the time Watson finished and Studebaker John came back on, it was already dinner time, and festival-goers were lined up in droves for some PB&J from the Himalayan Institute, heaping mouthfuls of Nachos from Carachilo, Inc., and some sweet rootbeer offered in commemorative cups by the Honesdale Rotary. 

Everyone full and listening to Studebaker John wrap up his third and final set, a portly , radiant, African-American man sat down to dinner and talked to a complete stranger about his life, traveling all over the world preaching the blues gospel.  That man was Sherman Homes of the Holmes Brothers, the headline act of the evening.  If B.B. King, Ray Charles, and Jerry Garcia somehow had a band of blues-children, it would be the Holmes brothers, moving in and out of warm-toned harmonic blues songs like “Amazing Grace” right into jamming, strident wails and wops and back again.  There was no telling where the next note would come from, nor where it would go. 

“Music like that makes me feel alive,” said Honesdale resident Melissa McLaughlin, “I danced, sweat my butt off, fell in love with new music, and made a new friend.  What more is there?”

Some might say the best part of the festival, however, were the familiar and unfamiliar faces, the familiar ones because, for one day, we were all family and parishioners of Roots and Rhythm, all the people you see everyday walking down Main Street, attending your daily business, and the unfamiliar because, on that same day, they became part of our family.  That’s what makes love grow, extending your hand to someone, with whom your only connection is the music in the air, and saying, “You wanna dance?”

“This is such a great community event,” said Gail Tucker, one of the festival’s organizers.  “It’s really great to see so many people come out and enjoy themselves together.  And with an average of 5000 people in Honesdale it really let them see what the town has to offer.”

Gail would also like to extend a special thanks go to the Roots and Rhythm committee, as well as all the sponsors, without whom this festival could not have been possible.  For information on next year’s festival, visit the festival website at www.honesdalerootsandrhythm.com.