__________________________________________________________________________________
3rd Annual
Bluegrass Music
& Craft Festival
June 18, 2022
Craft Show 11:00 to 7:00
Music 12:00 to 11:00
Vinoklet Winery & Restaurant
is located in Colerain off of
Old Colerain Ave
$5 Admission per person
Bring a lawn chair or blankets and enjoy the show from the hillside in front of the stage.
Food Booths - Food available for sale outside in the Gazebo.
Restaurant - Inside dining in the restaurant by reservation, Grilled to Perfection [Grilled to Perfection Menu Detail Link]
Beer & Wine - Available at booths outside & inside
Art & Craft Vendors
Free Parking
Family Friendly
Sorry, no camping
Sorry, no pets or outside food or drink, please
Please scroll down to learn more about the Amazing Line-up of musicians we have scheduled for this year's festival.
Vinoklet's Annual Bluegrass Music Art & Craft Festival is sure to grow as our other events have continued to grow, and we are very excited to continue this new tradition this June with some amazing Bluegrass musicians (see below).
*** The Music ***
Vernon McIntyre's Appalachian Grass
Scott Brothers
Hamiltons Bluegrass
Riegel Family Band
Joy River
Blue Note
Reso Brothers
Pat and Polly Giblin
MC - Mike Schlicher
*** More About the Music ***
Vernon McIntyre’s Appalachian Grass is a driving, five piece bluegrass band established in Cincinnati, Ohio, during the 1960’s. Vernon’s years of playing both banjo and guitar with the greats of bluegrass have honed his skills as an entertainer and make him uniquely qualified to define the traditional bluegrass sound of the Appalachian Grass.
VERNON McINTYRE’S APPALACHIAN GRASS With Vernon McIntyre’s Appalachian Grass on stage
you’re sure to get old-fashioned entertainment at its best!
Vernon McIntyre began his professional career at the age of 15 playing banjo with Earl Taylor and the Stoney Mountain Boys. He has since played with Walt Hensley, Jimmy Martin, Jim McCall, James Monroe, Mac Wiseman, and Scott Stoneman. Vernon was also a founding member of the Bluegrass Pardners of Wheeling Jamboree fame and his banjo work with the Easterners is well remembered. Through the years, Vernon has made several appearances on the Grand Ole Opry stage. He appeared playing banjo with both Earl Taylor and the Stoney Mountain Boys and with Jimmy Martin and the Sunny Mountain Boys. When Appalachian Grass was invited to perform at the Opry with Vernon as band leader, singer and guitarist, Vernon became one of the few who have been on that stage as a banjoist, a singer, and a guitarist.
Vernon has recorded many projects with Appalachian Grass that feature both his unique banjo style and his vocals and guitar work. Vernon’s matchless rhythm guitar is the bedrock for wife Kitty’s two fiddle instrumental recordings. During the 1970s, Vernon was a staff musician at Jewel Recording Studio and has contributed banjo and/or rhythm guitar tracks to innumerable recording sessions for entertainers such as Mac Wiseman, Jimmy Skinner, Charlie Moore, Rusty York, Lonnie Mack, Sid Campbell, JD Jarvis, Hylo Brown, and Bobby Grove.
Over the years, Vernon McIntyre’s Appalachian Grass has played concerts, festivals, fairs, colleges, radio, television, and exclusive nightclubs across the United States and Canada. In 1998, Appalachian Grass won the CAMMY award for Best Bluegrass Band in the Cincinnati – Tri-State Area. The band’s exploits even include the grand opening dedication of a historic cemetery! As emcee, lead singer, and rhythm guitar player, Vernon McIntyre infuses the band with the warmth and spontaneity of a small family gathering even when playing for thousands of fans. He combines bluegrass history and stories with showmanship and humor to deliver top-notch entertainment.
Kitty McIntyre brings to the group some of the best bluegrass fiddling that you can hear. Audiences always enjoy her energetic performances. Raised in the Cincinnati area with a background of classical music, Kitty started both piano and violin in grade school. She played in the school orchestra and the Cincinnati Youth Symphony through high school, but then put her fiddle in the case. Her plans included college and graduate school, not becoming a musician. However, her brother Andy changed all her plans in the early 1980s when he introduced Kitty to the bluegrass sound. She took her fiddle back out of the case and practiced ’til she could join Cincinnati’s premier bluegrass band, Vernon McIntyre’s Appalachian Grass. She has been touring with the band ever since.
There are several recording credits to her name. Kitty has played fiddle on five projects by Vernon McIntyre’s Appalachian Grass and has recorded two solo fiddle albums; The Cat and the Fiddle and The Cat Came Back. Her bass work, harmony singing, and mandolin part are included on several recent Appalachian Grass releases. Along with all her other endeavors, she is currently working on a third instrumental project of all original material.
A partner in the Famous Old Time Music Company retail store since 1984, Kitty now tours with Vernon McIntyre’s Appalachian Grass and teaches fiddle, mandolin, beginning guitar, beginning banjo, and upright bass at various Cincinnati-based studios.
Robert Campbell Born and raised in Cincinnati, OH but just one generation removed from Appalachia. He started playing guitar around 13 years of age and banjo shortly thereafter. His first organized musical performances were at Princeton where he played electric guitar with the jazz stage band. Musical talent of the bluegrass, gospel, and mountain music variety go back for generations on both sides of his family.
Robert has played with many bluegrass bands since the late 80’s but has spent the majority of his professional career with Vernon McIntyre’s Appalachian Grass. Besides his phenomenal banjo picking, his vocal work is a significant contribution to the Appalachian grass sound. By day he is an IT Director for a software development company and by night he is a banjo picker extraordinaire among his many other talents.
Tammy Powers was born in Hamilton, Ohio, grew up in Fairfield, Ohio and resides there today. She went to her first bluegrass festival in 1996 and has been hooked ever since. Having some musical background she learned how to play electric bass and then moved on to an upright.
For the last few years she has played with many local musicians mainly just for the shear joy of playing. She joined the Appalachian Grass playing bass in February of 2003 and has been there ever since.Tammy also has a masters in Art Education and recently retired from the Lakota Local School District.
Susan Shook was born and raised in rural Chesterton, Indiana (3 miles from the sandy, hilly dunes of Lake Michigan) and now resides in equally hilly northern Kentucky. She grew up surrounded by 7 musical siblings and all sorts of instruments (piano, clarinet, oboe, saxophones, French horn, trombone, trumpet, and a tuba/sousaphone — proudly played by her twin brother). She was also exposed to all sorts of musical genres from classical to folk to pop. While Susan would hear bluegrass bands at festivals as a kid, she never really correlated the name to the specific qualities and history of this music until starting mandolin lessons on a whim (while her daughter took banjo). At that point, she became fully entranced by bluegrass music’s inescapable toe-tapping rhythm and drive, tight vocal harmonies, melodic and often speed-defying instrumental passages, and how an entire group of pickers builds from and coordinates with other musicians – and their crowd of listeners. As the saying goes, “She’s hooked.”
By day, Susan works for a Fortune 10 healthcare company, providing legal guidance in a variety of areas and subtly trying to influence others to enjoy bluegrass in their free time – as an audience member, or preferably, as a picker!
Please check out more about these amazing musicians on Facebook!
Scott Brothers, Hamiltons, Riegel Family Band, Joy River, Blue Note, Reso Brothers, & Pat and Polly Giblin.
More About The History of Bluegrass Music Below Poster
Article May be Viewed in Its Original Form Below
A Brief History of Bluegrass Music
The people who migrated to America in the 1600s from Ireland, Scotland, and England brought with them the basic styles of music that are generally considered to be the roots of bluegrass music as it is known today. As the Jamestown settlers began to move out into North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia, they wrote songs about day-to-day life in the new land. Since most of these people lived in remote areas, the songs reflected life on the farm or in the hills. This music was referred to as country music or mountain music. The invention of the phonograph and the onset of radio in the early 1900s brought this music out of the mountains and into the homes of people all over the United States.
Bill Monroe’s Uncle Pen Vandiver
The Monroe Brothers were one of the most popular acts of the 1920s and 1930s. Charlie Monroe
played the guitar, Bill played the mandolin, and they sang in harmony. When the brothers split in 1938, both went on to form their own bands. Bill was a native of Kentucky, the Bluegrass State, and he eventually adopted the name “Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys” for his band. This band started a new form of “traditional” country music.
Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys first appeared on the Grand Ole Opry stage in 1939 and soon became one of the most popular touring bands to emerge from Nashville’s WSM studios. Bill’s band was different from other traditional country bands because of its hard-driving and powerful sound that used traditional acoustic instruments and featured distinctive vocal harmonies. The music incorporated songs and rhythms from string band, gospel (black and white), black laborer work song, country, and blues music repertoires. Vocal selections included duet, trio, and quartet harmony singing in addition to Bill’s powerful “high lonesome” solo lead singing. After experimenting with various instrumental combinations, Bill settled on mandolin, banjo, fiddle, guitar, and bass as the format for his band.
While many fans of bluegrass music date the genre to 1939, when Monroe formed his first Blue Grass Boys band, most believe that the classic bluegrass sound came together late in 1945, shortly after Earl Scruggs, a 21-year-old banjo player from North Carolina, joined the band. Scruggs played an innovative three-finger picking style on the banjo that energized enthusiastic audiences and has since come to be known as “Scruggs style” banjo. Equally influential in the classic 1945 line-up of the Blue Grass Boys were Lester Flatt, from Sparta, Tennessee, on guitar and lead vocals, Chubby Wise, from Florida, on fiddle; and Howard Watts, also known by his comedian name “Cedric Rainwater,” on acoustic bass.
Birth of Bluegrass sign by the Tennessee Historical Commission at the Ryman Auditorium
When Earl Scruggs and Lester Flatt formed their own group, The Foggy Mountain Boys, they decided to include the resophonic guitar, or “Dobro,” into their band format. The Dobro is often included in bluegrass band formats today as a result. Burkett H. “Uncle Josh” Graves, from Tellico Plains, Tennessee, heard Scruggs’ three-finger style of banjo picking in 1949 and adapted it to the then almost obscure slide bar instrument. With Flatt & Scruggs from 1955-1969, Graves introduced his widely emulated, driving, bluesy style on the Dobro. The Dobro was invented in the United States by the Dopyera Brothers, immigrant musicians/inventors originally from the Slovak Republic. The brand name, “Dobro,” comes from a combination of the first few letters of the words
“Dopyera Brothers.” From 1948-1969, the Flatt & Scruggs band was a major force in introducing bluegrass music to America through national television, radio, and appearances at schoolhouses, coliseums, and major universities around the country. Scruggs wrote and recorded one of bluegrass music’s most famous instrumentals, “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” which was used in the soundtrack for the film Bonnie & Clyde. In 1969 he established an innovative solo career with his three sons as “The Earl Scruggs Revue.” Scruggs recorded and performed in groups that usually included his sons Randy (on guitar) and Gary (on bass) until his death in 2012. After parting with Scruggs in 1969, Lester Flatt continued successfully with his own group, “The Nashville Grass,” performing until shortly before his death in 1979. By the 1950s, people began referring to this style of music as “bluegrass music.” Bluegrass bands began forming all over the country and Bill Monroe became the acknowledged “Father of
Bluegrass Music.”
Bill Monroe’s restored childhood home on Jerusalem Ridge in Rosine, Kentucky
In the 1960s, the concept of the “bluegrass festival” was first introduced, featuring bands on the same bill that had previously seemed to be in competition with each other for a relatively limited audience. Carlton Haney, from Reidsville, North Carolina is credited with envisioning and producing the first weekend-long bluegrass music festival, which was held in Fincastle, Virginia in 1965.
The availability of traditional music broadcasting and recording, nationwide bluegrass festivals, and movie, television, and commercial soundtracks featuring bluegrass music have helped to bring the music out of obscurity. Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs, and the Foggy Mountain Boys achieved national prominence with tour sponsorship by Martha White Flour and for playing the soundtrack for the previously mentioned film Bonnie and Clyde as well as through the Beverly Hillbillies television show.
The soundtrack to the movie Deliverance also featured bluegrass music, specifically Dueling Banjos, performed by Eric Weissberg on banjo and Steve Mandell on guitar. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Will the Circle Be Unbrokentriple LP set, released in 1972, introduced artists like Earl Scruggs, Doc Watson, Jimmy Martin, Maybelle Carter, Roy Acuff, and others to pop music fans and brought the authentic sounds of bluegrass and traditional country music to new audiences. In 2001, the triple-platinum soundtrack for the Coen Brothers movie, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, helped to attract even wider audiences to bluegrass music.
Bill Monroe passed away on September 9, 1996, four days before his 85th birthday. In May 1997, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because of the profound influence of his style on popular music. He is also a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Bluegrass Music Hall of Honor. A picture of Bill’s childhood home in Rosine, Kentucky, which has been restored and is open for touring, appears above. Bill’s uncle Pen, for whom he named a well-known bluegrass song, appears with a fiddle in the picture above right.
Bluegrass music is now performed and enjoyed around the world. The International Bluegrass Music Association claims members in all 50 states and 30 countries. In addition to the classic style born in 1945 that is still performed widely, bluegrass bands today reflect influences from a variety of sources including traditional and fusion jazz, contemporary country music, Celtic music, rock & roll (“newgrass” or progressive bluegrass), old-time music, and Southern gospel music.
Portions of this history are courtesy of International Bluegrass Music Association, the International Bluegrass Music Museum, and Alan W. Tompkins. More information can be obtained at Wikipedia.com.
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