Music Festival Trippin’ to Targhee

By Guest Writer, 7-22-07

	Caption: "A very pregnant Jackie Baxa enjoys the sights and sounds of the Targhee Fest"/By Andrew Wyatt -- Click here for more of Wyatt's photography

Last weekend, a scattered caravan of dancers, rockers, hikers, campers and Dionysian festival-worshippers loaded up their trucks, campers and sporty fuel-efficient coupes and headed to the Grand Targhee Resort for the Third Annual Grand Targhee Music Festival.

Although better known for hosting a bluegrass festival each summer, Grand Targhee Resort and Bozeman-based Vootie Productions have also presented the newer festival, a three-day showcase of Americana, roots, rock funk and blues for the past two years.

The following story is about taking off in the summer season, traveling through the abundant scenic beauty of the Northern Rockies with the added incentive for groovin’ to the eclectic beats at Targhee Music Festival with two Livingston Weekly staffers: New Orleans transplant Jen Eames and former Memphian Reilly Neill.

In an intimate setting of mountain meadows adjacent to the ski resort and nestled in the Grand Teton range, the 2007 Grand Targhee Music Festival featured an wide-ranging lineup of musicians including Galactic and the Neville Brothers serving up New Orleans funk; singer/songwriters David Wilcox, Iris Dement, and Kelly Joe Phelps; the instrumental jazz of the Bill Frisell Trio; regional favorites Todd Snider and the Tony Furtado Band; the edgy, melancholy sounds of the Cowboy Junkies; and the soulful rawness of the Greyboy Allstars.

We left Livingston, Montana and found ourselves winding through the Gallatin Canyon on a beautiful summer day in a compact, self-sufficient, cosmetically-challenged but water-tight, non-competitive Volkswagen microbus — but very amenable to scenic driving. We discussed the upcoming festival and the richness of the southern musical heritage both were exposed to in their youth.

An afternoon shower cooled the air as the conversation ranged from the basis for the Americana genre (“Can a funk band win an Americana Award?”) to throwing down at the show (“If I’m not sore by the end of every day than something will definitely be wrong.”).

As the microbus finally climbed the switchbacks to the Targhee resort, a black bear cub scampered across the road and up the hill into the forest. It was difficult to believe world-class musical acts would soon be playing in this remote location in the middle of the Targhee National Forest.

The bus received a warm welcome to the festival neighborhood at the Grand Targhee Resort, pulling into a wide field surrounded by wildflowers, tall Douglas firs, alongside fellow Westphalia campers and a popup camper pulled by a truck sporting “BZNMAYR” Montana plates.

The funky sounds of the Friday night headliner, Galactic, echoed across the meadows as Neill and Eames scrambled to get to the show. We passed through the gates and ascended the hillside for a wide view of the festival grounds: a green ski slope with ample port-a-potties, tents and low chairs, blankets and tarps, and kids and adults alike dancing and playing in the late summer sunshine to the groovy beats of the band.

Sucked into the sweating swirling dance party at the base of the stage, us Livingston ladies grooved to the hard-driving, head-banging heavy load of Galactic’s regulation rockin’ jazz-funk. Sax player Ben Ellman alternated between harp and horn while organist Rich Vogel hammered out a tremulous melodic pulse. In between sets New Orleans native Eames hollered out to Vogel, “I give you twenty bucks for for a Hubig’s pie,” referring to a sweet, deep-fried Louisiana delicacy. “I just know they’ve got some on that tour bus,” she assured her companion. Vogel just shook his head and launched into a another ripping and dance-worthy tune.

Bassist Robert Mercurio founded the funk of the original “Galactic Prophylactic” with childhood friend and guitarist Jeff Raines while in college at Tulane University in New Orleans in the early 90s. Mercurio told Bunny Matthews of *Offbeat magazine last year, “What made us… call ourselves ‘Galactic’ was that we weren’t really the same band that we were back then. We had lost our singer, we had gotten rid of the horn section—we had pared down to just one horn player, and we were writing just a little more sophisticated music than the Galactic Prophylactic stuff. It still wasn’t much and it still isn’t today the most sophisticated music—it’s more about making people dance than anything else.”

Both hardline funk veterans and novice listeners demonstrated the intended effect as they surged and swelled to the music echoing up the high mountains at Grand Targhee as drummer Stanton Moore, a versatile New Orleans beat genius, laid down a tempo that set hips to swaying and shoulders shaking. As the sun set and Galactic played into the night, the band brought the funk to the Teton Range and the intimate assemblage of festival-goers ready to spend a weekend tumbling over roots, drinking in the rhythm, and creating new musical memories on the summer slopes of Targhee’s musical carnival.

As far from the small burg of Livingston as they were, local folks found each other in the crowd, raised cups in toasts and bumped booties in the afterglow of the show. Further up the mountain, the Trap Bar—normally a ski bum haven—filled with sun-soaked dance junkies skanking to the reggae sounds of Wyoming-based Chanman Roots Band, a 9-piece ensemble. Trombone player John Kidwell—who had appeared earlier on stage with Galactic—and Rachel Gray on trumpet kept the brass blowing and brought an old-school flavor from the big stage to end of the evening.

As difficult as it was to abandon the dance and head down the hill to the VW camper, we traipsed through the meadows strewn with Guatemalan blankets and batik spreads, tired revelers wrapped in sleeping bags holding their places for the first shows of the morning, and a few weary wanderers milling about in quiet conversations, to finally collapse into a two-tiered bunkbed wonderland of 1970s heaven.

The next morning we were awakened by the lilting folk of Iris Dement’s voice. As we cooked a scant breakfast in the camper, boiling water for thick, press-pot coffee to chase away pink elephants, Dement’s voice traveled across the treetops and over the small valley, the siren call to another sunny summer day drawing us back to the festival grounds.

One of best things about the festival was immediately apparent: no matter where anyone was on the grounds they could enjoy the fine music being played. Whether at a campsite relaxing in the early afternoon, perusing the bazaar for handicrafts and toys, traveling up the mountain on a chairlift, scrambling up the Targhee climbing wall or simply exploring the surrounding forest, the amplified vibe carried the festival spirit across the grounds.

Dement, who recently collaborated with John Prine on In Spite of Ourselves, an project nominated for a 2000 Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album, exemplified the perfect timing of the festival lineup pace. From Friday’s performances of Joan Armatrading and Todd Snider—starting with the poetry of heady songwriting all the way to heavier jams, to the non-stop thrashing funk of Galactic, festival attendees could be assured that Saturday would end in a similar crescendo—building momentum with Kelly Joe Phelps and Sonny Landreth and peaking with the Neville Brothers.

When Kelly Joe Phelps took the stage his buttery voice set a mood reminiscent of a concert in Central Park with Paul Simon. People relaxed smiling in the sun listening to soft music on a warm afternoon. Phelps crafted stories within his songs and interspersed the music with anecdotes and wisecracks: “It’s nice to see you all out here,” he said, “It’s nice to see all your tanned skin—I tell that to all my girls.”

A collective chuckle rose from the crowd as young families chased down errant children in loving and laughing tackles, off-season ski bums munched corndogs and slurped cold lemonade, a trio of jugglers managed a collection of gold bowling pins and a few requisite hackey sackers bopped bean bags on the outskirts of the crowd, all pausing to award Phelps a standing ovation as he exited the stage.

Wandering through the handicraft bazaar, concessionaires and throngs of suntanned festival-goers, we ran into “Mean Willie Green,” drummer for the Neville Brothers. When Green spots Jen’s New Orleans “Native” t-shirt, they immediately engage in a discussion about the ravages of Katrina on their home city.

“It isn’t lost,” he assures Jen; the Nevilles are still touring and spreading the musical spirit of the city across the country. Coming across a performer in the crowd is not unusual at the informal festival. Everyone from Iris Dement and her husband Greg Brown to Tony Furtado and Galactic wander among the audience, nodding to shout-outs or sitting on the fence tapping a toe to a familiar sound.

With such a wealth of musical talent performing nearly every hour of the day, there was no pressure to attend every performance. While one might miss a half-hour of one act, they could be assured that another would be starting again by the time they returned. As most festival attendees were camped in the surrounding forest, they could return to their tents or campers for a leisurely lunch, a short nap, a hike or mountain bike ride or even a quick shower in the free shower trailer offered by the resort.

So as southern bluesman Sonny Landreth wound down a performance of blazing slide guitar, we took a short break to gear up for the next performance.

Backstage, Tom Garnsey and the crew of Vootie Productions worked together to create a seamless flow of music and entertainment while concert-goers relaxed and enjoyed the show, or hiked, biked, climbed or wandered the grounds. As one band or performer left the stage, staff and volunteers calmly scrambled to bring the next act into the resort and to the crowd.

“It’s a one-of-a-kind venue,” Garnsey says, “But it’s a challenge getting people here from all over the world—as it’s not on the way anywhere. But once they come they are hooked. If you asked any one of the artists Monday morning to come back they would. We’ve already had three different artists tell us ‘This is festival I would buy a ticket for.’”

Garnsey noted that the concert is a bit of a “musician’s festival.’” “I’ve been playing music since I was 13 and I’ve been concert-goer since I was 13 years-old...I came out here and played in bands for ten years and nothing happened.”

Garnsey grew up in upstate New York and moved to Bozeman in 1982. As a musician, “I knew enough people that we booked a few bands in small venues...After we did a few shows, people went crazy, musicians made money and we decided to push it on [bringing in] Los Lobos, Michelle Shocked, Lyle Lovett, theater shows in small clubs which no one else was doing.

“In the early 1990s Bozeman was finally ready for this,” Garnsey continued. ”KGLT was huge in this kind of thing, The Moose as well, into supporting everything in live music. We had two great radio stations who played the music and made the commitment...and this snowballed to the point that you’re doing Bob Dylan at the Field House.”

“I’ve played music at the bar at Grand Targhee for years,” Garnsey said of his connection to the resort. “The bar manager used to plan the bluegrass festivals...and when he quit he told the resort to call Tom...and they did and asked ‘Can you help us make this happen?’”

Garnsey’s Vootie Productions has also produced the Targhee Bluegrass Festival for the past 11 years. “I’ve pushed them [Targhee] to do this festival because, quite frankly, bluegrass was a little narrow for me...and even suggested let’s call it an Americana festival. We decided [in the end] to call it the Targhee Music Festival. It’s not a big rock festival, not a metal thing...so we started it off with the idea being acoustic-based, folksy-rock bluesy—not a big rock show. We want it to be family-friendly and within that it’s pretty loose.

“The only problem is that [the lineup] might have been a little confusing for people. Some of these performers might not even belong in the same hemisphere with each other. And maybe that’s why there were a little less people this year. But eventually people will know that no matter what happens it’s always fun. It’s always fun for it to be a little bit educational. People come away enjoying bands they never knew anything about.”

Comprised of family and friends, the Vootie staff was on call working together to create a casual yet organized event, each creatively tackling any task or issue that arose. David Meurer, a close friend of Garnsey and a Vootie event assistant for over a decade functioned as “Groovemaster” making sure everyone’s parts were in the right place, from greeting the Neville Brothers when they arrived at 4 a.m. Saturday morning and bringing performers down the hill from the lodge to delivering Cowboy Junkies Margo Timmons’ luggage to her door when it was misplaced with the band equipment. Meurer’s wife Christy and a number of committed volunteers facilitated in the hospitality tent as gracious hosts along with a number of Targhee staffers who manned the gates in between relaxing, enjoying the music and chatting with the musicians.

When the Tony Furtado Band wrapped up their performance Saturday afternoon, the backstage crew joined in the crowd’s demands for an encore and the band returned to the stage for another round of ripping roots rock, whipping the audience into a dance frenzy and preparing the crowd for the headliner: New Orleans legends the Neville Brothers.

Before Garnsey announced the evening’s final performance he called out to the festival, “Will Randy and Jen please come up to the stage? Randy and Jen? Where are you? You see,” he explained, “Randy and Jen just got married today and they decided that the Targhee Fest was going to be their reception.” A bride in a long, white, red-trimmed gown approached the stage with her new groom and the assemblage on the hill gave the new couple a resounding welcome to married life, adding to the relaxed family atmosphere growing throughout the days of phenomenal music and fresh experiences against the backdrop of stunning scenic wilderness.

As the newlyweds thanked the crowd, the Neville Brothers band members milled about backstage, conducting interviews, posing for photos and cracking jokes. David Johnson, Florida-based bassist for the band, geared up for his onstage role as court jester, joking like a seasoned comedian or, as he put it, “a class clown without any class.” The audience buzz rose throughout the sound check and by the time the band took the stage, a cluster of Mardi-Gras-bead-adorned attendees hovered around the stage awaiting their dose of New Orleans funk. The crowd sweat with dance fever, anticipating Aaron’s impeccable high-tenor and the solid groove of one of New Orleans’ cultural gems.

The musical family of the Neville Brothers has been performing for thirty years and has historically been one of the final performers at the inimitable New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival each spring in the city. Their consistently soulful, exuberant delivery is a reliable measure of their showmanship over three decades, and even after the destruction and abandonment of their hometown, their quintessential set list of New Orleans carnival standards and band originals is a message to the nation that the irreplaceable resource of the city’s musical heritage be preserved and cherished. On the grueling summer festival circuit (the band arrived at dawn on Saturday and left that night for their next show in Denver) the ensemble was an emissary of New Orleans sound and the surrounding mountains reverberated with their swampy, serpentine voodoo.

With Art Neville on the organ, Cyril Neville on congos and percussion, Charles Neville on saxophone and cowbell, Micahel Goods on keyboards, David Johnson on thumping funk baseline, Willie Green on the drums, and Aaron Neville—one of the country’s most-loved iconic performers—performing in his trademark vocal style, the celebrated New Orleans energy came to life on the stage at Targhee.

An undercurrent of emotion rose within the crowd and native New Orleanian Jen found the nostalgia overwhelming as Aaron began to belt out a soulful rendition of “Amazing Grace.” As she rushed backstage to avoid the frenzied crowd at the end of the show, Jen ran right into the arms of Charles Neville who embraced the hometown girl and told her everything was going to be all right. New Orleans may be changed but the spirit of the city is still very much alive.

“Go on back out there,” he told her, “We’re going to play one more for you.” As Eames returned to the crowd, the Nevilles busted out with Bob Marley’s “One Love,” reminding the audience of the idea that could put New Orleans back together again.

The Neville Brothers Band relaxed backstage after the show, shaking hands and preparing to depart on another leg of their tour, one that would take them through more of the west and finally land them in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Keyboardist Goods reminisced with Neill about his glory days recording with John Fry at Ardent Studios in Memphis with 70s bands such as Chocolate Milk. Goods and Neill talked long-defunct Memphis barbeque joints the Public Eye and Gridleys before the band departed for a quick dinner at the resort steakhouse and got back on the road.

Us Livingston ladies headed up the hill for the second night to “The Trap” for the extended afterparty and music with Vootie’s own Tom Garnsey’s band, the Hooligan Allstars. Musicians from the festival mingled with the attendees at the club, noting their own favorite highlights.

“Meeting Bill Frisell...he’s one of my favorite artists,” said drummer Drew Shoals of the Tony Furtado Band. Tony himself showed up to sit in with the Garnsey’s band, whose variety of southern rock, funk and folk favorites kicked the evening into high gear. Even Livingston local Joann Gardner headed to the stage to perform a few numbers with the band and a crowd high on the festival magic twirled around the dance floor, sipping sodas and beers, or playing horseshoes on the outside lawn, sitting on the porch recounting the best moments, performances and experiences of the weekend.

It was still only Saturday night but the Allstars refused to give in to the passing of the evening hours and jammed throughout the night and well into the early morning with the assemblage who was growing closer and closer together as a festival family.

By Sunday morning, strangers on the slopes of the festival lawn connected as old friends and singer/songwriter David Wilcox added his wide smile to the energy of the festivities. Kids played on the grass and in the dirt, spraying each other with water-mist bottles and playing simple games of chase and tag. The resort turned on a snow-machine and showered the high side of the slope with a refreshing spray as clouds gathered on the horizon.

“We all have a choice between love and fear,” Wilcox told the crowd, wrapping up a parable of the challenge of overcoming life’s obstacles. “This is why we all come here to this little blue ball...and the rules are simple enough...Your best judgement doesn’t always come out right...but this is the course we come a long distance to play.” He introduced his next song, “This one is about being on purpose with it,” and ended the set sending a love song out to the crowd. Couples exchanged glances and nudged one another, his performance bringing out all the love apparent between mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, lovers, friends and the group of strangers who had by then become a unconventional family.

Wilcox came straight from a Saturday night gig at the Owl Lounge in Livingston. Although he arrived at the Targhee Fest in a Ford Taurus, Wilcox recently toured the country with his wife and 13-year-old son in an Airstream trailer pulled by a biodiesel truck. He left the stage only to return and sit on the sidelines to watch the Bill Frissell Trio soften the mood further with their unique brand of funky, free-form jazz.

Frissell’s trio, including jazz drummer Joey Baron and stand-up bassist Tony Scherr reminded the audience of the previous evening’s performance of the Nevilles, playing yet another rendition of the Sam Cooke classic, “A Change is Gonna Come.” The trio entranced the once-frolicking crowd as folks sat back on their blankets and blissed out under a clouding sky. With no responsibility or schedule, the grown-ups on the slope relaxed in the glow of the summer festival, remembering the freedom of childhood and forgetting their worries.

No cell phones rang, no one read newspapers or surfed the internet. The festival grounds became the setting for an impromptu family reunion of the newly-familiar joined together by a shared love of wilderness, an appreciation of eclectic music and a willingness to embrace an instant camaraderie.

As the Resort chair lift glided to the top of the mountain carrying this sunburnt duo to catch the incomparable view, the last sounds of the Bill Frisell Trio wafted up the hill. As the music faded, the Grand Teton peaks appeared, towering over deep moraines and stretching to the valley floor. A short hike in the high country revealed a collection of brilliant wildflowers in high bloom. White columbines and alpine succulents grew interspersed between the brown and white rocks and hidden geodes.

Floating back down the mountain high over the flowers and dry streambeds, the riders heard the husky tones of Margo Timmons of the Cowboy Junkies beckoning at the bottom of the hill. A summer afternoon thunderstorm threatened to erupt over the festival grounds and the Cowboy Junkies set was cut slightly short, but Karl Denson and the Greyboy Allstars arrived backstage ready to play as the threat of lightning strikes passed with the swiftly-moving clouds.

The afternoon and the weekend wound down as the Greyboy Allstars took to the stage. As the heavy clouds broke apart and sunlight streamed through, the Allstars wasted no time unleashing their sax-driven funk on the crowd. Trying to beat the approaching storm, we made a sad but wise decision to head back to the VW bus and begin the drive back to Livingston.

In the parking lot, as they cooked up a quick snack to the background sounds of the last band of the weekend, three young women approached a vehicle neighboring the bus. Annah Arrasmith, Jennie Lynn Stanley and Lauren Stanley—all from Livingston—grabbed supplies from their car before heading back to the festival.

“We came up last year with our parents and it was a sweet set-up,” Lauren says after being recognized by one of the Livingston ladies. “This is our last vacation together before college,” she continues. The three girls had tent-camped all weekend and were planning to spend Sunday night. “There’s so many things to do—you don’t have to just sit and listen to music. You can go hiking or biking. We brought our guitars and played down in the trees and really enjoyed the nighttime music, the song circles,” she says, explaining the phenomenon of “reverse caroling,” campers dropping by to request songs at their campsite.

As the rich natural beauty and recreational options it affords continue to draw locals and tourists to venues around the Greater Yellowstone region, so is the cultural terrain shaped by arts and musical opportunities like the Grand Targhee Music Festival.  Community and human connection dissolves the armor of modern civilized alienation in the way only music can, uniting individuals and families in their shared love for human expression in all its variety.

And the summer fun is far from over—the twentieth Annual Grand Targhee Bluegrass Festival begins August 10, 2007. Darol Anger and Mike Marshall, The Wilders, and Yonder Mountain String Band kick off the weekend for Friday’s show. Martha Scanlan, Tony Trischka, Seldom Scene, Kane’s River, David Grisman Bluegrass Experience and the inimitable mandolin picking of the Sam Bush Band play in Saturday’s rich lineup. On Sunday, Danny Barnes, Brother Mule, Larry Keel and Natural Bridge, David Grisman (again!) in his Quintet, and country favorite Robert Earl Keen grace the stage on Sunday.

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