Savannah to Hinesville is only about half an hour, but its light-years away in demeanor. Fort Stewart is the biggest thing going for this little town and its not so much a town of the military industrial complex as it is the military-drinking complex. If you visit, stop by Elrod’s , a hole in the wall where Elrod himself has been known to dispense a free round and bang away on the piano for kicks.

Rain was pouring so the festival was rescheduled at the “Sherman Building.” However, nobody indicated the address or location of said building. I stop at a hotel and ask directions. The receptionist doesn’t know, nor does her boss. “There’s one more number I can try,” she says.

She picks up the phone. “HI Ma,” she says, and gets the directions.

Sometime later, two friends and I approach the building with growing apprehension. It looks like a community rec room, and suddenly I realize that either outdoors or a barn is the only suitable setting for a true hootenanny. My worries are justified when I arrive at the actual stage area, which is really a barely disguised gym.

About 50 people are present, about two-thirds of them with white or graying hair. A rambunctious group of children play obliviously on the blue and white plastic bleachers. A spindly redneck girl crabwalks across the blue rubber laid down over the basketball court.

The music starts at 10am, but our first sight is the three o’clock performance of the Silvercreek Bluegrass, a four piece contingent of a banjo, steel slide guitar, acoustic guitar, and a flatfooted, barefoot bassist with a softly rounded vocalist. This woman carries the band through a marvelous rendition of “Mountain High, Valley Low” all smiles with her classically melodic, alto voice leaping around the pitched phrasings of rural redemption.

Then, the guitar player announces “another rock and roll song.” The band springs into a bluegrass rendition of the Bob “Salt ‘n’ Pepper Beard” Seeger song “Turn the Page.” The same song also covered by Metallica during their later years. The sound system fails to give the needed thrust to power of the forceful bluegrass, and the buzzing of overhead fluorescent lights competes with the hum of an outdated A/C unit in the background. The audience, aside from disinterested children, consists of borderline geriatrics and two people in wheelchairs. Needless to say there is no dancing.

Fortunately, tucked in the corner on some folding chairs are a couple of old men, the bluegrass equivalent of the Muppet Show grumps, Statler and Waldorf. One of the men is bald with long straight white sideburns and circular wire glasses like a knowledgeable accountant out of Dickens. The other fellow is in a brown vest. Both wear cowboy boots and string ties. When an announcer on stage recommends the cookies for sale outside in the drizzle, one of the men shouts “Those cookies were made by a man!”

Next up are The Restless Rebels, complete with their washtub bass, fiddle, acoustic guitar, mandolin, and banjo. They wear matching outfits and tell a couple corny jokes to get the crowd started. The washtub bass is played by a pot-bellied fellow in a black top hat and sunglasses who answers to the name “Cooter.” In fact, it is inscribed on the top of the bass, where the string attaches. Cooter is as close to a menace as there is at the Bluegrass Festival, and as he stands on the bass slapping the single string, his leg kicks out in time. In between these wild man kicks his hand moves, plucking once above the thigh, and on the next note below the outstretched appendage. During one of the down moments of their set, Cooter remarks that “I’m not supposed to tell anymore chicken jokes” to a quizzical audience. I’m half expecting the most perverse joke around, and find myself thinking that a twelve pack by the lake with ol’ Cooter would be the perfect setting for such an assuredly skuzzy tale.

The banjo player is a lanky man, who slings the instrument low and has a stooped posture over it to compensate. He has the appearance of half tinker-er and half alternative rocker. The drumhead part of the banjo is decorated with a drawing of a bluebird on a limb, and the lonesome looking plucker has another bluebird on the side of his black pants, above the ankle. The band plays a couple classic tunes, showcasing every musicians talent on different songs. Before playing “Columbus Stockade Blues” the guitarist asks the band “How fast do you wan it?” and gets the reply “medi-okey.” The Rebels play an insanely excited version of “You Get A Line and I’ll Get a Pole” with Cooter leaving his bass duties in exchange for a set of three washboards. The set concludes with what the band refers to as its “National Anthem.” Hats are removed and the sweet strains of “Dixie” echo through the gym.

At the end of the day, the music was the obvious highlight, although the venue and audience left something to be desired. It was a bittersweet note to see Bluegrass music still being appreciated. However, the future of this unique music appeared to rest in the tiniest fiddling hands in the room.
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