{"id":67,"date":"2006-08-28T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-08-28T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2006-08-28T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-08-28T05:00:00","slug":"strawberry_bound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.michaelgaither.com\/home\/strawberry_bound\/","title":{"rendered":"Strawberry Bound"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s almost that time. We’re just a few days away from the Fall edition of the Strawberry Music Festival<\/a> at Camp Mather in Yosemite. For the unitiated, “Strawberry” is four days of no television, no pagers, and not a cell tower for miles. <\/p>\n

Trivia: The first Strawberry festival was held in the small town of Strawberry, California. It moved to Mather years ago, but the name stuck. Still confuses people when I discuss it). <\/p>\n

Oh, and there’s music. Lots of it. In the afternoon and the evening, in a huge meadow under the stars in the Sierras. It’s really as awful as it sounds. <\/p>\n

My pal Tom Sellers, up at the Sacramento Bee, said it better in this article from last Spring<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tom explains, quite well I might add, how the Spring and Fall Strawberry Music Festivals – held repectively over the Memorial and Labor Day Weekends – bookend a whole summer full of camping and music throughout northern California. <\/p>\n

This Fall Strawberry is heavy on both bluegrass (Sam Bush<\/a>, Rhonda Vincent<\/a>, Jerry Douglas<\/a>) and Americana songwriters (Laurie Lewis<\/a>, Rodney Crowell<\/a>, Darrell Scott<\/a>, and Roseanne Cash<\/a>). <\/p>\n

For me, Strawberry is particularly important. Besides planting some serious friendships in the place, it’s where I first actually took my guitar out and started playing and singing in front of other people. That was a long time ago. <\/p>\n

A typical Strawberry evening – after recovering from the day’s music and sneaking in a nap because we’re all older than we act – is to watch an evening’s worth of music, head back to camp, break out the instruments, and keep playing for as long as the lanterns (or in some cases, the alcohol) hold out. <\/p>\n

As you can see, it’s a very serious, highbrow affair:<\/p>\n

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I’ll see you in the meadow. And then I’ll see you back in camp.<\/p>\n

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