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Show I V Bluegrass Fest had poor JT ' fcr Kll & V - ,fW Bsv X r3 it: Country Gazette entertains a small crowd during session at the Bluegrass Festival. ""By Jay Meehan Although it turned out to be I'itt unqualified flop money-wise, the 4th Annual Park City Bluegrass Festival last weekend at Park City Resort's Treasure Hollow featured some very exceptional music. And although the three-daJCfest three-daJCfest featured such bluegrass illuminaries as the Dillards, Country Gazette, Summerdog, the Larry Mc-Neelyl Mc-Neelyl Band along with a host of other acts, there were a atfhole slew of what psychologists term "intervening "inter-vening variables" that appeared ap-peared on the festival's horizon that served to keep the attendance figures much belcwrthe break-even point. According to co-promoter Ted Shupe, who puts on a variety of Intermountain bluegrass gatherings with brother Jim, the early book-work book-work seems to show that they equalled the accounting success they acheived their firsJujrear here. They lost $10,000. The Shupes had figured that since it cost relatively littkmore to get acts to stay for a third day that they were in a can't-miss situation. But alas, those aforementioned variables raised their ugly heads. "ft'-really hard to figure m s a hit... and a miss tiSLC Art Center ari Mu Hne separates the sut from the ridiculous. Ju tUAow thin will be dei len&rated next month, wh riflhe Salt Lake Art Ce terC' runs , another dual fes ivaron August weekends. 1 S&rt Center has sche-du sche-du 'da! series of some of the be: :jmj)vies to come out of Ho IvS-Ikx!. But immediately ng them will De some worst film mistakes wed to escape from The "Best" films tnrriav and Siinriav it' Sat 7:30. The "Worsts" r-vq the same nights at tmood and bad movies are paired with a common the'nw?.- For instance, the weekend of Aug. 1 and 2 featuies "The Best and WorsfBf Bird Movies." The eveniftg starts with "The Malttpe," John Huston's tale of mjurder and duplicity, with Bogey as private eye Sam pade, who retains his integ$jy in a world where other !eople (like Sydney Greeifejreet, Peter Lorre, Marystor) find their scruples scru-ples ifliier rocks. Butj if you think all bird movite" are classics, then hangfaround for "Bill and Coo.'ia 1947 all-bird musical. The plot is about two love birdslin the little town of ChirpfSdale who are threatened threat-ened fey a crow called the BlacMenace. Incredibly this flighty fantasy special Academy 8 and 9 features the nd Worst of Little e films (which the assembled after an exhaijstive search through Hollywood's vast number of midgt movies). "Freaks," is a &32 horror classic by Tod Browning (who directed "Dracula"), which still wields a disturbing force. The story concerns a beautiful trapeze artist with a hideous soul (Olga Baclanova) who plans to marry a love-smitten little dwarf and then kill him for his money. Using real freaks, Browning touched audiences with the misfits' humanity and then horrified hor-rified by showing the just enousi, won la-AwarH! AuC Best ft People Cent I i XT JS i f 1 ' ' - ilk v ? out what exactly went wrong," lamented Ted late Sunday night. "Some of it was probably the real bizarre weather we had this weekend. And possibly the lack of grass in the hollow might have hurt us some with the people who usually come every day, and I'm sure that the Blues Festival hurt us Saturday. That's the bad part. It's really hard to learn anything, to tell what really went wrong when things turn out this way. But (with a big smile), the music sure was good, wasn't it?" I'll go you one better, Ted. I'll say the music was great. As has been the case for the last few years, Rodney Dillard is the only family member still with the legendary legen-dary progressive bluegrass band which bears his name. But no matter how many personnel changes they go through, The Dillards remain a truly enjoyable, highly entertaining blue-grass blue-grass band. Original member Dean Webb is still there to supply his hot electric elec-tric mandolin breaks while adding sporadic doses of his wry humor to the proceedings, and serving as a foil to Rodney's audacious wit. Joining Rodney and Dean in the current edition of the band are Seth Pappas on revenge of their "Brotherhood." "Brother-hood." "The Terror of Tinv Town" is a horror, too. Obscure producer Jed Buell made the first all-midget Western in 1938. The familiar plot concerns a villain trying to stir up trouble between two ranching families just like any ordinary oater, except that the characters ride Shetland ponies, drink from beer mugs bigger than they are, and walk under the saloon doors! On Aug. 15 and 16, the series will show the height and the nadir of John Wayne's movie career. "The Searchers" (1956) directed by John Ford, shows perhaps Wayne's best performance. As the psychopathic Western hero Ethan Edwards, Wayne searches for his niece (Natalie (Na-talie Wood), kidnapped by Commanches. Ford explored the thin line between humanity hu-manity and savagery, hero-ism hero-ism and insanity, all bound up in Wayne's brilliant portrayal of a character who seeks to restore the bonds of family and civilization that ironically, he has always denied himself. It's funny, though, how fast you can slip from triumph to tripe. Just a year before "The Searchers," Wayne lumbered through his most lubicrous role in "The Conqueror," the second Wayne feature, as the Asian warrior Genghis Khan. ("Risten and risten tight," he should have said.) Wayne said at the time that he played the role like a Mongolian gunslinger. As if that wasn't bad enough, scientists have speculated spe-culated that the Utah locations loca-tions used for filming (near A-bomb testing sites) may have caused the cancer deaths of Wayne, co-stars Susan Hayward and Agnes Moorehead, director Dick Powell, and others on the crew. A picture with a truly infamous reputation! Fruit Movies are the topic on Aug. 22 and 23. "The Grapes of Wrath" is the much-respected (if too long and rambling) story of the Saturday afternoon drums and bass harmony vocal, Joe Villegas on bass, and Mark Howard handling the five-string banjo and electric guitar duties. Their set Sunday afternoon after-noon was a typically fine collection of gospel-harmonies, gospel-harmonies, hard to believe ditties concerning characters charac-ters from their hometown of Salem, Missouri, lightning fast versions of instrumental breakdowns, and sing-a-longs. The hand-clapper "Dooley (The Dew)" had all the pickers in attendance marveling mar-veling at Webb's mandolin break, while the rest joined vocally during the chorus. Rodney, you see, has this thing about teaching parts of their songs to the audience. In fact, he loves to berate them until they learn the words. "Old Home Place," a beautiful ballad penned years ago by Dean Webb, provided a relaxing interlude in-terlude before the boys got down to some hot picking on "Hickory Holler Breakdown" Break-down" from the Dillards' great "Back Porch Bluegrass" LP. Their textbook text-book rendition of "An-nabelle "An-nabelle Lee" showed off the: old ballad in fine style. But then again, these boys have film fest Okies who are kicked off their farms and struggle through hardship, injustice and sorrow, confident in the knowledge that "we're the people." "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" is the only intentionally inten-tionally bad movie on this month's schedule. The film concerns rampaging fruits (no, it's a vegetable! no, it's a fruit!) who devour housewives and Bloody Mary drinkers. Who could forget the poignant lyrics of the title tune: "I know I'm gonna miss her A tomato ate my sister." Finally what Best-Worst collection would be complete without a pair of science fiction movies? On Aug. 29-30, the Center will show "Forbidden Planet." The story, loosely based on Shakespeare's "Tempest," concerns a spaceship visiting visit-ing an isolated planet and its only two living inhabitants a misanthropic professor (Walter Pidgeon) and his backward daughter (Anne Francis) who has never met another man. Soon, the crew is menaced by an invisible monster, and discovers that when Man meets his worst enemy, it is himself. On the same nights, don't miss "Plan 9 From Outer Space," which bad-film buffs recently voted as the Worst Film of All Time. Retarded Earthlings confront the aliens and their Plan 9, which calls for resurrection of the dead to frighten the planet into submission. (The first eight plans must have been real losers!) Complete with grippling dialogue: "My friends, we are all concerned about the future," intones the stern narrator, "for that is where we will spend the rest of our lives." There is separate admission ad-mission for both films $2 for adults, $1.50 for members of the Utah Cinema Council, Wasatch Film Front, and Salt Lake Art Center, and $1 for children. The Art Center is at 20 South West Temple, (enter from lower southwest doors). For further information, informa-tion, call 328-4201. showing for three days of great shows always had a place in their hearts for songs about hidden hid-den love and murder.. The up-tempo sing-a-long "Salty ' Dog" ended their fine set. ' Due to yet another tragedy in Roland White's family, Country Gazette took the stage much earlier than planned for the evening portion por-tion of Sunday's show. Roland seven or eight years ago was hospitalized and his brother, the legendary guitarist Clarence, was killed when a woman struck them both as they were putting put-ting their instruments in the trunk of their car in a parking lot in Palmdale, California. And last Sunday morning he received a call informing him that the rest of Clarence's family, his wife and son, had been killed in an automobile wreck. Roland's son, Lawrence, who many may remember playing with Country Gazette last year on mini-bass, was also in the vehicle, but emerged with no serious injury. in-jury. But the show must go on and Roland would have it no other way, as his spirited picking and sining showed. Since last year, Gregg Kennedy, Ken-nedy, ex-bassman and vocalist with Bill Monroe and Benny Martin, has joined the band, and as everyone soon found out, when you run in these circles you've got to be able to pick or get off the bus. This particular par-ticular circle, you see, features, besides Roland, the great five-string banjo inovator Alan Munde and guitarist-group spokesman Joe Carr. And Country Gazette proceeded to lay it on the faithful one after the other: "Down the Road Blues," "Never Ending Song of Love," "I Might Take You Back Again," "Crawdad," "New River Train," Moon Mullican's country classic "Sail My Ship Alone," .Hi. 1 .V.J Toyo quallty-cratted liras lor passengar cars, trucks, vans and recreational vehicles are manufactured In the most modern lira building facilities by experienced craltsmen, and are performance proven on roads all over the world. Each step of research, design engineering, development, production, produc-tion, inspection and testing test-ing employs the most i modern equipment and the latest technology and careful workmanship. workman-ship. Toyo Tire (U.S.A.) Corporation is dedicated to quality products, integrity and courteous service. steel I JV01V "Elinor Rigby" with Gregg on lead vocal, "Lonesome Emmy" from their soon-to-be-released "American and Clean," and as encore Arley Duff's classic sing-along "Y'all i Come," which featured Roland's voice at it best. Although Summerdog hails from Tucson, Parkites have come to regard then as their own in recent years. The four who make up the group, Ron Doering, Jon Ross, Chip Curry, and Mark "CB" Rennard, are entertainers enter-tainers of the highest order. They just want people to flat have a good time, and Sunday Sun-day in Treasure Hollow everyone did. "Fiddle Train" featured banjo-man Chip on vocal and Ron joining in on the chorus. The up-tempo tune was a great choice to kick off their fttfitz.n "What do I hear?" Terri Art Center auction. erfo :-e STEEL BELTED RADIAL Z-8 is a tough, perfcmance proven steoi belted radial tor sports and compact cars The radra1 corstruclion and steel belts give easy rolling fuel economy long mileage and Iread life, and positive road gripping traction on wet or dry roads Puncture resisting reliability belted radial passenger car tires Make sure your car is ready for your summer vacation ! Superior Tire and Park City Conoco Service Truck Available We take care of your car North Park Ave., 649-9331 "all original" set. And, as it turned out, the quartet has written more than enough fine songs to h-.idle such an endeavor. And, of course, they all seem to play all the instruments. "Amelia Rag" featured Jon and Ron on twin-mandolins, twin-mandolins, while Jon moved to Conga drum for their Mariachi classic "Coco Loco." "The Ballet" had all the tasty jazz, classical, and rock influenced ascents one looks for in a "newgrass" composition. "I Want To Tell You The Hell You Put Me Through" utilized a traditional tradi-tional up-tempo blue-grass blue-grass approach. "Flight 284" had Jon employing jazzy jaz-zy guitar while Mark demonstrated his find fiddle work. Both are Doering compositions. Curry picked in a Gomes holds painting as Size 155SR12 155SR13 165SR13 175SR13 175SR14 185SR14 165SR15 Construction TT-BW & WW TL-BW & WW & Wide WW TL-BW & WW & Wide WW TL-BW & WW TL-BW & WW TL-BW & WW & Wide WW TL-BW & WW rmanceT L J "frailing" style on his own "Talking Banjo," a hilarious ditty which chronicles Chip's early encounter with the "male tambourine" and is performed in a "talking blues" form not unlike that used by Charlie Daniels band on "uneasy Rider." It seemed that the more the temperature dropped, the more inner-heat Summerdog provided. They ended their set with the traditionally-styled traditionally-styled "Black Smoke" and their classic good-time "WahHoo." Also on the bill were the "Pee Wee Pickers," an Ogden based group ranging in age from nine to fourteen , and "Hogwash," a trio who interspersed two real fine tunes into a set far too cluttered clut-tered with Michael Murphy music. The "pearls" were a tasty trumpet-led, swing- ""HHy l auctioneer Don Kennedy -Y-fvfi . lit ires Z2-U2 STEEL BELTED RADIAL A tough steel belled radial lor small cars Built for many miles of fuel saving travel Positive handling with road hugging traction in cornering, starting and stopping Rely on Z-12 radials for satisfying long lite and excellent performance mrnrnmrnm oriented "Me Oh My Miss Molly" and a wonderful reading of the traditional tune known in some circles as "East Virginia Blues" while in others as either "Whitehouse Blues" or "Solid Gone." The Shupe Family Fiddlers Fidd-lers performing this ear without Jim Jr., who now lives on the coast, utilitized as usual, twin fiddle arrangements to great effect. ef-fect. "Maiden's Prayer," "El Comanchero," and "Orange Blossom Special" were especially enjoyable. It remains to be seen how the Shupe Family will handle han-dle their second $10,000 bath in four years. If they are unable to continue promoting the Park City Bluegrass Festival, and no one else is found to fill the void, we will be the losers. 11 -.!' i r swings into action at Size 155SR12 145SR13 155SR13 165SR13 175SR13 175SR14 185SR14 165SR15 Construction TL-BW & WW" TL-BW & WW TL-BW & WW TL-BW & WW TL-BW & WW TL-BW & Wide WW TL-WW TL-BW & WW &Mt J I I 1 ! . I |