SF Chronicle on HSB Day 3

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Strictly a good time: Annual free Golden Gate Park bluegrass festival gets better -- and bigger -- with age.
- Joel Selvin, Chronicle Senior Pop Music Critic
Monday, October 9, 2006
Investment banker Warren Hellman surveyed the crowd that sprawled over Speedway Meadow as far as he could see, across JFK Drive and into the hills beyond. He pondered the improbable success of his sixth annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate Park, looking at a crowd he estimated to be at least 100,000.
"First of all, the weather was fantastic," he said. "After we've done it as many times as we have, we're more grooved. We have more of a rhythm. I think the mix of groups was better. We had Elvis Costello, T Bone Burnett, Del McCoury. And, most importantly, I think the music is becoming more popular."
He paused as security guards chased away an enthusiastic dancer who broke through the barricades to wriggle in front of the stage to some fiddle playing.
"See even the guys causing trouble aren't 70-year-old guys," he said.
From Jimmie Dale Gilmore's opening set in the chill of Friday afternoon to the traditional closing performance by festival poster girl Emmylou Harris under brilliant sunny skies two days later, 67 acts played at the gargantuan wingding spread across five stages that billionaire Hellman throws for the sheer joy of it. Hellman is a wildly enthusiastic bluegrass aficionado who has spent millions of his own money on a free music concert in the most beautiful possible surroundings that has become not just a highlight on the San Francisco cultural calendar, but one of the greatest music festivals in the world.
"He's throwing a party for 300,000," said Burnett, multi-platinum producer of 2000's "O Brother Where Art Thou" soundtrack that caused a major bluegrass boom when it hit the charts. "That's an act of extreme largesse, deep generosity. It shows that spirit still resides in San Francisco."
After booking many of the same performers over the years, the festival has developed a small repertory company that worked one another's shows all weekend long. Harris, Costello, Burnett, Steve Earle, Gillian Welch and others turned up in various combinations on various stages all through the three days.
Silver-haired Harris brought out Hazel Dickens, the West Virginia coal miner's daughter who was Hellman's original inspiration for the festival, and the two sang an old U. Utah Phillips song with the crowd to bring the festival to a close Sunday evening.
Only a few thousand fans were on hand Friday afternoon when Costello put on a loose, amiable set with a thrown-together band that will go down as one of his most memorable performances in more than 25 years of Bay Area appearances. He returned to the park the following day and joined the electric rock set by Burnett, a longtime musical accomplice of his.
On Sunday, he and Burnett played a full set as the Coward Brothers, a pseudonymous pairing the two haven't trotted out for 20 years. "It's mostly just an excuse to play a bunch of old songs," Costello said backstage, "and not very well, at that." Harris joined the brothers, too, introduced as "Emmylou Coward."
With most of the festival's biggest names reserved for Sunday, and Saturday's bill more concentrated on traditional acoustic music, the crowds for the first day of the weekend have always been substantially smaller. But the audience Saturday topped the previous year's attendance by at least half. Police estimated that as many as 500,000 people could have attended the three-day event.
"We all took economics in college," said Hellman, who made his way though the crowd largely unnoticed in a cheap cowboy hat and sweatshirt from the festival merchandise stand. "We know about price elasticity."
Hellman was escorted from stage to stage in a golf cart, adhering largely to a schedule he made out in advance. On Friday afternoon in the cool of the fog, he wore a blue jean jacket adorned Nashville-style on the back in sequins with the initials of his investment banking firm, "H&F," and his name, "Warren." He played banjo in the opening set of the smallest of the festival's five stages on Sunday with his group, the Wronglers. Hellman said he wouldn't entertain having a second banjo in his band "because then I'd be the worst banjo player in the group."
With vast outpouring of music, catching all the highlights would have been impossible. But, on Sunday alone, the possibilities ranged from the intense English folk music of Richard Thompson on the Rooster Stage in adjacent Marx Meadow to the Southern rock of the North Mississippi All-Stars at the Star Stage; the mountain twang of Iris DeMent at the Rooster Stage to the hippie rock of the Waybacks on the Arrow Stage, cranking out Grateful Dead tunes with special guest Bob Weir of the Dead.
Bluegrass veteran Del McCoury had the audience at the Banjo Stage on their feet, dancing and shouting like they were at a rock concert. The Lee Boys, sacred steel specialists from Florida, electrified the small crowd at the tiny Porch Stage.
The Songwriter's Circle on Saturday brought together Steve Earle, Guy Clark, Billy Bragg and Verlon Thompson. Earle opened with an angry screed about the current state of American politics, liberally laced with profanity.
"You're getting a little testy in your old age," Clark said. "Go ahead -- get it off your chest."
The performers were as charmed, if not more so, than the audience. They went to other stages to watchthe other shows. There were flare-ups of jamming backstage and much socializing. "I can't help thinking about your man here," Costello said, as he walked up to watch Harris from the side of the stage. "It's a huge generosity, unprecedented really. When you think about it -- that someone is paying for all this -- it's shocking. I hope I get to come back."
Hellman produced the festival with the staff of Slim's and the Great American Music Hall, the Boz Scaggs nightclub operation in which Hellman is also an investor. The massive bill was brilliantly booked by Slim's general manager Dawn Holliday. Cast and crew repaired to Slim's on Saturday evening, where the festival musicians continued to play into the night.
"What we have is a family," Hellman said, "in particular with Emmylou. She'll call and say 'I'd like you to have this person or that person.' "
A police officer walked up to Hellman wearing one of the festival's straw cowboy hats. "I'm out of uniform here, Warren," she said. "Don't snitch me out."
E-mail Joel Selvin at jselvin@sfchronicle.com.

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Topic - SF Chronicle on HSB Day 3 - LWR 05:53:47 10/09/06 (1)

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