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* Merlefest moments

Just back from an eighth straight year of attending Merlefest in Wilkesboro, North Carolina....a few scattered thoughts on this year's festival:

It's tempting to call this Merlefest "The Year of the Piano" in that keyboards seemed to figure fairly prominently in many of the most memorable performances. None were better than Ollabelle, whosek keyboardist, Glenn Patscha, repeatedly cast mesmerizing trances and tones with his organ work during the band's stellar Saturday-afternoon set in the drizzle at the Americana stage. Their version of the Grateful Dead's "Ripple" on the Cabin Stage later that night was a show-stopping beauty. Merlefest may generally be all about the banjos and fiddles and guitars and mandolins, but when you hear a good keyboardist in the midst of all that, it ends to stand out like a clarion call....

http://www.nodepression.net/blogs/peter/2008/04/_merlefest_moments.html