Gimme Shelter: Hardly Strictly Bluegrass

Ralph Stanley and The Clinch Mountain Boys play the Banjo Stage last Sunday

If you live in the SF Bay Area you are probably familiar with Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, the 3-day, multi-stage, free music festival in Golden Gate Park. Many locals avoid it because of the enormous crowds, but I'm still a devout fan. The HSB lineup (list of scheduled musicians) is always amazing and there are frequently difficult decisions with six different stages. The musicians themselves generally seem happy to be there and often play together in impromptu, sometimes unusual, combinations. The positive energy extends to the crowds where people generally are unusually polite and friendly given the mass of humanity.

While this year was no different, the festival was also melancholic as Warren Hellman, the founding partron of HSB, died last year and this is the first festival without him. Hellman was a successful private equity financier, as well as a philanthropist and banjo player. Even if you had never heard of him before last weekend, it was clearly evident from the frequency and sincerity of the many heartfelt tributes throughout the weekend that Hellman was the heart and soul of HSB. But his spirit continues, and so does HSB which Hellman funded well into the future so the festival will not require commercial support (which would profoundly alter HSB). Appropriately, the meadow where the HSB stages are built each year has been officially renamed "Hellman Hollow."