Wayne County recording artists to receive Rural Roots Music Commission 'CD of the Year' award

What began 41 years ago as a simple old-time music gathering, has over the years become the largest and oldest 'National Old-Time Music Festival' in the upper Midwest. Continually prodding it along to better and larger activities, the President of the Non-Profit Association that hosts the event is still at the helm some 41 years later.

His name is Bob Everhart, a recording artist for the Smithsonian Institution with six albums released through their Smithsonian-Folkways label. His 'take' on the music business today hasn't changed much since his hero Woody Guthrie was tromping around America preaching this land is your land. Everhart feels that a lot of 'commercial' music, no matter what its name, has sort of lost their 'soul' in the process of pursuing big profits rather than artistic expression. "We've felt for a long time that the average American really wants to see the 'real deal' these days.

Not only in government and politics, and food, and movies, but also in real-life real-music, no matter what genre it might be, or used to be. Country music is a good example of the failure of Nashville to keep the 'real-deal' in its identifiable music." Everhart stays very active, at the age of 80, keeping the real-deal alive in Iowa where he, and his wife Sheila, still directs a festival of old-time music that now requires seven days in length to accommodate the many acoustic old-time artists that participate. So many in fact, that Everhart has to provide ten performance stages functioning from 9am-midnight just to have stage time for the many participants. He does this without booze or drugs, neither are allowed on the grounds, still he has more artists than he can handle.

A group of old-time music lovers organized some years ago to 'recognize' the 'real-deal' in music is the Rural Roots Music Commission. This group of regular every-day folks decided they would like to honor those artists, especially in the acoustic music world, with recognition, respect, and appreciation for what they are doing in the recording world of music. For them, it's not always the note-perfect product that comes out of Nashville where they can even make an off-key singer 'fixed' in the studio. They are more interested in those artists that bring honesty as well as sincere heart-wrenching rustic talent to the forefront of the music world.

One of the acts they listened to is a mountain gospel style of music performed by the Ross Family of Piedmont, Mo. The Ross's recorded an album entitled "Higher Ground" that the Commission found has superb traditional country & gospel sounds they considered to be authentic old-time and rural in nature. Charity Ross plays the fiddle; Justus Ross plays guitar; Jeff Ross plays the bass; Danita Ross plays the mandolin, and Alex Clayton plays the banjo. The Rural Roots Music Commission will be presenting the Ross's their "Young Gospel Traditional Music CD of the Year" award at their national convention in Le Mars, Iowa, August 29-September 4, at the Plymouth County Fairgrounds which hosts ten stages of entertainment daily. The Ross's will be on the main stage at 6pm on September 1st, to receive their award. They will also be performing on the secondary stages including the pioneer stage, and the dance hall stage throughout the week.

The Ross's will also receive another award while they are at the Iowa event. According to Bob Everhart, Director of the festival, "We try to honor young people that have presented themselves in a manner, especially in the music they perform, with our own "Rising Legend" award. We started this about 25 years ago encouraging young people to get involved in a musical genre that wasn't so full of outrageous lyrics and dull rhythms. It has been very successful for us, so this year our "Rising Legend" becomes "Rising Legends" as we prepare to honor each and every one of the young folks in the Ross Family from Missouri.

More information is available from the Traditional Music Association's website http://www.ntcma.net/ or directly from Everhart at 712-762-4363.