ROCKINGHAM — Entering its 12th year - “an even dozen fun-filled years,” according to organizer Ray Massucco - Roots on the River has expanded to include “at least 50 percent” free music and a regional lineup in downtown Bellows Falls.
The festival takes place this year on the weekend of June 9-12 in and around Bellows Falls and Rockingham. As has been the case for every year of the festival, Canadian alt-country hero Fred Eaglesmith is the headliner on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
He will share the stage with a trio of like-minded singer-songwriters.
On Friday night, James McMurtry, who liked his first visit to Roots on the River so much that he added a stop in Rockingham to anchor his 2011 tour, will be playing with Eaglesmith inside the big tent at the Everyday Inn on Route 103.
Todd Snider joins Eaglesmith and his band in the big tent on Saturday, and Chris O'Brien will open the traditional Sunday acoustic show at the Rockingham Meeting House.
A deluxe-ticketholder reception will be held on Thursday, June 9, at 5 p.m., and the doors will open to general admission ticketholders at 6 p.m. This year's festival features a new venue - 33 Bridge St., the old paper mill that's home to Sherwin Glass, Hunter Studio, and WOOL-FM - and a lineup of local favorites, starting at 7:30 p.m.
In the hope of keeping the interest of the next generation of Roots on the River fans, Massucco wanted a night where “people can dance,” with Rusty Belle, Pete Weiss and the Weisstronauts, and Jatoba on the Thursday bill.
“Without them, the future of this festival will die,” Massucco said.
The “Fred-heads” - the loyal fans of Eaglesmith and his band who follow him from show to show - snap up most of the festival's tickets each year. But if you don't have a ticket, there will be plenty of free music in Bellows Falls on Friday, June 10.
Open air shows begin at noon in The Square, with Kim & Sharon, Patrick Fitzsimmons, and Waylon Speed playing at noon, 1 p.m., 2 p.m., and 3 p.m., while Fongster 100 and Jim Gaudet and the Railroad Boys will be playing at the Bellows Falls Farmers' Market at 4:15 p.m. and 5:30 p.m.
“It's important to me to give back to the community that has supported the festival year after year,” Massucco said of Friday's free music lineup.
Music at the Everyday Inn will begin Friday at 7:30 p.m. under the tent, with Jandee Lee Porter opening for McMurtry and Eaglesmith. Saturday is always the busiest day of the festival, and this year is no exception, with a lineup that includes Joe Gee, Roger Marin and his band, Tommy Womack, Zoe Muth and the Lost High Rollers, Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams, Audrey Auld, Snider, and Eaglesmith.
A labor of love
Local artist and music promoter Charlie Hunter began Roots on the River in 2000, and the festival keeps growing in popularity each year.
The list of musicians Hunter has gotten to come to Roots reads like a Who's Who of modern American folk music. Under his management, Hunter has gotten Dar Williams, Greg Brown, and Maria Muldaur to Roots at various times.
“He set the bar high,” Massucco said. “He knew them all from having promoted them early on in their careers.”
Even MSNBC political commentator Rachel Maddow - then a local radio personality toiling in western Massachusetts - emceed the festival in 2002.
But the work of organizing the shows took its toll on Hunter. Massucco said Hunter started to “burn out. He wanted to go do other things.”
When Hunter ran into Massucco in 2005, the changing of the guard began.
“I walked up to him before one of the festivals and asked what I could do to help. He said, 'Set those chairs up,' and I did,” Massucco said with a laugh.
“After that festival, Charlie said he wasn't sure he wanted to do another one, and I said, 'Whoa, we can't have that.' This is too good a thing to let go.”
Massucco saw what the festival did for the community each year.
“Fat Franks said it was their best sales weekend all year. And Rock and Hammer said the same thing. So I knew it was important to keep this going for the community.”
And Massucco, having “lived here all his life,” has seen much change in the town his forefathers settled. “This is the best thing to happen to this town,” he said.
With Hunter mentoring him through his first year, he managed to pull off the next festival “mostly” on his own, “but I drove Charlie nuts. With my laid-back style, he couldn't see how I would get things done on time.”
Massucco relates several close calls that, by sheer luck, were overcome without major incident, while “Charlie's watching, pulling his hair out.”
But Massucco said he has “never made the same mistake twice, and each year there's always something new to learn.”
Now, he says, after five years, he gets calls to consult with other festivals.
As a lawyer, he said he gets calls from people in the entertainment industry to represent companies and artists.
“Contracts, divorces, even criminal cases,” Massucco said, describing his legal work. “I tell them I'm not an entertainment lawyer, but somehow, the word's gotten out that I'm a straight shooter and get the job done. They tell me they want me and only me.”
Massucco said that, one year, he got a call from Fred Eaglesmith about three hours before he was supposed to go on. “I took the call and asked him what's up. He's really mellow and laid back and tells me, 'Hey, I just wanted you to know that I'm hung up at the [Vermont-Canada] border. There's something wrong with my visa.' I asked him what he wanted me to do about it, and he said, 'Nothing. I just wanted to let you know.'
“Then I asked him how long he'd been there, and he said 'five hours,' and here he'd just called me and had a 2½-hour drive still ahead to get here,” Massucco said, laughing. “He called me a little while later and said they were on their way. He got here just in time to walk on stage when he was introduced.”
Massucco said the first year he had music in the Square on a Friday afternoon, he went up to visit then-Interim Town Manager Francis “Dutch” Walsh in his office in the Opera House overlooking the Square, and asked him what he thought.
“He told me it was great, 'but geesh, Massucco, your timing couldn't be worse. It's Friday afternoon and none of my employees are doing any work. They're all listening to your music.' I laughed and asked him what he expected from his employees on a Friday afternoon, anyway.”
Backstage tales
The Roots on the River stage manager is Patrick LeBlanc, who also owns Pleasant Valley Brewing in Saxtons River.
“I've been doing it from the beginning, almost,” he said. “Last year, I thought would be my last year.”
Asked why he changed his mind, he said, “It's a blast. I wouldn't keep doing it if it wasn't fun.”
But he said, one especially poignant moment that helped to keep him coming back to [volunteer] happened back in 2005, when Chris Whitley, who spent some time in the Bellows Falls area growing up, agreed to come back and play.
“We'd been trying to get him, and he finally agreed. As he told the audience when he went on stage, the one and only time he had been back was six months before for his mother's funeral,” LeBlanc explained.
“He looked terrible when he finally arrived. I'd gotten a call a half hour before he was supposed to be on that they couldn't get him out of his hotel room. Then, they got him into a car and brought him to the staging area.
“Then, they couldn't get him out of the car. He was about to go on. Finally, when they were announcing his name, he got out of the car and walked on stage.”
LeBlanc said no one knew at the time that Whitley was battling lung cancer, or why he dedicated a song with, “This one's for you, Mom. See ya soon.”
“It was his last live performance. They took him off tour the next day,” LeBlanc recalls, turning on the recording of that historic event at Roots in 2005. Whitley's voice is gravelly and dark, but there is an unmistakable ring of hope in the upper reaches of the recording.
Asked whether there were plans for doing anything with Whitley's recording, LeBlanc said that, besides the issues of licensing and releases, it is “still too poignant” for him to think about. “Maybe someday.”
LeBlanc described another memorable moment - “You just never know what's going to happen from year to year” - when David Bromberg headlined the festival.
“As sometimes happened, time slots kept getting smaller and smaller as the MC [Massucco] kept going on; it got to the point where the all-girl band playing just before Bromberg was going to have to either be scratched or cut to like, 15 minutes.” LeBlanc said.
“The lead singer asked me what I needed to do. She said, 'You just tell us when you want us off the stage,' and you can't cut into Bromberg's stage time. That's who people come to see. She said, 'I could do half an hour,' and I and said, 'No. Fifteen minutes.'”
LeBlanc shook his head. “I'd never met Bromberg. After I handled that, I went back to where this guy was sitting, laughing.
“'That's my wife you just told to cut it short,' he said, and introduced himself as David Bromberg, and he wasn't mad or anything. That's the kind of moment you just can't predict, and [they] are so precious.”
LeBlanc said that from 3 p.m. on Thursday to 3 p.m. on Sunday, he's working straight out, and “forget about sleep.”
He said that, every year but one, the festival has adjourned on Sunday afternoon with participants playing several games of street hockey.
“We started it in honor of Fred's Canadian heritage,” he said.
The one time that game didn't happen was the year that LeBlanc said Eaglesmith refused to play “because he and his band had to go on David Letterman the next day,” and he did not want bruises or broken bones to hamper that.
This year's street hockey game will start in the parking lot of the Everyday Inn at at 3 p.m. Sunday.