I made my annual 700 mile trek up to Sorrento, B.C. a couple weeks ago for their weeklong Bluegrass Workshop. This year marked the 20th year they’ve held the camp. It was great as usual…..lots of picking late into the night. I didn’t get a lot of sleep, but I have the rest of the year to catch up!

I took the advanced rythym guitar class this year taught by Chris Stevens. It was great…..if you’ve never met Chris there is no describing the guy….he kept us enterained, so say the least. Brian and Caroline were there again, of course, and brought along a friend of theirs from Bozeman (his name escapes me), but he’s a fine bluegrass singer.

We had a good size fire up on the mountain just south of us that kept things interesting. It got a little smokey at times, but not bad.

There were around 250 musicians (students) there for the week. You can’t get through the gate if you are not taking a class, so as you can imagaine with 250 pickers around the jamming was pretty much nonstop.

This has become an annual event for me. It’s well worth the long drive….if it wasn’t I wouldn’t go back every year. It’s a solid week of bluegrass….no phone, no tv, no work, no newspapers…….nothing but good old mountain music. Does it get any better than that? 🙂

Here’s a little clip on youtube of a group we threw together for the student concert.

Tim Whitney
Chinook