Bluegrass extravaganza

Sean Hawkins told Dave Self, ‘We’re just trying to provide good music for good people,’ and that’s what happened Saturday at the third annual Bluegrass on the Square festival in Corydon.
Hawkins, the tireless community development manager for the Harrison County Convention and Visitors Bureau, brought in superstar Tim O’Brien and three of the best bluegrass musicians in the world, Bryan Sutton on guitar, Stuart Duncan on the fiddle and Dennis Crouch on acoustic bass. They’re all from Nashville. Self, of White Cloud, primed the crowd on appropriate applause for the concert, because it was being recorded. It can be heard on ‘Kentucky Homefront’ (91.9 FM) on Wednesday night, July 20, before the second Bluegrass concert on the square three nights later.
The four musicians don’t normally play together, but you would never have known that the way they blended their talents on many of O’Brien’s lively and clever compositions plus some demanding instrumentals and more traditional ballads. O’Brien, 51, has recorded several CDs and has two more coming out in the fall.
It was blazing hot and hundreds of fans sought shelter beneath the trees around the First State Capitol, but the heat didn’t stop the players, who were drenched in sweat, nor children from dancing to the music whose Celtic roots go back to Appalachia and the British Isles.
A very good regional band, Bluegrass 101, starring lead singer and guitarist Terry Waldridge of Bardstown, took the Hurley D. Conrad Memorial Bandstand stage first. They were here for the third time in three years.