Barberville Spring Frolic

Well, another Barberville Spring Frolic has come and gone. If you made it to the festival, hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you missed it then I hope you feel appropriately disappointed and vow to make sure and attend the Barberville Fall Jamboree in November. As always, Joe and Katie did a magnificent job of putting the music together and it was another very special event. If you are unfamiliar with the Barberville festivals, Barberville is about 14 miles north, northwest of DeLand near the intersection of US Highway 17 and State Road 40. The Barberville Pioneer Settlement for the Creative Arts is west of US 17 on SR 40. It is located on the grounds of former Volusia County Schools surplus property known as the Central School of Barberville (c. 1919), which was first leased from the Volusia County School Board in the year of the Settlement's incorporation, 1976. The Pioneer Settlement for the Creative Arts, Inc. was established as an educational institution whose general nature and objective is to render constructive, educational, and cultural services to the community through collection, preservation, conservation and exposition of objects which are the cultural heritage of the community. It consists, in part, of many historical buildings moved to and maintained on the property including the following (showing the year they were moved to the site as well the original year of construction): 1982: Pierson Railroad Depot (c. 1885) 1983: Astor Bridgekeeper's House (c. 1926) 1984: Turpentine Comm./Store (c. early 1900s) 1988: Turpentine Still (c. 1924) 1989: Pottery Shed (c. 1920s) 1992: Lewis Log Cabin (c. 1875) 1994: Midway United Methodist Church (c. 1890) 1996: Huntington Post Office (c. 1885) 1997: Quarters House (c. 1920s) 1998: The Pastime touring boat (c. 1910) There is also the original schoolhouse that has been fully restored and other outbuildings of various types. The music takes place in some of these buildings as well as on festival type tent stages set up specially for the events. In the fall, demonstrations of blacksmithing and other historical trades take place throughout the weekend. Saturday started out with a major faux pas on my part. I had noted that I had two shows scheduled, one at 1:30 and one at 2:30 --- wrong! I also had one at 11:00 on my favorite stage, the Church (wonderful acoustics!!). So, when I showed up at about noon thinking I was plenty early I was immediately greeted by fans and other musicians asking if everything was alright and where I had been! Very embarrassing, I’ve never done that before! But the group before me and the group after filled in nicely and the show proceeded without a hitch. My afternoon shows went very well and I enjoyed seeing familiar faces and new ones alike in the audience. The weather was a bit on the warm side, but nice breezes kept it very comfortable in the shade and in the buildings. Sunday started out UGLY. Frog strangling rain and thunderstorms drove the crowd to cover in the morning and disrupted the schedule a little. But, by noon the rain was over and the skies began to clear. The rest of the day was beautiful and very comfortable, if a little precarious as a result of strong gusting winds that made things interesting at times. In fact, the tent type stages had to move to more stable structures as the wind quickly threatened to turn the tarps into steel framed kites! I had two shows and a songwriting workshop and enjoyed them all immensely. Terrific performances by so many that as usual its hard to list all of the great acts I saw bits and pieces of. I continue to be very impressed with the sound of James Hawkins and Cold Harbor – really superb. Also, M.T. Pawketts with Jeff Frieberg, Kace Montgomery, Wayne (brain won’t give me the last name), Joe Ramierez and Jonathon and Sherri Hodge, never disappoint. By specially noting those two I don’t mean to slight anyone else – there was just so much great music all around on every stage its impossible to fairly list and comment on them all. Be assured if you missed it, you REALLY MISSED IT!!! Thanks again to Joe and Katie for all your hard work and for all who came out to this wonderful event. See you again soon.

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