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PAUL BILODEAU Of The NEWS Country swing music was centre stage in Southern Alberta Sunday, and for hun dreds who turned out and tuned in, it was about time. By all accounts, except perhaps total attendance, the Wildrose Country Boogie at the Stampede grounds was a foot-stompin’ success, sending everyone home at dusk with the hope the first won’t be the last. The featured attraction, Mission Mountain Wood Band of Montana, played to ex pected potential, while three other country rock and bluegrass groups held up their end of the seven-hour affair. A cooler-laden crowd, aged predominantly in the mid-20s, trickled in around 2 p.m. and were warmed up by Medicine Hat's own Springfield who played in the sunshine for the first time Sunday. The locals’ fairly tight coun try rock renditions were followed by the Diamond Joe White entourage and its Alber ta theme music, before Mission Mountain broke onto the stage with some long strains of high-flying elec trified bluegrass. From Mission’s first num ber, which got a crowd up boogie-dancing on the rodeo infield, it was clear they had come to have a good time. The music is hard to categorize, a combination of electric and acoustic banjo and pedal steel guitar with renditions ranging from Dan Hicks-style originals like Utah Moon to genuine rock'n'roll numbers such as It’s About Time. Mission Mountain punc tuated its songs with comedy, and shared the spirit of the warm audience in more ways than music. It was hard to tell the band was coming off a 10- day tour of five states, but perhaps the exuberance was a celebration of their first per formance ever in this country. Most of their late-afternoon set, lasting more than 90 minutes, was up-tempo coun try rock, but they ended off with some old favorites in cluding a well-done auc tioneer’s song and I’ve Been Everywhere. The Mission Mountain theme song, celebrating the band’s southern Montana roots, and Fare Thee Well, Old Joe Clark stirred the crowd to the climax of the day-long boogie. Terry Robinson, a lean, tall cowboy who plays acoustic guitar and harmonica as well as delivering most of the band’s one-liners (‘‘May Skylab fall on Idi Amin’’), said the band vacuumed out the big red bus before crossing the border, and counted on taking home some Canadian beer. Much of the material is irreverent, turning away‘from country’s early religious roots. Mission Mountain originated as a mixture of country and western, rock'n'roll and bluegrass, reconstituted into something Robinson reluctantly labelled “swing” — “really it’s the thing that’s happening these days. He says boogie-style outdoor concerts are common throughout the U.S., but fading because of increasing overhead costs. ‘‘My best wishes go to anybody who tries to promote one of these” he said. “You hardly’ ever make any money.” It would be a bonus to break even on a Sunday attendance of about 700, but Robinson says giving local groups a chance to perform with touring professionals like Mission Mountain is ‘‘almost as important as anything.” And Springfield, largely a new band under an old name, gave a good accounting of it self with a mixture of barroom jocularity and modern coun try rock. Overall, the soun dings were tight and the crowd especially like the Jimmy Buf fett tunes: Why Don’t We Get Drunk And. The vocals of Don Patterson highlighted the band's first concert performance and there should be more to come for this group — a great warm-up for the more travelled Diamond Joe White troupe. No strangers to Medicine Hat audiences, Diamond Joe and company of Calgary and lately of Chemainus, B.C., played their recorded reper toire of bluesy country ballads, starting with the song John Ware and leading into a mixture of original and familiar material. In contrast to Diamond Joe's raspy ren ditions, wife Penny stole the show with full-bodied vocals on Home and Life’s Stairway to Heaven. The clouds came filtering in over the blazing sun just as Diamond Joe plucked some fine guitar breaks, and piano man Ron Cossette got as close to boogie as anyone. Probably the hardest act to follow was Mission Mountain, but a Calgary bluegrass group, Whisky Ridge, fittingly stood the last set of the day, relaxing the crowd with traditional stylings. Purists to the acoustic bass, banjo and fiddle, Ridge’s ren ditions of Take Me Back To Tulsa and Let Me Go Home Whisky were true to the traditional form. The crowd was back on its feet as Orange Blossom Special wafted across the grandstand, and after suitable calls for more, the band rounded out the evening. The Wildrose Country Boogie went off without a hit ch, except perhaps the long delays between acts, and provided a sunny afternoon of some of the finest music heard in this part of the country in some time. Maybe next year it could be taken right out into the country. WILDROSE BOOGIE — The Mission Mountain Wood Band of Missoula, Mont., performs at the grandstand at the Stampede grounds Sunday as some warmed-up spectators do a dusty dance. The newly-constructed stage in the rodeo infield got a workout as four country and bluegrass bands entertained a less-than-capacity crowd at the day-long event. —NEWS photo Daniel Lander LUTES AND CHUTE — An added attraction at the Wildrose Country Boogie Sunday was a sky-dive by Ron Lutes, a warrant officer with the British Army training unit. From a height of 7,000 feet, Lutes parachuted into the rodeo infield, trailing green smoke and performing some aerial acrobatics. Guided by a yellow smoke bomb at ground fever, Lutes arrived right on target. I just do this as a hob by,” said the parachutist. —NEWS photo Daniel Lander
Newspaper Details
Medicine Hat News
Medicine Hat, Alberta, CA
Mon, Jul 09, 1979
Page 3
Full Page
Clipped by
Kenneth H.
CA 14 Jun 2026
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