Six of Northwest Ohio’s most prominent Americana, folk and blues bands are poised to take the stage in honor of Toledo’s old-time music roots later this month.

The Steam Train Roots Music Festival will take place Aug. 25 at The Village Idiot in Maumee. The multiband festival begins at 4:30 p.m. and lasts well into the midnight hour, with each act paying tribute to Toledo’s music history.

“The concept is like the roots of a tree,” said Larry Meyer, co-founder of the event. “It’s what other music stems from. Whether it’s traditional blues, delta blues, folk or string bands, they were the forerunners of modern music.”

Meyer said the goal of the festival is not only to pay tribute to the Americana forefathers like Gram Parsons, Jerry Garcia and Bob Dylan, but also to honor the local musicians who keep the historical sounds alive in Northwest Ohio.

“People are a part of this history. It’s not an antiquated music style,” Meyer said. “It’s a niche deal, but people who are already fans of Americana will love it. And anyone who just wants to listen to a collection of good Americana music, boom. Here it is under one roof.”

Meyer’s band, Old State Line, will kick off the concert, followed by Dooley Wilson, Meaghan Roberts, Andrew Ellis and Lucky Lemont, The Blowing Grains and local rock-a-billy favorite, Kentucky Chrome as the closing act at 10 p.m.

Meyer is the drummer and percussionist for Old State Line, an acoustic Americana band that also features  Rayna Zacharias (bass), Cindy Lipman (fiddle, vocals) and Ramsey Abu-Absi (guitar, mandolin and vocals). Heavily inspired by Steve Earle, Old Crow Medicine Show and Townes Van Zandt, Old State Line grew out of a pick-up jam session in Toledo’s historic Old West End.

“We’re too country to be rock and too rock to be country,” Meyer said.

Old State Line, from left, former member Tom Barden with current lineup Larry Meyer, Cindy Lipman, Ramsey Abu-Absi and Rayna Zacharias.

Before the group opens the Steam Train Music Fest, Old State Line with kick off the first set at the Blissfield Bluegrass on the River, just hours before taking the stage in Maumee.

Meyer co-founded the festival with fellow musician and bassist for local bluegrass favorite Blowing Grains, Ben Langlois. Over months of planning, Meyer and Langlois scanned the area looking for the best, most versatile collection of Americana bands in Toledo.

Despite being familiar with numerous folk, blues and bluegrass-influenced groups in the area, Meyer said he and Langlois chose the other groups based on their extensive musical repertoires and past experiences seeing the bands live.

“We realized we know these cats,” Meyer said. “We knew that, with these guys, we’d get great music. We wanted it to be like, if we weren’t playing in the event, we’d want to attend; we’d want to show up and listen.”

Langlois will join Meyer in the festival, plucking the strings on his bass with his band, Blowing Grains. Touring the area with the current lineup for nearly three years, The Blowing Grains is a five to six-person group with a heavy focus on acoustic guitars, banjo, fiddle and an electric bass.

“We’ve always got some guitar, mandolin, fiddle … it’s pretty straight-ahead stuff, traditional bluegrass,” Langlois said. “We’ve got a bunch of talented musicians with a solid repertoire of work. Great players, great instruments, great music, all together.”

The title of the event is a subtle nod to the late Steam Train Maury (Maurice W. Graham), a legendary, five-time “King of the Hobos” who rode the rails during the Great Depression before returning to the Glass City and starting a successful career as a cement mason in the late 1930s.

While gracing the festival with Graham’s name was Meyer’s initial idea, it was Langlois who gave the decision a deeper meaning. As a child, Langlois had the opportunity to meet the legendary “hobo king” during a sobering trip with his father to the bearded old man’s house after his own grandfather’s death.

“He and my grandfather were close. They both belonged to the Seventh Day Adventist Church and Maury had a small plot of land he farmed on my grandfather’s land,” Langlois said. “I was super intimidated and super fascinated by him because he was blind and, like, 90 years older than me, and he was old, crouched over and he had that beard. I remember hearing that he was the ‘King of the Hobos’ and I imagined it as ‘King of the Hobbits’ because my older sisters were reading the Tolkien books at the time.”

Graham died in 2006 at the age of 89. The Steam Train Music Festival serves as a small tribute to “Steam Train Maury” and the life he led as a fabled vagabond.

The Village Idiot is located at 309 Conant St. in Uptown Maumee. Tickets to the event are $5 at the door and each ticket is good for all six sets.

Tags: Andrew Ellis and Lucky Lemont, Ben Langlois, Blissfield Bluegrass on the River, Dooley Wilson, Kentucky Chrome, Larry Meyer, Meaghan Roberts, Old State Line, Steam Train Roots Music Festival, The Blowing Grains, The Village Idiot

This entry was posted on Friday, August 17th, 2012 at 8:41 am and is filed under Arts and Life, Festivals, Music.
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I think it was in May of this year when I met local singer/songwriter Meaghan Roberts. I was playing music on an art bench on South St. Clair Street in the Warehouse District and she was on her way to have some pizza at Home Slice with a mutual friend. They approached, and our friend introduced us by saying, “You’re both chick singers, so you probably can’t like each other.”

We each smiled and assured him there was no need for competition; there is room enough for us both on the Toledo music scene.  Since then, we have shared a stage at the Old West End Festival,  we’ve tried a couple of duets, and she even handed me her enormous shoes to fill as the co-host of Manhattan’s Monday night Open Mic Night with Jason Quick while she goes back to school for the fall.

This weekly open mic night, incidentally, has been going strong for five years and attracts some really quality players with hearts the size of the whole room. Meaghan has been training me for the past couple of weeks and I have been watching her very closely.

I am so impressed and inspired by her skill and professionalism as a musician, but even more by how easily she supports other musicians. The atmosphere she and Jason and the staff of Manhattan’s provide for those coming in to try out their stage legs makes my heart warm and I instantly felt like I was in a room full of respect and nurturing.

This brings me to a slight point of frustration I’ve encountered enough times lately to remark on. Little worms of sabotage and discouragement have made their way into my awareness and it’s getting on my nerves. I know that I am unreasonably optimistic most of the time. I know the look that people get when they talk to me, right before they start shaking their heads slightly at my audacity in thinking that everything is always just fine. Perfect, in fact.  So, I’m probably extra sensitive to negativity because I feel like it’s my responsibility to squash it.

The reason for this is because the balance we’ve achieved in Toledo at this moment in time hovers so delicately between risk-taking, creativity and being entrepreneurial that any wind that threatens to blow us over

must be diligently withstood if we are going to continue building something solid.  Not only are many of us trying our dreams on for size to make this a lively, vibrant, magical place to live, but most of us understand that we are all on the same team in these efforts.

Having that basic comfort provides us with very sure footing that helps us continue.  So, the people who participate in the culture, but who also play a bit of Jenga by poking holes in other artists’ participation should consider focusing on their own skills and contributions rather than diluting their energies by undercutting the work of their fellow culture creators.

This is not to say that constructive criticism and respectful critique should be outlawed. But the underlying support and acceptance from the community must always be evident. We must never wish failure on each other.

We should only build each other’s confidence and loudly exclaim to one another that we can achieve better and more, as individuals and as a city. Self-loathing is only funny some of the time. And when it manifests in undermining the talents of your neighbors, it can do real damage.  Toledo has nearly talked itself all the way out of its historically crippling inferiority complex. The signs are becoming more and more clear that the city is starting to feel pretty damn good about itself. This, of course, means that the best is yet to come. It’s not too late for the crabby apples to jump onboard. We’ll still have you. But if you can’t encourage the success of your fellow artists, we’ll be forced to leave you behind.

Rachel Richardson is a musician, activist and product of Toledo.

Tags: ACT, Jason Quick, Manhattan's, Meaghan Roberts, Old West End Festival, Rachel Richardson

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 24th, 2011 at 12:50 pm and is filed under ACT, Star.
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