Leo's Winfield Memories

This e-mail was sent to WInfield-l by Leo Eilts prior to Winfield 26 (1997) and is reproduced here without his permission.

Date: Wed, 6 Aug 1997 16:12:26 -0500

This is kind of long-winded. Hope you guys will forgive that. Once I got started writing about it, I couldn't find a good place to quit.

I made a couple of quick stops at Walnut Valley in 1975 and 1976. Actually, I have a T-Shirt from the 1976 festival which was obviously purchased for a much smaller person. I used to hang out with a bunch of hippies way down south by the river where there is a tree with a huge horizontal branch that you can hang a hammock on, which I did several times.

The first time the festival really made an impact on me was in 1977. I had gotten into playing bluegrass music with a band called the Total Strangers, and I brought the band with me when I returned in 1978. Since you didn't see many electric basses in Winfield back in those days, I had purchased a string bass three weeks earlier which I found advertised in the KC Star for $400, which is the Hoffner bass I still play today. Unfortunately, I didn't know how to play it very well. I had green dots stuck to the neck to mark the positions, and my fingers were so badly blistered that I had to wear tape on them to play. It was during those early years when I met the friends from Chicago, Indianapolis and Albuquerque who I still camp with. Except we're not hippies anymore.

Newgrass Revival was the band I most admired. I used to sit in the audience in front of Stage One and watch John Cowan play the bass. In fact, just about everything I know about playing the bass came from watching other bass players at Winfield, and I still don't do it right. In 1985, we got the chance to play an open stage slot on the Old Stage 4 in the Red Barn where the T-Shirt guys are now. In 1986, Roger and I returned with our new band, which we didn't have a name for. Roz Brown suggested "Spontaneous Combustion," and we went for it. We were officially hired the following year.

In 1985, it rained so much that the only dry place to jam was the old Pickin' Parlour, which was filled to capacity every night. The following year, a bunch of us got together and rented our first "Big Top" so we'd have a dry place to play, and that was the start of Stage 6. We've been camping in our current location since 1987. Hopefully, you'll find me there in, oh, about 37 days. I'm actually skipping my company's 10th anniversary bash to be there for the Land Rush. (Bad timing on their part.)

Leo Eilts, Dir of Marketing           e-mail  leo@wheeleraudio.com
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