Three days of Bluegrass and Barbecue begins Friday

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[John O'Dell was out along the highways Monday pounding staked signs into the ground bearing the words "Bluegrass" and "Barbecue."

The Saline County Bluegrass and Barbecue Festival has become one of the most popular celebrations in the county because it has a winning formula: Great music and great food.

Organizers try to tweak the festival at the Saline Creek Pioneer Village and Museum, 1600 S. Feazel St., Harrisburg, every year and have decided this year to extend it to three days. The music begins 7 p.m. Friday Oct. 3 until dark with Harrisburg native Krista Farmer and returning bluegrass musican and Illinois fiddle champion George Portz at 8 p.m.

"Part of it is the vendors make more money," organizer John O'Dell said.

The music picks up again 11 a.m. Saturday with White Oak, Old Santa Fe at noon, Rocky Alvey and his band Billy Smith and Nashville's Finest at 1 p.m., the Phelps Brothers singing secular songs at 2 p.m. and the Cajun music of Wes Thibodeaux and the Cajun Travelers at 3 p.m.

Beginning 1 p.m. Sunday is a new female gospel group from Harrisburg Women of Faith. At 2 p.m. is the Bankester Family and at 3 p.m. is Mark Stoeffel's band Etherton Switch.

DVDs of glass slides taken by Dr. Swan around the turn of the century will be on sale, the historic buildings will be open for touring and the gift shop will be in full operation providing souvenirs.

Mike Bowlen and the Illinois Territorial Rangers reinactors will continue the work they began at the Life on the Illinois Frontier festival with building bunks for the museum's blockhouse.

The music line-up is stellar and the musicians will not be rushed.

"We'll give everybody at least 40 minutes. Then there will be a little pause so people can go eat. There will be somebody new every hour," organizer John O'Dell said.

"I think we should have a good crowd this year in particular. I think Rocky Alvey will give us a different color," O'Dell said.

Rocky Alvey

Rocky Alvey takes the stage at 1 p.m. Oct. 4. Alvey is also a Harrisburg native who found himself at the center of the Nashville, Tenn., music scene almost by accident.

Alvey had planned to settle down in Saline County as a farmer, but he left his farm. The construction industry brought him to Nashville, Tenn. His interest in science drew him to the Vanderbilt University Dyer Observatory. His skill at building telescopes landed him a job staring at the sky and teaching astronomy and physics to kids.

"Not too many people wake up to this and get the opportunity to see something 100 million light years away," Alvey said.

The nature of the job means Alvey works at night and is especially busy when comets and conjunctions are happening. Occasionally he receives reports of unidentified flying objects.

"They are almost always Venus; 90 percent of the time," Alvey said.

His greatest interest is in binary star mergers when two stars are born together, "gobble each other up" and a supernova results.

While astronomy and astrophysics is his day job -- or night job -- Alvey draws on more down to earth subjects for the songs on his CD Blackberry Jam and Other Ingredients. Several songs are based on Alvey's experiences growing up in Saline County.

"Muddy Coal Mine" is his homage to the harsh and dangerous life of a coal miner to which the landmark Muddy tipple remains as a monument.

For a time Alvey's family lived on a farm near the village of Muddy and Alvey attended the one-room school there for a few months.

"Every day I would go over and look at the concrete structure out there. It fascinated me. As I got older I understood what a coal mine tipple was," Alvey said.

Alvey heard stories about his grandfather Jess Reynolds who was hospitalized in 1946 when a rock fell on his back in the mines.

He was struck by the story of the Ohio River breaking through the fluorspar mine in Rosiclare that killed several men.

"That's the history of Saline County, knowing what it must have been like, how difficult it was and so dangerous," Alvey said.

The song "Muddy Coal Mine" is Alvey's tribute to the miners and the hardships they endured.

"The song isn't about any one particular event. It's an amalgamation of different things I heard about," Alvey said.

Growing up Grand Pier Creek was a spot to get away and hunt squirrels. Another pasttime was the movie theater. Alvey remembers seeing the movie "The Legend of Boggy Creek" and its Bigfoot-type creature the Momo Monster.

"Every time we were hunting on Grand Pier Creek and we heard something we'd say, 'That's the Momo Monster,'" Alvey said.

His song "The Legend of Grand Pier Creek" describes those days with the everpresent possibility of a mysterious creature preying on visitors.

"Shawneetown" is a raucous song about a wild woman in a rough and tumble town.

"Shawneetown had the reputation of being rough," Alvey said.

The song features the late David Schnaufer, Nashville musician and good friend of Alvey's. Alvey credits Schnaufer with reviving the popularity of the mountain dulcimer.

"Blackberry Jam" returns Alvey to the hot summer days picking blackberries with his grandfather.

The song is also on a David Schnaufer memorial CD. Schnaufer played an instrument that is hybrid between a banjo and dulcimer called a banjomer on "Blackberry Jam." Sales of that CD go to a project providing kids with dulcimers and teaching them to play.

Alvey has been performing live over the last several months with a band of musicians dubbed Billy Smith and Nashville Favorites. His songs have reached as high as 58 on the charts of the Americana Music Association. Alvey prefers smaller, more intimate performances than large festival crowds.

"These songs are stories about my life. The thing about music for me is making friends. To me, I'm just a storyteller. I don't think of myself as a musician," Alvey said.

As much as Alvey tries to avoid becoming caught up in music business, he co-founded a record label that releases his own music and music of friends called Muddy Sunshine. Muddy Sunshine was the name of Alvey's 4-H club when he lived in Muddy.

"Blackberry Jam and Other Fresh Ingredients" and a music video shot in Muddy and at the Saline Creek Pioneer Village and Museum is on the website www.muddysunshine.com.

-- DeNeal receives e-mail at bdeneal@yourclearwave.com.