Mumbo gumbo

Stepping Stone's Snap Bean and Ninigret's Rhythm & Roots festivals labor for audiences

by Bob Gulla

Boozoo Chavis

For 19 years now, folks have journeyed to Escoheag's Stepping Stone Ranch on Labor Day to join thousands of others in the bohemian festivities of its New Orleans-style dance parties. During that time, Escoheag's production folks, including Chuck Wentworth and Franklin Zawacki have honed the September celebration down to its spicy Cajun, zydeco, and roots essence, with great music, tantalizing menus, and solid dance floors that hold up under the weight of some serious two-stepping.

Last year, calling itself the Rhythm & Roots Festival for the first time and featuring world-renowned acts like flatpicker Doc Watson and rockabilly swingers Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys, the Labor Day shindig drew almost 6000 music fans, maxing out the Ranch's hilly grounds and showing signs of growing pains. So this year, Rhythm & Roots did what it had to do to compete: it picked up its stakes and moved to a new location. This year the festival will take place on the vast concrete tundra in Charlestown known as Ninigret Park. Moving provided a practical solution indeed, considering Ninigret offers the organization a couple of belt notches worth of expansion space. There was only one problem, not everyone in the Escoheag camp thought the shift was a good idea. Now roots music fans find themselves on the pointy horns of a dilemma. Two festivals, just miles apart from each other and with similar goals, are vying for our money and our affection.

Chuck Wentworth, a music director at WRIU, produces and books the Rhythm & Roots Festival. "We told the folks at the Ranch we were moving. If they had decided to come up on the next weekend, we would've been happy to promote the heck out of it for them. It's too bad there wasn't enough organization in place at the time to work together."

Stepping Stone press rep Brian Bishop agrees. "If the timing hadn't been short we could've differentiated the festivals one from the other, perhaps we could've done a country theme or something that wouldn't overlap. But there wasn't anyone around in, say, late spring, to take those reigns, so we decided to keep our longstanding tradition in place. The decision was made quickly, [as if to say] `Goddamn it! It's been here 20 years and it's gonna be here this year!' "

The weekend's festival duality forces long-time Stepping Stone Ranch fans to make a choice. Should they follow producer Chuck Wentworth (working here with co-producer Mary Doub of Winterhawk Bluegrass festival fame) and his reputation for booking quality music and producing quality shows? Or should they hang loose at the charm-filled Ranch and give the current production company, which includes co-producer Steve McKay, a chance to shine?

"The only real disadvantage this weekend," says Wentworth, "has to do with the history of people who have been going to the Ranch for so many years. If those people don't get the word that we've moved, they'll go there expecting the quality we've been known for and I don't think they'll get it."

But the Ranch's Bishop spins it differently. "The Ranch this year is gonna be returning to a hardcore audience. If you wanna go and sit in a lounge chair and listen to some great music, then I'm sure Ninigret will be a fine place to be. They've got some great acts. But we've got 12 hours of Cajun/zydeco dancing each day, with non-stop dance music throughout the weekend. That's where I think people have to make a decision."

Chuck Wentworth has worked in festival production at the Ranch since 1981. An inveterate authority on roots music and teammate of promoter Franklin Zawacki, Wentworth went on to develop Stepping Stone's reputation as a nationally recognized roots music site. At the same time, he established his own company, Lagniappe Productions, to branch out and book other venues. Soon, he was booking roots festivals nationwide. But in 1997, Zawacki, in a misguided move, pulled the plug two weeks before that date of another growing festival tradition, the Big Easy Bash. "By doing that, he put everything into doubt," says Wentworth. "He soured everyone, from the public to the vendors, and the whole idea of the ranch became unsure. That's when I decided to break away."

Wentworth took his newly expanded booking style from last year's successful Rhythm & Roots, the vendors, and the festival staff, and headed southeast to Charlestown. This year a big-budget lineup will inaugurate the new site, including headliners Dr. John (Sunday) and Susan Tedeschi (Saturday), along with Jonathan Edwards, Boozoo Chavis, Corey Harris, Laurie Lewis, and last year's festival surprise, fiddler Natalie McMaster. The event, like last year's, will be hosted by south Louisiana roots innovators Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys. "Looking at our lineup, I think it's the best one we've ever had," says Wentworth. "We decided last year when Mary and I put it together, to expand the format, and last year people raved about how they thought it was the best show ever. This year our ticket sales are already up 40 percent."

Down at the Ranch, Steve McKay, a veteran of Max Creek productions, presents a weekend of lesser-known but no less certifiable talent. Headliners Leeroy Thomas & the Zydeco Roadrunners, Sheryl Cormier & Cajun Sounds, the Huval Family Band, and North Carolina's hip Sub Pop act the Blue Rags will all make an appearance or two on the mainstage, and there will be a side stage and dance stage going all weekend as well. "Everyone on the bill is oriented to dancing," says Bishop, "whether it's swing, two-step, or jitterbug. The point is, we're definitely bringing in some people you don't see every day and we have a known history of presenting great Cajun and zydeco music on Labor Day weekend."

The festival rivalry, which both parties insist on downplaying, has spilled over onto the Internet where Gary Hayman's Cajun/zydeco site (www.erols.com/ghayman/cz.real.htm) has hosted some rather bitter exchanges. "The people who are most negative about this whole thing are the people who think we'll end up with nothing, that we'll put each other out of business. But the negative energy is really unproductive."

Wentworth is too busy to get involved in the actual fray. "I've heard about what's happening on the Internet, but I don't want to pay too much attention to it. We're trying to get a new start here and the stakes are too high to bother with some to-do that, in my mind, is already in the past."

Then again, Bishop, who expects the Ranch will see around 2000 dancers weather permitting, has an idea that two festivals co-existing peacefully could over the next few years create a musical delta on Labor Day weekend in Rhode Island. "It could be that at some point people will just flock to Rhode Island to come and see great music -- no matter what festivals are up and running -- and if that happens we'll have a much larger audience to split up."

Regardless of what has actually occurred in the months leading up to festival weekend, promoters from both camps are looking for legions of party-goers who themselves are looking for a good way to say goodbye to summer. Camping and tickets are affordable at both places (Snap Bean slightly moreso), and there's entertainment for everyone from dance all night two-steppers, to hardcore lawnchair music fans, to three- and four-year-old kids who can listen to stories, make costumes, and dance in their own Mardi Gras Parade. So put on some comfortable shoes, grab a blanket (and your wallet) and venture out. Which direction you'll go when you hit the street is entirely up to you.