Harvest Ridge Music Festival: Where were you?

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For the second year in a row you weren't there.  I know you weren't there because I was and I didn't see you.  In fact hardly anyone was there.  Last year the weather was rainy and miserable, so I made excuses for you.  But, this year the weather was terrific and there were even fewer of you.  Damn, you still weren't there.  Most of the people who were there were dancing in front on the stage as headliner Mason Lovette Band closed out the evening.  You can see them right here having a good time.  This is more than half of the entire crowd.  Pathetic.  Note the guy on the far left playing a banjo.  He will be mentioned later.


I don't know who this guy is, but he was there and having a wonderful time.  I think he was some sort of event "official" but he was pretty juiced up  He did a lot of jumping around, turning the stage lights on and off, starting and stopping the fans above the stage, hamming it up at a microphone, and spinning around the pond in the yard on a four-wheeler..


This is the bass player for the Mason Lovette Band.  I thought he had an interesting face.  If he weren't playing in a band, he should have been a fisherman out on a boat in the ocean.


This is Tobacco Apache, a three piece rock band that never played a single Cream song.  They were very loud.  Not sure if they were good, but they were definitely loud.  I liked their name - Tobacco Apache.


These three young women were After Jack.  Beautiful harmonies, excellent vocals, and kinda cute.


A shot of Mason Lovette.  I liked the guitar in the foreground  and organist in the background.  I asked where the name Mason Lovette came from.  There is a Lovette in the band, but no Mason.  I was told the band thought the name just sounded good.


You may or may not recognize the guy on the left.  The guy on the right used to be called Billy Faucette.  He is now known as Bill Faucette.  It's been 43 years since these two saw each other.  During their time apart, Bill lost the "y" on the end of his first name  They used to play in a big horn band called Non-Stop Flight.  The guy on the left is now retired.  He hasn't played his saxophone since 1973.  Bill(y) Faucette still plays his Hammond XK3 organ for the Mason Lovette Band.  The guy on the left said he was very honored to get to meet his old friend on the right and was delighted to know the guy on the right is still making music.

Now back to the Mason Lovette Band banjo player.  His name is Clint Rhodes.  He is 52 years old.  He said he remembers as a grammar school kid seeing Non-Stop Flight perform and hoping to one day be in a band. Well, now he is.  Small world.


The Harvest Ridge Music Festival featured more than twice as many bands as we mentioned here.  Of particular note was The Heritage Band, a young funk band with a couple of horns. It's very unusual to see a funk band these days.  If you don't play rap, country, or bluegrass, you are going nowhere.  The two black buys pictured here on bass and sax represented the entire black race at Harvest Ridge.

Of course you would know that if your lazy ass had come to Ruffin's #1 music event.  Be there next year or there might not be a music festival in Ruffin on a corn and tobacco farm. Then you'll be sorry.

Click here to see the Mason Lovette Band perform with the Go-Go Girls.  The audio is not very good (what can you expect from a cell phone camera?) , but it's fun to watch young Go-Go Girls wiggle.