Barberville Frolic (Daytona Beach News Journal)
Just folks pickin' and strummin' and fiddlin' around!
By MORRIS SULLIVAN
Correspondent
Last update: April 29, 2005
BARBERVILLE -- When the Possum Pickers started playing, the band had about a half-dozen members. Gradually, it grew into a small orchestra as audience members wandered up and joined in, beating out time on a pair of spoons or playing along on a harmonica. "I kept hearing things, thinking, 'I don't remember that from rehearsal,"' said Adaire Fluno, who played guitar with the band.But that was OK, added fellow Possum Picker Chuck Bose, resting his feet atop the number 10 washtub he used as resonator for the gut-bucket bass on which he played the Pickers' repertoire of string band music. "It's easy to play. It's fun. And it's just a good group of people who play it," Bose said. "And there's no spotlight; we're all equals here."

Fluno and Bose were among more than 100 musicians lined up to perform at the Barberville Spring Music and Dance Frolic on Saturday at the Pioneer Settlement for the Creative Arts. This was the first Spring Frolic, which is modeled on the settlement's popular Fall Country Jamboree. But based on the event's success, it will likely be the first of many.

About 500 people attended the event, said Marilyn Breeze, the Settlement's executive director. "For a first-time event, I was very happy with it," she said. "And the musicians all seemed happy."

"Everyone loves Barberville," said Joe Waller, who with his wife Katie Waller organized the entertainment lineup. The Enterprise couple play with the Jackson Creek String Band at the fall jamboree, and offered to help get some folks together for a spring event.

Bands and musicians came from as far away as Fort Myers, he said. "I thought we might just have a few people, or it might just be us, but we'd have something," he said. "But we started looking around, talking to Central Florida people, and pretty soon people were calling us from all over the state."

Bands performed a variety of acoustic forms from old-time string band to bluegrass, Celtic, blues, folk-pop and country. The day's events included performances on three stages, plus scheduled jam sessions, workshops and dances. That didn't seem to be quite enough places to play, however: impromptu jam sessions formed, waxed and waned out behind the summer kitchen and alongside the old country store building.

Members of "name" acts like Mullet Run, who were booked to play later that day at the Blackwater Inn and New River Bluegrass jammed along with members of Possum Pickers and people from the audience who brought guitars or started beating out time with a pair of spoons.

Many audience members brought instruments, said Breeze, and children got to make percussion instruments and can-joes, a sort of one-stringed dulcimer with a tin can as an amplifier. Even the peacocks got into the music.  "It's spring and they're mating, so they started screeching" during performances in nearby venues, Breeze said. They seemed especially compelled to sing along with harmonica players and fiddlers. "They don't do that during the jamboree in November, so we never anticipated it," she said.

Mary Lea Lueth plays guitar and sings folk and blues-infused pop music with Riff Raff, a Eustis-based band. She teaches ESE classes at DeLand High School. "I live between Eustis and DeLand, which is perfect," she said. Lueth has played guitar for decades, she said, but only started playing "out" two years ago."I'd played for too long in my living room, and wanted to get out of that vacuum." An appearance during open mike night at the Yalaha Bakery turned into a string of engagements. Since then, she's played at the Fall County Jamboree. "There are some great venues around," she said. "But this is one of the best."

The musicians all seemed to have a good time, Breeze said. While each received a small stipend for travel and free dinner, they were there more for the camaraderie and to share what they do with people, she thinks.

"There was a lot of variety," Breeze said. "And musicians are so earnest and honest about what they do, and so eager to share it. They want people to like what they do, and there's a heartbeat there that's in tune with everyone else."  Even when the event ended, and cleanup had begun, people couldn't quite let go of the music.

"People were still waltzing all over the place," she said. "Some were oblivious to everyone -- still dancing. That was very romantic."