Ending on a High Note

WAITSBURG-Switchgrass Delta has returned from their trip to Ireland where they performed in the Westport Folk & Bluegrass Festival.

In a town half the size of Waitsburg they have music festivals off-and-on all summer long. This one featured a wide selection of international bluegrass and folk singers from Ireland, the U.S., Canada, the U.K., France, and Holland.

The United States was well represented by the Local Honeys from the Appalachian region, Brennen Leigh & Noel McKay from Nashville, Blue Summit from California and Waitsburg's own, Switchgrass Delta.

Switchgrass Delta combines the talents of Emma Philbrook on mandolin, Kaleb Kuykendall on fiddle, Robert Walsh on standup bass, and Chris Philbrook on banjo and guitar. Together, they've been a band officially since 2015 with considerable mentorship from Kate Hockersmith.

"They were a hoot in Ireland. They were amazingly fun, open to new adventures and very responsible," Hockersmith said.

Switchgrass Delta made great ambassadors for Waitsburg and Hockersmith received many compliments on the group.

The crowds were very responsive.

"One guy sticks out his hand and as I cupped his hand, he pulls me in and held me there for a second and he just whispers into my ear, 'you're ### brilliant on banjo,' and then he just leaves," Chris Philbrook said.

What is it like playing the same old songs somewhere entirely new? "Humbling," says Kuykendall. They describe the overall venue vibe as "way more relaxed," in comparison to American formats.

The festival producers sorted all the performers into factions who played music in a few host pubs. This created an intimate setting for jams, or sessions as they're called. Switchgrass Delta jammed in a super session in the garden outside Matt Molloy's pub. Molloy, one of the most famous musicians in Ireland, who plays with the Chieftains, is a championship flautist.

From the chaperone perspective, Hockersmith says it sounds worse than it is. It sounds as though the kids traveled thousands of miles to play to rowdy crowds in dark bars, but an Irish pub and an American bar are not synonymous.

"For me it was kind of like taking these kids to go hang out at a bar every night we're there, but all the music over there happens in and around the pub," Hockersmith explains. "Pubs over there are different than bars over here because they're family establishments. There are kids running around your feet the whole time. It's a very different atmosphere than a bar."

But that's not to say there wasn't a rowdy crowd here and there. The band recalls being not near a bar fight, but adjacent to one. Thankfully, they made it out easily unscathed.

American bluegrass and traditional Irish music share similarities in song structure and cadence. According to Kuykendall, a key difference is that Irish music ties in with historic occurrences.

"Sometimes their music will be booming and driving as the ocean crashing on the beach, or they'll have laments about how the English persecuted them," Kuykendall recalls.

The whole band stayed with one foster family, Peter Lowe, his wife, Taeko, and their four children. All the kids either played music or practiced Irish step dancing.

This likely being the Switchgrass Delta's last hurrah, Emma Philbrook plans to attend law school in the fall. She has been accepted to and has put in an enrollment deposit at Notre Dame, but still holds out hope for waitlist schools. Either way, she's packing her mandolin.

Robert Walsh plans to transfer to Central Washington University where he will study occupational health and safety with the goal of becoming a safety inspections officer.

"I'm not sure where I go from here," says Chris Philbrook who works full time. Kaleb Kuykendall knows only that music is in his future.

"My family all plays music," he says, "so music is never going to disappear from my life."

In all their travels, besides playing with the professional musicians, the group's favorite memory was traveling down narrow, winding roads where they would either have to pull over to allow oncoming traffic to pass or reverse to turn around to lay their eyes on the Carrowkeel megalithic cemetery. The complex features a cluster of tombs in south county Sligo, Ireland.

"It has a lintel stone and the light at certain times of the year will pass through that to the back of the tomb. So they're kind of ancient calendars, and they were just on the top of the mountain. No admittance, nobody there, you just drove up a mountain, push the sheep off the road, and climb up through the bog and you were on top of the world by yourself looking into 4000 years of history," Hockersmith said.

These enduring memories of history make for a poignant close to a musical chapter in these Waitsburger's lives.