Briggs Farm Blues

Briggs Farm Blues Festival

We first met Richard and Alison Briggs around the summer of 1990, when Rand Whipple, the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble (BTE), the Briggs, and Billy, were preparing for a USIA theatrical tour to Africa.

Billy was hired as the technical director for Rand and BTE on a six-week seven-country tour through sub-Saharan Africa, while Richard and Alison were filming a documentary about the tour, Voices From East Africa, for our local PBS station, WVIA.

There was a lot of hurry-up-and-wait down-time on the tour. It was during those lulls that BJ heard about Richard's dream to have a music festival on his farm. BJ's first question to Richard was, "You have a farm?!!"

Flash forward 8 years later, to the summer of 1998, and Richard's dream had finally come true.

Available on VHS

First Briggs Farm Blues Festival - 1998

Unfortunately, Billy and I missed attending the first 12 festivals. My art business kept us busy most weekends during the summer, and the dates of the festivals coincided with one of my biggest art shows.

In 2010, BJ bumped into Richard at one of our local stores. It turned out that Richard was looking for a Stage Manager for his growing festival. Since I put my art business to bed a few years earlier, we agreed to jump on the bandwagon, or haywagon in this case. BJ would take care of the stage and I would manage the back-stage area, herding and feeding musicians, essentially, "entertaining the entertainers." I also took on the roll of managing the vendors.

2010 - Load In

In addition to assisting in the production of the festivals, BJ helped to improve their infrastracture, which included building the stage each year, and installing hot and cold running water in the hay field.

After 8 years, and some medical issues (we're not getting any younger), we decided that it was time to retire from one of the best "gigs" that we've been involved with as "artist enablers."

The Briggs Family has generously allowed us to maintain a camping space backstage, in Retirement Village, where we can continue to "entertain the entertainers."

Briggs Farm Pictures & Memorabilia

Click on the BRIGGS FARM BLUES 'YEAR' below to view SOME of my thousands of pictures and boxes of memorabilia that I have collected over the years.