Free Concert • Terry Barrett & Evo Bluestein • May 18, 2025

Woodward Park Library, Fresno, CA
Sunday May 18, 1:30 pm

Terry Barrett & Evo Bluestein
Oldtime Music

Terry Barrett and Evo Bluestein

 Renowned musicians Terry Barrett and Evo Bluestein will present a wide range of stringband music on fiddle, mandolin, guitar, autoharp and banjo. Together, the two musicians represent a vast repertoire of American folk music.

Barrett and Bluestein have been performing together since the 1970s. Bluestein is a celebrated multi-instrumentalist, who performed for Fresno audiences and internationally with the Bluestein Family.

Barrett is known as a master fiddler and mandolinist, who performed for many years with legendary musician Kenny Hall. In a formal apprenticeship to study and document Hall’s vast repertoire, Barrett was awarded a California Arts Council grant. Hall passed away in 2013, making Terry the number one bearer of Hall’s tradition.

Oldtime stringband music or just “oldtime music” is the roots of American country music–the historic combination of African and Anglo-Celtic traditions that combined in this country over four hundred years. It is the roots of bluegrass and modern country music.

May 23, 2025 Auberry Library Presentation

Friends of the Auberry Library (FOAL)  Presentation
Sweet’s Mill Historic Video  Project

Evo will discuss the history of this international  music and dance festival that has taken  place in the mountains of Fresno County for over 60 years. He will also show video clips of the diverse performances, filmed between 1995 and 2010.

In 2017, California State University Press published Evo’s book Road to Sweet’s Mill, the most comprehensive history of the festival to date.  The Sweet’s Mill video project is the next phase of Evo’s archival and  historic endeavor.

 

Evo Bluestein is highly regarded as one of the Central Valley’s most accomplished archivists/writers, exemplified by his book Road to Sweet’s Mill, published by The Press at California State University, Fresno. Also published by CSUF are Rings Like Silver, Shines Like Gold–recounting his parents’ contributions to Fresno life (Gene Bluestein, CSUF professor emeritus and Ellie Bluestein, lifelong social activist), and Wind Blowing Across the Field, a collection of 25 life stories by distinguished American musicians.

Evo is deeply familiar with the festival, having been in attendance throughout Sweet’s Mill’s 62 years of existence. Initially, it was a gathering place for American folk music and dance enthusiasts. Eventually, word spread, and the Festival developed into an influential world music and dance event, drawing people of all ethnicities and musical backgrounds. The videographers recorded world renown musicians and dancers of all persuasions (flamenco, Mexican, aerial dance, contemporary, fire dance, jazz, swing, folk: French, English, Irish, Persian, Bulgarian, Greek, and more).