Bluegrass lives on

OWENSBORO, Ky. -- Hundreds of dedicated bluegrass music fans may have saved a music festival that was slated to end after this year.\nLast month, Executive Inn Rivermont officials said the third annual Bluegrass Returns to its Roots festival would be the last. But many of the 1,200-plus fans who filled the Showroom Lounge Friday and Saturday didn't want the music to stop.\n"There's a lot of memories in that room for us," said David "Hagar" Nelson, who made the 500-plus-mile journey from his home in Hartland, Wis., to the Owensboro bluegrass festival for the 18th consecutive year.\nBack in 1987, when the International Bluegrass Music Association staged its first talent showcase in the Showroom Lounge, one of the acts invited was an Illinois band called Union Station. Everyone at the showcase raved about the 16-year-old fiddle player and lead singer named Alison Krauss. Nelson was in Owensboro for that event. And he's been back every year since, even after the IBMA moved its festival to Louisville in 1997. The International Bluegrass Music Museum will launch its River of Music festival June 24 to 26. Executive Inn officials had decided last month to help promote that festival rather than compete with it next year.\nBut Nelson said he hopes the Executive Inn reconsiders and continues the Bluegrass Returns to its Roots festival.\n"Sure, the museum's going to have a big festival," he said, "but it won't be in that room (Showroom). I hope they keep doing this."\nThe fan support might have changed the minds of hotel officials. Jan Kinsey, the hotel's operations manager, said Saturday evening this might not have been the final Bluegrass Returns to its Roots festival. She said the festival drew slightly larger crowds this year.\n"And so many of the people are begging us to keep doing it," she said. "April is too close to the museum's festival. But we're looking at fall dates now"