Back in about 2006, I was working at the Green River Festival, making the signs, when I heard a band play that I hadn’t heard of before — a couple of guys with good words and intertwining harmonies.

I liked them a lot. Their accents sounded quite familiar, so, after they got off the stage I walked over and struck up a conversation; turned out their cozy inflections came from the fact that they lived just a few miles up the road from where I’d grown up in North Carolina, and, even more familiar, it turned out that one of ’em’s car mechanic was a friend of my niece.

Well, they were some good ole boys with nice personalities, and I had a little restaurant up in Ashfield where we sometimes held concerts. After they took back to the road, I thought I’d like to have them come play there one evening. I asked Green River producer Jim Olsen how much those boys cost for an evening, and the price was a little less than $3,000. If I worked hard, advertised them well, and charged a little more than usual, I figured I could afford them, and put them in the “Think about this” drawer of the file cabinet in my brain.

About six months later I decided it would be a good time to see about booking the guys, called their manager and found that, well, the cost would be $50,000 now, as they were only doing stadium tours.

What? Who did they think they were? Well, they were The Avett Brothers, and if I waited another week, they’d shoot up to a price to where I’d never see them again except at very large concerts and festivals, which is exactly where I’ve seen them ever since.

That leads me to the moral of this story: When Jim Olsen produces a festival, go see it, because that’s the last time you’ll be able to afford to see at least 50% of the acts he books before they end up at Coachella or someplace. I’m always entertained by the number of artists whose signs I first made at the Green River Festival, that I write at Newport and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival a couple years later.

I first met Allison Russell through Jim; when I saw her again at Newport a couple of years ago, I was able to pass along howdys from the people whose house in Ashfield she and her band used to stay at when they played Green River, before they could afford the luxurious digs they stay in now when performing around the world.

In 2009, Trombone Shorty came to play the Green River Festival. I’d lived in Shorty’s neighborhood for 15 years back in New Orleans, and had to ask him, “Now, which Andrews are you? I’d known his brothers, cousins and him as little kids running the streets, playing for change thrown in their cases, and now, here we were at the same festival in Massachusetts. “I’m Troy!” he grinned. “I remember you!” I laughed, and watched him fly off into worldwide stardom shortly after.

Anais Mitchell, Lake Street Dive, Margo Price, Low Cut Connie, Tune-Yards, Valerie June, Brandi Carlile; so many names that I first wrote at the Green River Festival, and every time I see them on my big-time artists lists years later, I laugh, wondering how Jim Olsen saw them coming.

I asked him that the other day and he said, “It’s just keeping your ear to the ground. In many cases I hear about new artists from other artists. I knew about Allison Russell and Eilen Jewell because Peter Mulvey tipped me off. A Boston club booker turned me on to Lake Street Dive when he sent me a video in the very early days of YouTube. The Avett Brothers were a favorite of a friend from North Carolina, where they are from. I listen to music pretty much 24/7 and I have a thirst for new and different things. [My wife] Caroline has great audio tolerance.”

Nan Parati lives and works in Ashfield, where she found home and community following Hurricane Katrina. She can be reached at NanParati@aol.com.

]]>