A bit of paradise: An insider’s look at Red Ants Pants fest

Friday, July 25, 1 a.m.

Follow the music.

That’s what I tell myself as I look around the campground. I’ve lost my party. It was easy to find them in the daytime. They had plastic palm trees in front of their tents. Now all I can see are the stars and the wild Montana sky. The Milky Way glows, constellations are endless and the stars are glorious, almost holy.
It hits me how lucky we are to be camping out here in White Sulphur Springs at the Red Ants Pants Music Festival. Skies like this make me feel like I could never leave Montana. What beauty.

My flashlight won’t work. The battery must be dead. I can’t make out faces, I can’t make out distinct elements of campsites. The group I was with was loud. I should hear them. Where is the music?

I hear something. Guitars, voices. “Pancho and Lefty”? No, that’s not where the Hasslers are camping. We already played that. I hear something else. More music. “Stuck in the Middle.” Wait. Is that a stand-up bass? Yeah, that’s not the Hasslers, either.

A hard-hitting folk rock group from Missoula with a singer and guitar/banjo player from Lewistown, the Hasslers are local heroes in Fergus County, where I live and write for the twice-weekly paper. Earlier today they rocked the main stage, an opportunity given to them for winning the 2013 Emerging Artist Competition last year. To win, they received more red tickets than any other group performing on the side stage.

This year I’m playing on the side stage with my trio: “Stove” Hughes on lead guitar, harmonica and stomp box and Chris “Headhunter” on keyboards and saxophone.

Headhunter was playing melodica — a small portable keyboard you can blow into like a snorkel — at the party. I imagine the sound of it would be unique enough to carry me back, but no luck yet.

I am not hopeless, but it’s been awhile and I have no idea how to fix this situation.
Wandering in the dark, I look up at the sky again and ask for help with navigation. That’s when I hear it: a beautiful four-harmony arrangement of Neil Young’s “Helpless.” I stop and listen for a moment, amazed by the heavenly sound of the chorus.

I might not have known where the campsite was, but I wasn’t lost. I felt like I was stuck inside The Band’s Pandora station at the best Americana music festival in the state — and one of the best anywhere. There were no wrong turns. All the music was excellent.
As I walked, “Helpless” faded into Marshall Tucker’s “Can’t You See.” Was this our group?

I called Headhunter.

“Are you guys playing Marshall Tucker?”

“Where the hell are you?” he said. “I told you not to use the port-a-potty. You should have just pissed off to the side like everyone else.”

“I know, I know. What are you playing right now?”

“Nothing. Maybe I can get a song going with the melodica. If I play Cat Stevens, I bet you’ll find us.”

Headhunter, 26, has spent the last year in Lewistown as a choir teacher at Fergus High School. We just started playing music together in the spring. Although heavily influenced by jazz, Headhunter has a folk edge.

“Do you hear it?”

Headhunter starts playing his melodica. I can’t tell what tune it is over the phone.
“Keep playing,” I say. “I’ll find you.”

All the campgrounds look the same, except that some campfires having stand-up basses. I keep walking and keep walking.

I hear something familiar, well, sort of familiar. It sounds like Cat Stevens. “Peace Train”? On a melodica?

“Now I’ve been happy lately,” I sing.

The melodica stops. I see Headhunter’s silhouette, a large man’s shadow blowing into a little keyboard. I’d never been happier to see the guy.

“Thinking about the good things to come,” he sings.

“And I believe it could be, something good has begun,” we sing together. Others join in, but not for long, as only Headhunter knows all the words.

I was in the right place. We all were. Looking around the campsite, I saw musicians and music lovers in celebration of the liberation the festival has already given them. We were free and we were united, and the party was just getting started.

Saturday, July 26, 9 a.m.

“Should I wake up the boys?” Stove asked his girlfriend, Theresa.

“Let them sleep,” she said. “They’re fine.”

Stove, a 65-year-old retired art teacher in Harlem, Mont., who has spent most of his life picking country and rockabilly, is rough around the edges. At first glance, he looks hardened and worn, often wearing ragged clothing and a baseball cap that’s been old since the ’90s. He is a sensitive cynic with a big heart and an original sense of humor who has a defining mustache and almost always wears a cowboy hat when he performs. He loves music, his girlfriend, his dog, coffee and attention.

Stove and Theresa have attended Red Ants three of the past four years. The last two years they brought a vintage camper with them that they remade themselves.

“It looked like shit when we got it,” Theresa said.

Now it is a campground attraction. Earlier in the morning, two women came by asking if they could take a look inside.

“We are on a tour of vintage campers,” one of them said.

Many who walked by the camper complimented us on its appearance, which pleased Stove.

Climbing out of my oversized six-person tent, I greeted Stove, Theresa and Headhunter. Out of all of us, Headhunter was in the roughest shape, but Theresa had a cure for his hangover.

Former owner and cook of Lewistown’s Empire Cafe, Theresa treated us with hot meals each morning of the festival. This morning she made biscuits and gravy.
As she prepared the meal, Stove and I got out our guitars and Headhunter grabbed his melodica again.

“You’re gettin’ friendly with that thing,” Stove said. “You’re not plannin’ on bringin’ it on stage, are you?”

“What if I am?” Headhunter said.

Stove looked at Headhunter with disgust, like he’d just taken a sip from a spit cup. Headhunter smiled and blew into the melodica, again playing “Peace Train.”

We fooled around that morning playing “The Weight,” Lefty Frizzell’s “Gone, Gone, Gone” and Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine” as women wearing short shorts and cowboy boots walked on by with men in button downs with the “Red Ants Pants” logo patched on the back. It didn’t look like their first rodeo.

“A lot of people go every year,” Stove said. “Who can blame them?”

The festival, Stove said, gets larger every year.

In 2013, 10,500 people attended. This year, according to staff member Erica Lighthiser, around 11,000 people attended.

For the first time, Lewistown singer/songwriter Dave Rummans was one of them. Two of his favorite contemporary performers — Brandi Carlile and Jason Isbell — were scheduled on the main stage this year, and he couldn’t resist. Camped near us, Rummans stopped by with his guitar for some breakfast and tunes.

Excited for Carlile, Rummans belted out her song “Turpentine,” his engaging tenor voice inviting our neighbors to stop and stare. Relaxed and entranced, he sang the song with more enthusiasm and joy than I’d heard when he’d performed it in the past, and I knew why. I’d never seen him this happy before, and his joy enhanced his singing. If that’s true for other singers, imagine how beautiful the choir in heaven will sound.

People walking by stopped and listened. An unexpected applause erupted when we finished playing.

“Whose song is that?” an Australian man camped next to us asked.

“Brandi Carlilie,” Dave said.

“Bloody hell, I wouldn’t have guessed,” he said. “You sing it like you own it.”

Impressed, we affectionately called Rummans Brandon Carlile the rest of the weekend.

*   *   *   *

Following the breakfast and jam, Rummans, the band and I walked to the festival grounds.

Here we all were: thousands of us gathered on Ron Jackson’s family ranch overlooking the Big Belt Mountains, on the last weekend of July.

Who would have thought?

Sarah Calhoun, producer of the Red Ants Pants Music Festival, set up the festival as a way to raise money for the Red Ants Pants Foundation, whose mission is to “preserve and support working family farms and ranches and to promote rural communities.” Red Ants Pants is also Calhoun’s company that makes work clothes for women.

The festival started as a celebration of Montana culture with a focus on working-class traditions. In addition to musical performances, there are also timber cutting, ranch roping, horseshoeing and drag horse log pulling demonstrations.

There is a definite blue-collar feel all over the festival, which is another reason the music featured is in the realm of Americana. According to www.americanamusic.org, Americana is “contemporary music that incorporates elements of various American roots music styles, including country, roots-rock, folk, bluegrass, R & B and blues, resulting in a distinctive roots-oriented sound that lives in a world apart from the pure forms of the genres upon which it may draw.” The essence of Americana is the focus on working-class traditions. Americana songs sometimes tell the story of hard-working Americans, or reflect on hard times and historical moments. Think of Bob Dylan’s “Moonshiner,” The Band’s “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” or Jason Isbell’s “Traveling Alone.”

*   *   *   *

As we neared the side stage, we heard a thunderous applause. Hippies, hipsters, baby boomers and all other kinds of campers were gathered by the stage. Girls were dancing, men with straw hats were moving their heads back and forth. The Last Revel, a trans-stomp folk group from Minneapolis with a rock edge, had their attention. They had the crowd in the palm of their hands, and they were loving every minute of it.

Lead vocalist Lee Henke was smiling uncontrollably between songs, as were his bandmates, especially banjo player Ryan Acker. Henke led the group with soulful singing while holding down rhythm guitar, keeping a beat with a kick drum and adding some harmonica. His counterparts blended in the banjo, fiddle and had a friendly, front-porch Appalachian-style three-part harmony. They were reminiscent of Mumford and Sons but had more of a punk edge. I couldn’t help but feel like Henke had been through the ringer, especially when he sang painful, fist-clenching, adrenaline-packed versions of “Moonshiner” and Leadbelly’s “In the Pines (Where Did You Sleep Last Night?).”

My God. People were screaming. Their merchandise guy was shrouded by hands reaching for CDs. They nailed it, and they knew it, but they couldn’t believe it.

“Thank you so much,” Acker said. “This is without a doubt the highlight of our summer.”

The Last Revel didn’t want to stop, but they had no choice. Baskery, three Swedish sisters who play pop/roots/Americana, were about to start on the main stage. The sound man was looking at the band, practically apologizing to them for having to end their set. The hippies in the front were yelling, “One more! One more!” It was a few screams away from being chaos.

It was close enough to stir up Stove.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted him creeping up to me from the shaded beer and wine booth, walking slowly, hunching his back and shrugging his shoulders . Based on his deer-in-the-headlights look, he was either shocked or amazed, or both.

“We’ve got work to do,” he said. He didn’t blink, he just stared, impressed and as close to blown away as I’d seen him.

I patted him on the shoulder.

“Hey, man, we’re going to have a lot of fun up there tomorrow. Enjoy yourself.”

One of the biggest differences between me and Stove has to do with a competitive nature: he has it, I don’t. He is the son of a football coach. He can’t help it; it was ingrained in him at an early age.

The Last Revel band members started leaving the side stage and were immediately bombarded by fans — new and old. A single file line formed next to them.
That’s how it’s done. The Last Revel gave the people what they wanted.

*   *   *   *

Later on that afternoon, my girlfriend, Kari, and her 25-year-old niece, Cherrell, joined us on the campgrounds.

There are few things Kari loves more than music, and a big part of our relationship is sharing it together. We first met when I was playing at an open mic in Lewistown. Our eyes locked and — when I gathered up the courage to ask her out — we became inseparable, traveling together, sharing music together and complementing each other. Playful and energetic, Kari practically skipped over to me when she arrived, fully ready to embrace the festival she’d heard so many remarkable things about the last three years.

Wearing a straw hat over her long blond hair and a black sleeveless shirt, Kari’s beauty was radiant under the bright, hot sun.

We held hands as we walked through the main gates, passing the artist merchandise tables and checking out the many vendors selling coffee, Montana draft beer, canned beer, kettle corn, mountain fresh ice, Thai noodles, chicken on a stick, lemonade. Craft vendors were selling art, vintage guitars, cutting boards and culinary implements.

Cherrell, attending her first music festival, was giddy, exploring every aspect of the three-day event, dancing her way around with grace and childlike wonder.

“I’m doing my Red Ants Pants dance,” she said excitedly, and often.

Her enthusiasm was contagious, making those around her — especially those in our camp — a little more joyful.

Cherrell, who is half-black, poked fun at the lack of diversity of the audience. Whenever she would see a black person, which wasn’t very often, she’d say, “Hey, look, it’s my family.”

Considering that Charley Pride, one of the few black country singers, was headlining the show, this led to a lot of jokes.

“It’s my grandpa,” she said as he performed, screaming it with such fervor it probably struck some as sincere.

Saturday, 7 p.m.

Only one person outmatched Cherrell’s enthusiasm: Josh Ritter.

A poor man’s Bruce Springsteen, Ritter took the stage with a bang and a force of energy that shakes you up, wakes you up and commands you to stand.

“Let’s do the Red Ants Pants dance,” Cherrell said cheerfully, getting up from the blanket she was sharing with Kari. “Come on, guys.”

Headhunter, Stove and I got out of our lawn chairs and followed the girls to the stage. As we got closer, Ritter’s smile became more noticeable. He was beaming.

“Living a dream” is a cliche too often thrown around, but seeing Josh Ritter perform that day, I knew that’s exactly what he was doing. It was impossible picturing him any happier.

In fact, for some, his enthusiasm was hard to take.

“He’s too happy,” Stove said. “It’s a little too much.”

But I see his enthusiasm as part of his performance, and a big part of him.

“All the other girls here are stars, you are the Northern lights,” Ritter sang, kicking off his song “Kathleen,” one of his earliest hits. I held Kari and sang the line along with Ritter.

I think what people got most from Ritter’s performance was a genuine appreciation for being alive. The women adored him and the men — well, most of us — admired him.

Saturday, 9:30 p.m.

As the sun began to set and the big sky above began to darken, Brandi Carlile and twins Tim and Phil Hanseroth took the stage and jumped into “Hard Way Home,” an upbeat, catchy folk and country song that got a number of fans singing along.

Carlile and the Twins brought a commanding sound to the stage with Brandi’s guitar and stomp box, Tim’s lead guitar licks, Phil’s bass and Josh Neumann’s spell-binding cello.

Although Carlile’s originals such as “Keep Your Heart Young” and “Raise Hell” sparked much applause, it was her covers that blew people away. Early in her set, she played Dolly Parton’s “Jolene,” wowing the already-elated festival-goers.

Along with the gorgeous three-part harmonies, the high, controlled, passionate cries of Carlile soared the sky as a remarkably orange sunset came and went like part of her set. The setting of Red Ants Pants Music Festival is one of the biggest draws of the weekend, especially once the stars start shining over the stage.

The stars shined for Carlile. The darker it got, the more they shimmered, and the better her show became.

Leaving the stage after her set, people knew she wasn’t done, but they didn’t know what to expect. Before she came back up with the Twins, Neumann played a stirring cello intro. As the intro built, Tim came in with dobro and the song started to sound familiar.

Carlile and the Twins jumped into Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain,” singing, “Listen to wind blow, watch the sun rise.” Many hollered.

Carlile was putting on a clinic, captivating every last one of us. “The Chain” was followed by the biggest ovation of the evening. Courageously, Carlile followed it with a new and unknown song from her next album, which featured an enchanting melody and mesmerizing harmonies.

Rummans, the biggest Carlile fan I know, said it was his favorite song she did that evening.

“It gave me chills,” he said.

Carlile left the stage again, but she wasn’t done. Like Ritter, she too was grateful and enthused. She didn’t want to stop. The rest of the group called it a night, but the Seattle singer came out with her acoustic and went spiritual on us, playing Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” Perhaps it was the Montana sky that inspired her. God’s country can have that effect on people.

Screams were one thing, chills were another, but as Carlile reached the climax of Cohen’s classic, she brought tears to our eyes.

Gazing at the stars as she sang “it’s not a cry that you hear at night, it’s not somebody who’s seen the light, it’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah,” I saw a star shoot over her, over all of us. I was in the right place. We all were. We were free and united by the beauty, the power and the magic that music brings.

Was it heaven?

No, it was the Red Ants Pants Music Festival in White Sulphur Springs, and it felt close enough.

Charlie Denison
Lewistown, Montana
Professional full-time singer, who plays over a dozen instruments frequently (actually 28 total), 3-5 at most gigs, 2-3 at a time, with a nearly 1000-song repertoire. Appearances have included numerous concerts, 2 seasons of a TV show, radio (including once as a guest dj), a major motion picture, and recorded by MTV productions for a VH-1 special (that never aired), formerly in a band with Billy Currington and in another band with a member of the 70’s group Gallery.

This is the bio my editor Deb Hill received at the Lewistown News-Argus as part of a press release from the Red Ants Pants Music Festival with information on all the side stage talent about two weeks before the festival began.

“Wow! You are famous,” she wrote to me in an email with the press release attached. “Major motion picture?”

I had no idea where any of this came from.

“Actually 28 instruments total?” Headhunter joked after reading it. “No false modesty there.”

This wasn’t me.

“Just who the hell are you?” one co-worker joked.

How did this happen, I thought?

And then it came to me.

“Should we just use your ‘Reverb Nation’ site as your webpage?” The Red Ants PR girl asked in an email.

“Sure,” I said, assuming there wasn’t another Charlie Denison out there that they would think was me.

Wrong.

Charlie Denison in Savannah, Ga., comes up when you type in reverbnation.com/charliedenison. You can find his remarkable bio in the bottom right corner of his page.

The Red Ants Pants staff was sincerely apologetic. They were even kind enough to send me a free ticket for my girlfriend.

And, fortunately, the wrong bio did not end up in the Red Ants Pants program. If I hadn’t worked at a paper, however, I probably wouldn’t have known to have it corrected.

“Sorry we suck,” Erica Lighthiser wrote on the back of a postcard that came with the additional ticket, camping voucher and drink tickets.

Apology accepted, Erica. The mixup brought more laughter than anything else. And when it is all said and done, my identity remains intact. The correct bio, featuring Stove and Headhunter, filled people in on what to expect on the side stage Sunday.

Sunday, July 27, Noon

A tribute to the late Ben Bullington, a beloved songwriter who lived much of his life in White Sulphur Springs as a family doctor, took place on the main stage. Bullington, one of the men who helped get the Red Ants Pants Music Festival going, played on the main stage every year. He recorded in Nashville and was respected and befriended by Americana greats such as Rodney Crowell and Guy Clark. A group of White Sulphur Springs High School students sang Bullington’s “White Sulphur Springs” as Stove, Headhunter and I finished our soundcheck.

Looking out from the side stage, I could hear the young baritone sing “There’s trout streams, the air is clean and money don’t mean everything, in a place called White Sulphur Springs.” The wind blew the song our direction, and I took a moment to think about the opportunity we had to perform at this festival.

Here we were, grateful, humbled, honored and ready to go.

Bullington worked hard to make the festival a reality, along with Calhoun, Joanne Gardner, the Ron Jackson family and countless others. Ron also passed away last year. He too was honored during the tribute, which was followed immediately by up-and-coming folk and bluegrass trio Red Molly.

Red Molly’s cross-genre style was reminiscent of both the Dixie Chicks and Lucinda Williams. They were cute girls who switched from tender love songs to angry, bitter rockers.

Immediately following Red Molly’s last song, we jumped into our own version of Johnny Bond’s “Sick, Sober and Sorry,” speeding it up and having fun with it, belting out the words soulfully and ad-libbing some hoots and hollers. Stove was on fire, playfully throwing juicy fills onto the verses and playing solos that had intensity and flare. Headhunter was holding down the bass on the keys with his left hand, wearing his shades and taking it easy. He was the most relaxed of the three of us, especially on the songs he only played bass on.

Stove was nervous, but his nervousness worked for him and not against him. He was hyper-focused and on the ball. After his second solo on “Sick, Sober and Sorry,” he gave me a look of confidence, saying “We got this” with his eyes. I liked seeing that cockiness from Stove. Without it, he can doubt his abilities, which is something that should never happen.

The crowd was small at first, but people continued to gather. As the song built and I started singing more emphatically, I saw members of the Hasslers nodding in approval. There were others from Friday night’s party and I recognized people from Lewistown that I didn’t know were coming out to the festival. There were others, too, many others whom I had never seen before, stopping to see what we were all about.

By the climax of Randy Travis’ “Diggin’ Up Bones,” we had many stopping to stand, drinking their beers and taking it in. I looked over at Kari and — although we were both wearing shades — we shared a moment and a smile, we shared a glance of admiration and adoration, a glance of love and companionship that lifted me.

“Can I get a hallelujah,” I said to the crowd, reaching a heightened state of elation.
“Hallelujah!” many screamed back.

There is nothing quite like that feeling, no matter what scale it’s on. When you are pouring your heart out doing what you love and people respond positively you get a charge, a buzz that’s as intoxicating as any drug. And it never goes away, no matter how many times you’ve performed or how many different venues you’ve played. I had never performed at a music festival before, and I loved the openness of it. I loved having the opportunity to captivate those passing by, to hook them and keep them around. I also loved the camaraderie: we were all in it together, and we were here to share our appreciation for music, whether it was ours or someone else’s.

This was the case late at night, too, in the campgrounds. Saturday night’s jam session in the wigwam by the purple flag, where Rummans, Headhunter and I sat in with Daniel Hallock of Daniel and the Blonde and his stand-up bass player Tony Lehman. We backed Hallock on some of his clever, witty folk songs and Rummans played one of his own, followed by another sweet Brandon Carlile moment. However, it was Headhunter’s epic melodica solo during Prince’s “Purple Rain” that blew us all away.

But Headhunter left the melodica at the campsite for our side stage performance, just as Stove had requested.

When we jumped into “Folsom Prison Blues,” Stove showed off the trifecta of harmonica, lead guitar and stomp box. Headhunter shined with his sax playing on “The Man For You,” one of two originals we did in our six-song set. He always surprises me on the sax. I know he’s good, but he’ll go places during a performance he never goes in practice, and this particular show he really stepped up.

As a performer, I certainly felt the spirit of the festival, which made it hard to stop. We finished with my song, “Sing You Along,” which is as close to gospel as anything I play, and that was fitting. The climax at the end of the song requires me to really belt out the words and elevate the emotion. That came naturally at Red Ants Pants. I knew midway through the song that the ending was going to be there, that we were going to take the song somewhere we’d never taken it.

Like The Last Revel, our side stage performance was the highlight of our summer, and like so many of the performers, we didn’t want to moment to end. We can’t expect our future shows to have the same spirit, but we will never forget the feeling we had up there and we will always be grateful to have played at the Red Ants Pants Music Festival.

Sunday, 4:30 p.m.

Of course, our performance was just one small part of the festival, and the main event was about to begin: Charley Pride.

We were all looking forward to seeing Pride, a living legend with 36 No. 1 hits under his belt. Although originally from Mississippi, Pride has Montana ties. In the early ’60s, he moved to Helena to play baseball for the East Helena Smelterites. He came into his own while in the Treasure State, singing all over Helena and Great Falls. It wasn’t long after that he went to Nashville and recorded his first hit, “The Snakes Crawl at Night.”

Pride looked at home when he performed, and the crowd treated him like one of our own. He could do no wrong up there, even when he lost his place while bantering between songs.

“I’ll get back to that later. Right now let’s sing another song,” he said after pausing in the middle of a story.

Pride was joyful and loose. A few times he did a little dance, shaking his hips slightly and shrugging his shoulders.

“He can still get down,” Cherrell said.

During his performance, Pride was full of laughter, joking with the band and the audience.

Many people in the crowd were baby boomers or older, but some of the younger crowd stuck around for the legend as well. As he sang recognizable hits such as “Kiss an Angel Good Morning” and “Is Anybody Going to San Antone?“ most of the people near the stage sang along.

Doing her Red Ants Pants dance, Cherrell — who was unfamiliar with Pride’s songs — continued to call him kin throughout the performance.

“I love you, grandpa,” she yelled as she danced. We all grooved along with Pride until his last number.

In keeping with tradition, Sarah Calhoun stepped up to the mic to officially wrap up a sensational event, thanking us and telling us she’d see us next year.

She knew she would, and she was right. I just wish it’d come sooner.

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