Roland White, a mandolinist, guitarist, and vocalist, who pioneered bluegrass music in Southern California, has died. He had a long, creative, and influential performing career with top bands Bill Monroe & The Bluegrass Boys, the Nashville Bluegrass Band, the Kentucky Colonels, Country Gazette, the Dreadful Snakes, and Lester Flatt & The Nashville Grass, and also with his own Roland White Band. The cause of his death was complications following a heart attack. He was 83 years old.
White’s recording career covered traditional bluegrass, but also explored the boundaries of the genre, mixing bluegrass with swing, jazz, country, gospel, and rock. He was the first to bring bluegrass music to network television.
White was a French Canadian who was born in rural northern Maine and came to Burbank, California with his family in 1954. His original surname was LeBlanc, French for White, which was adopted by the family as their new English name in California. In his early career, Roland performed in a family bluegrass band with his brothers Eric and Clarence and his sister Joanne. They came from a large musical family which included their father Eric and several uncles who played acoustic instruments.
Roland’s rise to bluegrass fame was rapid once the family band The Country Boys switched from country to bluegrass in 1955 after Roland heard a recording by the Father of Bluegrass. The brothers added Bill Ray Lathum on banjo and LeRoy Mack on Dobro, and came to the attention of Andy Griffith, which led to the band’s multiple appearances on the CBS Network’s Andy Griffith Show during the 1961 season. The Country Boys later became the Kentucky Colonels and performed at festivals across the country before the end of the folk revival caused work for the band to diminish.
Roland White performed at Santa Cruz Bluegrass Society concerts and at various Northern California festivals with three of his bands. He is best known to Northern California bluegrass fans as a member of the Nashville Bluegrass Band and as a popular instructor at area bluegrass camps.
After Roland left Lester Flatt’s band and his brother Clarence left The Byrds in 1973, the two reunited as the leaders of the New Kentucky Colonels. This collaboration was sadly cut short when Roland was seriously injured and Clarence died when they were hit by a drunk driver while loading out sound equipment following a band performance. Roland then continued his career with the popular and influential LA bluegrass and alt-country band, Country Gazette.
Roland Joseph White was inducted into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame in 2017. In his later years, he was a volunteer sound engineer at the Station Inn in Nashville, where he organized an annual Monroe Appreciation Night. He is survived by his wife Diane.
Mike Doern of Capitola died on October 2, 2021. He worked as a carpenter and school bus driver, but enjoyed many avocations, including being an enthusiastic bluegrass volunteer and music lover. He was 75 years old.
Mike was best known to the NCBS members as the world’s most effective, pleasant, and unfailingly courteous security volunteer. He quietly enforced the rules at the Good Old Fashioned Bluegrass Festival and other NCBS events, greeting every camper and politely reminding them of their responsibilities. Lest anyone in violation of a rule thought that his soft-spoken nature meant that compliance was not necessary, Mike would respond with good-natured, but absolutely unyielding persistence by remaining beside the camper until the problem was completely resolved.
He was a bluegrass music lover who attended many Santa Cruz and South Bay concerts and festivals, at first arriving on his motorcycle with a striking and unique welded chain around his neck and a extensive moustache, but in later years, he roamed events to visit with his friends on his small mobility scooter. He listened to many local bluegrass radio shows and was an active ham radio operator, known as KM6IKE. As a young man, he was an EMS Volunteer in Mamaroneck, New York and later trained bus drivers in California on how to assist handicapped passengers.
He grew up in Mamaroneck and graduated from Rye Neck High School. Mike refused to fly, but loved trains. He regularly made the long journey by Amtrak train to visit his family back home in upstate New York. Michael C. Doern is survived by 5 of his 8 siblings.
Allison Varner, the widow of Mark Varner and the mother of Marty Varner and Veronica Varner, has died at her retirement home in Dangriga, Belize. She was 57 years old.
Allison was an enthusiastic lover and supporter of all kinds of music, from bluegrass to opera, rock and blues. She loved to dance to live music and attended many live performances in the Santa Cruz and San Lorenzo Valley area, as well as bluegrass festivals throughout California.
She and her late husband organized the bluegrass concert series, The Otter Opry, in Santa Cruz. They also volunteered to help with Kids on Bluegrass and Kids on Stage programs at many bluegrass festivals. Allison was a fixture at Northern California Bluegrass Society gatherings for many years.
She took pride in the success of her children, in music and in life. Marty recently completed his masters degree and now lives in Belize. Veronica lives in Los Angeles, where she is married and is pursuing graduate studies.
Mark & Allison lived in San Francisco after they were married before settling in Boulder Creek. The couple retired to their new home in Belize in early 2021. Mark passed away on September 4th. Allison unexpectedly died in her sleep on October 21st.
Mark Varner, the only person to edit both the NCBS and CBA membership publications and an active bluegrass musician and volunteer, died in his sleep on September 4 at his new retirement home in Belize. He was 64 years old.
The Everett, Washington native and longtime resident of Boulder Creek played mandolin and guitar with several active bluegrass bands, including The Sibling Brothers. He performed frequently at the Good Old Fashioned Bluegrass Festival during its early years, and at many other area bluegrass festivals and concerts.
He served on the Northern California Bluegrass Society Board of Directors and helped organize the GOF Festival, the Santa Cruz Bluegrass Fair, and other Society events. He presented The Otter Opry concert series in Santa Cruz and brought many fine touring bands to the area. He was also a proud “band parent” for his son Marty‘s youthful OMGG (“Obviously Minor Guys & A Girl”). He also hosted a regular bluegrass radio program on a Santa Cruz radio station.
When he was named editor, he added the “PDF” online version of the Society’s monthly Bluegrass By The Bay magazine — the first bluegrass publication of any kind ever to do so. Later, he took over and greatly upgraded the California Bluegrass Association’s Bluegrass Breakdown newspaper. Under his editorship, the CBA newspaper became the second bluegrass publication to issue an added “PDF” version. In addition to his editing efforts, he also wrote many articles for these publications.
Mark was eventually promoted to be the only paid Executive Director of the CBA, where he continued his newspaper publishing efforts, and also expanded and upgraded the program for the CBA Father’s Day Bluegrass Festival. He also served on the CBA Board of Directors and on the festival talent committee. He was one of the very few paid leaders of a bluegrass membership organization. His job lasted over a decade until the onset of the Coronavirus crisis forced CBA to eliminate the executive director position due to financial constraints.
Throughout his many years as a bluegrass musician and organizer, Mark maintained an engineering consulting practice designing and evaluating the air fluid systems in scuba equipment. He was a graduate of San Francisco State University.
After he retired from the CBA, Mark moved to the country of Belize, where he purchased a home and property in Dangriga. His time in Belize was spent with family. However, his plan to invite his bluegrass friends down for a tropical festival sadly did not come to pass.
Mark Scott Varner is survived by his son Marty Varner, daughter Veronica Varner, and wife Allison Varner, and by his brother Steven Varner and sister Martina Paris-Fully.
A Celebration of Life will be held on Saturday, June 26, 2021 at 1:00pm at the First Presbyterian Church of Mountain View for Carol Edmundson, a longtime member and leader of the Northern California Bluegrass Society/Santa Cruz Bluegrass Society.
Carol Edmundson of Sunnyvale, who served as NCBS Membership Chair and as a member of the Board Of Directors during the Society’s most intense period of growth and development (1994-1999), has died. She was a Lifetime Member of the NCBS/SCBS. The cause of death was complications after leg surgery. She was 72 years old.
She was retired after a long career at Hewlett Packard Company in Palo Alto and Cupertino. She lived for many years on Carol Avenue in Mountain View with her husband, NCBS Treasurer Bruce Edmundson. The couple had retired to nearby Sunnyvale.
Carol and Bruce were longtime California bluegrass music supporters who volunteered their time for a number of organizations, including Redwood Bluegrass Associates, the International Bluegrass Music Association, and the Northern California Bluegrass Society/Santa Cruz Bluegrass Society. The couple often worked at the Society’s Information Booth at festivals and concerts.
Carol’s favorite bluegrass bands were Hot Rize and Sidesaddle. She was also a fan of Hawaiian slack key guitar music and enjoyed square dancing. She was active in her church.
Carol Edmundson is survived by her husband, mother, and brother, and by identical twins Chad and Devin Schaumburg of Bangor, Maine, whom she raised and considered her sons.
Helen Sweetland of Half Moon Bay has died. She is a former member of the Northern California Bluegrass Society Board of Directors and a founder, singer, and bass player of the traditional bluegrass band Highway One, which performed frequently at the Good Old Fashioned Bluegrass Festival, at other NCBS/SCBS events, and at many other area festivals. She was the publisher of Sierra Club Books.
Her bandmates wrote this tribute:
We’re so, so sorry to confirm the passing of our much beloved, self-described “chick singer,” bass player, and chief of harmony police, Helen Sweetland, following a brief and brave fight with cancer. If we’re each put on the earth for just one purpose, Helen’s calling was to sing harmony!
The spark for our band was struck when Helen, Tom, and Scott first played together in a late-night jam session at Wolf Mountain in 1997; Highway One was officially launched in early 1998. That’s a long time ago in both bluegrass and dog years! We’ve all decided that there is NO Highway One without Helen, so 23 years will be it for us—BUT we hope to see all of you somewhere, someplace in the near future and sing some songs together (though we’ll, of course, be singing them WRONG).
Helen recorded Hazel Dickens’ classic “Won’t You Come and Sing For Me” on the first Highway One CD, and it was one of her signature songs, but she became too emotional to sing it on stage because it reminded her so much of her own mother’s passing. Here’s the first part:
—
I feel the shadows now upon me
See the angels beckoning me
Before I go dear sisters and brothers
Won’t you come and sing for me
Sing those hymns we sang together
In that plain little church with the benches all worn
How dear to my heart how precious the moments
We stood shaking hands and singing a song.
Then there’s the song by Bob Amos, called “Reunion,” that she discovered and brought to the band in the last few years. We never officially recorded it, but we performed it a lot:
There are songs that we play at the end of the day
And their sweet words and melodies tell
Of a wonderful time when old friends reunite
And never again say farewell
And I’ll meet you there, I will meet you there,
I will meet you there, my friends
I will meet you over the hills
In the land of our long journey’s end
And we’ll all be together again.
—
Sense a theme? You were all Helen’s cherished friends and community. And now, we hope, the words of those beautiful songs might remind you of her, as well….
— Highway One
Helen Sweetland performs with Highway One on KKUP Radio.
The online celebration for NCBS Lifetime Member Colleen Lethridge (1930-2020) is now available for viewing on YouTube. The popular singer and guitar player was a fixture at bluegrass jams throughout Northern California for over three decades.
When Colleen was not enjoying music with her friends, she and close friend Lisa Barrett could be found at Stanford Women’s Basketball games from Palo Alto to the national championships.
Please join us in a celebration of life in loving memory of David Gillett. Memorial to be held on Saturday, January 25 at The Bear Creek Country Club, 15685 Forest Hill Road, Boulder Creek, 2:00pm-5:00pm. Please BYOB and a dish to contribute to the potluck. As we all know, music was by far the most important part of Damdave’s life, so we welcome and encourage you all to bring an instrument to join in on the jam to honor him.
By Julie Horner with Tiffany Gillett, Jessica Gullo, Jennifer Thompson, Elicia Burton, and Eric Burman
The phone rang the morning of November 27, the day before Thanksgiving. The voice on the other end of the line was gravelly, fondly familiar, but the words were uncharacteristically hesitant and choked with emotion. It was Damdave. Children’s laughter could be heard in the background; family and friends from near and far were gathering in Hilo for the holiday. In a watery voice, Damdave said that he wasn’t going to make it. They couldn’t kill the tumor on his lung after all. Months of treatment and pain, hope, humor, and boundless heart, but nothing more could be done. He said, “They say it could be a day, or it could be a year.” His voice trailed off. The musical timbre of grandkids running amok filled the silence. I told him, “I love you so much.”
There had been quite a bit of optimism in August. Dave had been living in Hilo, Hawaii with his daughter Tiphany while undergoing treatment. Dave worked diligently over the summer to regain his health, enough so that doctors would allow him to fly home to Boulder Creek to visit his friends and to attend the Good Old Fashioned Bluegrass Festival, of which he had been a part for many years. It was a rich time spent playing music and sharing memories and laughter. The memories linger still, warm and sweet like the summer sun.
David Gillett, Boulder Creek singer-songwriter, local legend, dad, grandpa, and dearest friend, passed away surrounded by his loved ones on Wednesday, December 4th, 2019.
Daughters Tiphany Gillett, Jessica Gullo, and Jennifer Thompson and their families were by his side to read aloud well wishes sent from beloved friends. Bandmate “Mando” Mike Reynolds joined the family to bid his compadre farewell.
Damdave Gillett
Just a couple of years ago, heads close together in comfortable familiarity in the late afternoon light, Dave Gillett and I sipped our “usual” and went to town reminiscing about spirited times in old haunts around the San Lorenzo Valley. Known affectionately as “Damdave,” he was the front-man singer-songwriter and guitar player for the Boulder Creek-based Americana group, Damdave and the Left-Hand Band.
I asked how he got the name “Damdave.” He explained how he had moved to Brookdale and started a folk jam at the Brookdale Lodge. “I didn’t drink at the time,” he said, but he wound up “earning his PhD” hanging out in the bar. At one point someone asked his name. When he said, “David,” someone at the far end of the bar shouted, “Not another damn Dave!”
Damdave and the Left-Hand Band
Tuesday nights at the Brookdale Lodge were the slowest. “You had a couple of guys from the bar and we formed Damdave’s Odd-Ass Instrument Jam on Tuesday nights from ‘98-ish to 2008 or so,” Dave said. The popular Tuesday night jam became the forerunner of the Brookdale Bluegrass Festival. Eric Burman remembers coming to Dave’s jams and they decided after a time, “’Hey this would be a great place for a festival’…and it took off.” Burman recalled, “We’d all get together and come up with crazy things…like the underwater banjo contest. One of the girls asked if it was important to have a costume…when we said no, she jumped in the pool, and the only thing she had on was a tattoo. People forgot that she actually had a banjo. Damdave was definitely one of the judges that day.”
Eric Burman with Damdave Gillett
Burman also remembers one of the most fun things that the two of them would do together was take common songs and rewrite all of the words. “They were all awful,” he joked. He notes that “the biggest thing that Dave did was have that jam at the Brookdale Lodge on Tuesday nights. That’s where we formed our bands, that’s where we wrote our songs, that’s where we jammed with all the musicians from all over. Because we were working so closely with the Brookdale, that was because of Dave. He was instrumental in forming the Brookdale Bluegrass Festival and ran the ‘tweener stage at the Good Old Fashioned.”
Damdave at Don Quixote’s in Felton, CA
Dave later became a Boulder Creek townie. “It’s a nice little town. I’ve written five songs about this town, I Love These Mountains, Bear Creek Road…there are more.” He’s also written three Brookdale songs, among them, Brookdale’s Burning and Highway 9, a takeoff on the old song Highway 55 co-written with Eric Burman. “She always walks alone, neither flesh and neither bone, ooooo!! There’s some really good lyrics. Eric always made it a 20-minute long instrumental thing with audience participation.”
Damdave at the Good Old Fashioned Bluegrass Festival
For a while he was Damdave and the Hot Damn Band. The name change reflects the distinction that Dave plays left-handed. Along with Graham MacFarlane (standup bass), “Mando” Mike Reynolds (vocals, mandolin), and occasionally “Joebro” Adams (any of whom may or may not also play left-handed), the guys could entertain you with “a mix of dysfunctional bluegrass, country, blues, soul, and a healthy dose of Damdave originals.”
He’d said at the time, “I’m not bluegrass, I don’t want a bluegrass band.” His sound was Americana tending toward the bluesy. “I’ve always been a blues kind of guy.” He was raised in Ann Arbor, between Detroit and Chicago. “My voice is kind of gravelly, I grew up with Bob Seger. I like Gregg Allman…I like all kinds of music. I was thinking about this not too long ago. When I listen to people singing, when I listen to blues or Motown, the way they sing a song, the emphasis is on the words and music together. I want to develop my voice and my songs to be able to express the parts of the music I want to express…with an honesty in my voice.”
Damdave as Festival Security for the Brookdale Bluegrass Festival
“Dave was the kind of guy who could ramble, talk, talk talk, and talk, without any particular point or reason, no punchlines, just thinking out loud,” said fellow musician, Elicia Burton. “I remember playing with Damdave at Don Quixote’s where we featured him and his music. I loved playing the tune Tennessee Whiskey on my fiddle, backing him up. He was always a standard and was great help at the Good Old Fashioned Bluegrass Festival signing folks up for the ‘tweener stage. I also loved his song “Blue Day,” his gruff vocals on that, his backward guitar playing – as you know he was a lefty. And the song about growing up in Kalamazoo was a really great, real American song. I am missing him now.”
“He had a huge sweet side to him, he totally loved his family, his girls were always the apple of his eye.” – Elicia Burton
Damdave with His Graddaughters
“Daddy, Dampa, DamDave. The community lost a one-of-a-kind man. Your silly light-hearted disposition will be missed. I thank you for your artistic, musical nature that you shared with your children, grandchildren, and friends. While I myself have no musical talent inherited, I will forever sing your original song you wrote about our special town, ‘I Love These Mountains.’ Jam on Dam dad” – Jenny
David Gillett with Daughter Jenny Thompson
“Dear Naddy (Daddy). I’m so relieved you are no longer in pain and are free to jam, jam, jam until the end of time. You fought hard, stayed positive, continued to play music, and kept a sense of humor to the very end, even when you were in unimaginable pain – qualities that will never fail to amaze me. I am honored to have gone through this journey with you and grateful we were all together during your final days. I envision you surrounded by love, light, music, and hopefully the finest of tequilas! Somehow, it feels appropriate to complete the circle and send you off onto your new journey with the words you wrote on my birth announcement, ‘peaceloveandkeeponkeepin’free.’ I love you forever.” – Ninny (Tiphany)
“Rest in peace damn dad. I know you’re up there jamming, free of pain. You are loved and missed more than I have words for. I am so grateful you were surrounded by family and your BFF. I am so grateful for our time together. I’m so grateful I was able to fly out to spend these last few days with you. I will cherish the memories. Thank you for teaching me to not take life so seriously. Your humor through your suffering was admirable. Aloha, Daddy” – Jessica Gullo
David Gillett with His Daughters
“Love and hugs to our man, Damdave, The Tom Waits of Boulder Creek Bluegrass. Your wonderful family and great songs will carry your name into the future…I’m teaching them to everybody. Enjoy the ride Brother, wink and smile with that twinkle in your eyes as you make that left hand turn.” – Joe Adams
David “Damdave” Gillett
A memorial for island locals was held on Sunday, November 8 at his favorite spot, the Makuu Cliffs. A memorial for mainlanders will be held on January 25. With the help of Barry Tanner and Bruce Bellochio, a commemorative collection of Damdave’s music will be made available soon. For more information, send email to Barry: bcmusicworks@gmail.com. Online: www.facebook.com/damdave.gillett
(c) December 2019 Julie Horner for the San Lorenzo Valley Post. Used by permission.
Joyce Clark, a key early volunteer who helped bring bluegrass music to the South Bay and Santa Cruz and brought new supporters to the fledgling band Sidesaddle, died on January 30, 2018. She was 75 years old.
Joyce and her husband Dick Clark were among the founders of the Santa Cruz Bluegrass Society and helped organize concerts, campouts, meetings, and bluegrass bowling fundraisers, and helped host popular social gatherings at the Society camp at bluegrass festivals throughout the 1980s and 1990s. The couple traveled nationally to support Sidesaddle, Northern California bluegrass and the SCBS. They were regular volunteers at the SCBS membership and information booth.
Joyce Clark was at the core of the SCBS, the glue of its fellowship and the heart of its activities. Her warmth, kindness, cheerfulness and general good humor were felt by everyone who knew her. Her smile, good heart, laugh, and gentle wit enlivened every occasion. For many new bluegrass fans of that era, their first and fondest memories of the bluegrass community were of Joyce welcoming them to the music and to the SCBS camp at festivals. She never met a stranger, and was always wickedly funny, warm and understanding. She became everyone’s confidant and showed unconditional love. Her personality influenced the developing cultural of the early bluegrass society and guided those who took charge of the organization long after she moved away.
Joyce & Dick Clark
Dick & Joyce Clark received Lifetime Achievement Awards at the Northern California Bluegrass Awards.
The couple loved the all-women South Bay bluegrass band Sidesaddle and were fixtures at almost all early performances. They were two of the organizers of the Sidesaddle Fan Club, and Joyce was the band’s den mother.
After retirement, “DicknJoyce” moved from their longtime home in Santa Clara to Mountain Ranch, where they have lived for almost two decades. There, they began volunteering at the California Bluegrass Association’s Father’s Day Bluegrass Festival in Grass Valley. Joyce will be remembered by VIP visitors to that event from across the country as the smiling lady, embodying hospitality, at the festival’s backstage gate.
She was born Joyce Brown in Riverbank, CA. She is survived by her husband, son Richard and his wife Sophia, and daughter Laura. Her grandchildren are Josh and TC. Her grandchild is Little Josh. Her daughter Candice predeceased her.
— Craig Nelson & Michael Hall (Thanks to Barb Scott, Richard & Sophia Clark)
Dick & Joyce Clark and Judy & Dick Dowell accept their Lifetime Achievement Awards.
