Bringing bluegrass

By Mike Armstrong

Hanna Elementary was the setting for the global bluegrass ambassadors the Henhouse Prowlers as they held a music workshop April 9-10. After finishing up the workshop at the school on April 10, the band gave an evening public concert at the Hanna, Elk Mountain, Medicine Bow (HEM) High School auditorium in which grades K-6 participated.

The band from Chicago has been together for 15 years, although one member, guitar player Chris Dollar, has only been with the group for a little over two months.

"Chris has played more shows in Germany than he has in the United States," Ben Wright, founding member and the band's banjo player said, "We have only been back in the U.S. a short time before coming here."

Jon Dollar has known Wright and Goldfine for seven years. He said he always hoped to play for the band and when the opportunity arose, he took it.

Wright and Goldfine, the bass player, are the two founding members. Goldfine said the band started with six players 15 years ago, but the band went through changes and eventually went down to four members.

The band's name comes from Wright's father.

"We wanted to be a bluegrass band and we knew it had to be rural sounding," Wright said. "My dad is a really good writer, so he gave us a choice of about 50 names, and soon as we saw Henhouse Prowlers, we knew that was our name."

Goldfine added it was the last name on the list.

Wright said the name is really important to the band because it has to last as long the musical group does.

"After we got the name, we found out how good it really was," Wright said. "That comes from other people telling us."

"We turned the name Prowlers into meaning touring, because this band is known for it's touring," said Kyle O'Brien, mandolin and fiddle player for the band. "In the name there is an idea of traveling."

The band played 150 times last year. There was a time when they were doing over 200 shows a year from 2008 to 2013.

Although some of the band members are married, none of the players have children.

"It would be tough to maintain the schedule we do at this point and having kids," Wright said.

O'Brien has been with the band over a year and he has been playing music since he was six. His first years playing music were with a family band.

"I have been playing music for most of my life," O'Brien said. "I went to school out in San Francisco and I knew someone who joined the Prowlers."

O'Brien said he tried out with them about four years ago when the band had lost a fifth player, but the band decided to go to four members. O'Brien said it was good for him, because he got to play in San Francisco for three years before coming on board to the Henhouse Prowlers.

Another important component to the Henhouse Prowlers is road manager Alex Minella. He has been with the band six months and all the players say Minella is as essential to the Henhouse Prowlers as any member that plays music.

Minella said it was seeing the Henhouse Prowlers that got him hooked on bluegrass music and for over a year his life revolved around going to bluegrass concerts whenever he could.

"I woke up one day and realized I wanted to work with these bands, so I started asking around about being a road manager," Minella said. "Someone suggested the Henhouse Prowlers and I laughed and said, "No way is Ben Wright going to let me join the band'."

The first time Minella saw the Henhouse Prowlers, he and friends were trying to throw glow sticks into the hole of the guitar while the band was playing.

"He actually got some of them in," Wright said.

Although Wright admitted he was a little angry on the night of the glow stick incident, he quickly got over it and is happy Minella came on board.

"I am just happy to be here," Minella said.

"We've had road managers before, but no one like Alex," Goldfine said. "He goes above and beyond."

Wright told students on April 9 that a band was more than people being able to play music and sing. Many types of people and jobs were needed to make a band successful, not just musicians. He pointed out Minella's job along with highlighting the technology needed including doing lights, sound recording and video.

At the concert on April 9, Wright told the students and teachers how amazed the band was with the beauty of Carbon County.

"We have traveled all over the world and seen many interesting and scenic places, but the drive to Hanna from Saratoga is one of the most beautiful we have ever seen," Wright said.

At the concert for the students, the band not only played their music, but explained all the instruments they were playing. They also played several bluegrass songs that had mining themes. Wright told the audience they had researched Hanna and Carbon County before coming.

Wright said he was impressed with how the school highlighted its mining history.

"I love how proud they are of their heritage in Hanna," Wright said. "The entrance at the school had all these things for me to see and read on the wall, and I was like, "There is something almost romantic about the town's past, even though it is such a small town."

After the band finished their concert for the students and teachers, the musicians broke into groups of two and proceeded to teach all the students various aspects of music over the next two days.

The K-3 grades learned the song "Fresh Tomatoes" to sing at the evening concert for the town on April 10. The fourth grade sang a song and played instruments while grades 5-6 not only learned instruments but made up songs of their own which they performed at the concert.

The Henhouse Prowlers came to Hanna under the auspices of their alter ego, Bluegrass Ambassadors.

Bluegrass Ambassadors is the non-profit arm of the Henhouse Prowlers, inspired by their many travels and interactions with people and cultures across the planet. The band said their core value is education and their goal is to make music available to people of all economic backgrounds and to break down misconceptions and misunderstandings between people of all persuasions. The band said music binds people together as a species and diplomacy isn't just for diplomats.

The Henhouse Prowlers first started working with the State Department for the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs.

"Someone suggested to us that we apply for this program called American Music Abroad," Wright said. "It started in the 1950s in response to the cold war and Russia sending out ballets and Soviet orchestras all over the globe, so the U.S. started out sending jazz musicians."

Wright said the U.S. State Department started a program called "Jazz Ambassadors" with a goal of bringing U.S. music to the farthest reaches of the globe in hopes of fostering peace and understanding amongst cultures.

"Louis Armstrong was one of these ambassadors," Wright said. "There is a story of him visiting the Belgian Congo and two tribes were at war, and the State Department told both sides, we have this concert coming through but we won't have it if there is fighting going on, so these guys put down their weapons to watch Louis Armstrong in this huge stadium and once he left, the war started up again."

This program was so successful it has continued to grow and evolve into everything from basketball teams and authors to dance groups and bluegrass bands. The Henhouse Prowlers have traveled as ambassadors for the State Department to countries in Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and Russia.

Their first trip with the State Department lasted four weeks.

The band said all the places were welcoming.

"Before we go on these trips for the State Department, we go to D.C. for two days of learning about the places," Wright said. "They say we aren't there to represent the United States government, 'you are going to represent the United States people, so your individual political beliefs don't matter'. It isn't about politics for us, it is about the music and the culture and what learn about the culture we are visiting."

Wright said often they are lined up with other bands from the place they are visiting and often English isn't understood, only music.

In the past five years, the State Department has sent them to 18 countries.

It was after they got back from the State Department trips and found organizations asking for them to play and teach in their regions the band saw firsthand how important music was in bridging cultures. So, they formed a non-profit they call the Bluegrass Ambassadors. Their website is www.bluegrassambassadors.org. It is through this organization the band found itself talking to Mark Shipp, principal of Hanna, Elk Mountain and Medicine Bow elementary schools.

The Henhouse Prowlers said it was due to Shipp's efforts the band came to Hanna.

"I had seen the band in Chicago last summer and again in Fruita, Colorado last fall," Shipp said. "After their show in Fruita, they talked about their nonprofit Bluegrass Ambassadors which worked with school groups. I started the conversation with them and it all came together."

Shipp said he had help from organizations and local business contributing to help bring the Henhouse Prowlers to Carbon County. He said the band coming to Hanna had positive results for the students in many ways.

"As a legacy for the project, the Deering Banjo Company worked with us to provide five banjos for the schools and Ben Wright of the Prowlers has offered to follow up with some lessons over Skype," Shipp said. "The kids were involved in songwriting, dance, learning about geography, musical principles and many other learnings. The band members were all great and kept the kids engaged."

Pam Glasser, music teacher for all the elementary schools that attended, was impressed with the Henhouse Prowlers.

"Every member of the band was not only great at performing, but they offered our students opportunities and encouragement to creatively participate with them in the classroom and at the public performance," Glasser said. "Thank you, Mark Shipp, for the many hours you spent to make this all possible."

The band also said Shipp was the catalyst for them coming to Carbon County.

"Mark Shipp deserves so much credit for this all happening," Goldfine said.

"He is the reason this whole thing happened," Wright said.

Shipp said he was happy with the results of having the band interact with the students of the schools.

"Monday was an amazing day with the Henhouse Prowlers," Shipp said. "All of the kids had a little over an hour with the band and everybody did an awesome job."

Shipp said the fifth and sixth graders were engaged in songwriting and came up with some great songs that were performed with the band on their concert on April 10. He said the fourth grade learned a song with the band which they performed both singing and playing the recorder and the kindergarten through third grades learned about rhythm and tempo. They also learned a song they sang with the band for the public concert.

Shipp said the professionalism of the Henhouse Prowlers was evident.

"I had seen the band perform a couple times and I wondered if they would show up in the school in suits like they do for their performances," Shipp said. "They did, which showed me that they had the same reverence and respect for working with elementary kids that they do for their craft and the music. I really appreciated that."

The band said they have been inspired by coming to Wyoming.

"Our ride coming back from the show from Hanna to Saratoga was forty minutes, and that was a bit of time for us to all talk, and it was clear by the time we got back to the Saratoga Resort, none of us are going to forget the experience," Wright said. "The kids, talking to the families after the show and the support we have seen with the communities out here, it is heavy in our hearts."

"People sometimes say how much we impact communities with our workshops and music," O'Brien said. "But when we come to a community like this and meet these great people, I don't know if we can calculate how much it changes us."

Although the band has played stadiums, festivals and clubs, all agreed the Hanna trip was one of the best experiences the band has ever had.

To read about the Henhouse Prowlers time in Hanna and Carbon County in their own words, you can go to their website, click on where they have been.