Bluegrass Concert Series Celebrates Big Milestone

If someone said that one of the best places to hear the latest and greatest in bluegrass was based in Hamden, you might not believe them. And yet it’s the case. 

GuitartownCT Productions has been bringing storied bluegrass veterans and up-and-coming stars to this area since 2008. On May 5, the series — now operating out of Cafe Amici at 1640 Whitney Ave. — will celebrate its 15th anniversary and its 120th show. It’s a milestone that Chris Wuerth, head and founder of GuitartownCT, never saw coming. In 2008, he was just a fan who wanted to bring his ​“bluegrass hero,” the legendary Tony Rice, to town for a show.

At the time, Rice, who died in 2020, would have made nearly every bluegrass fan’s shortlist of best bluegrass guitarists in the country. Wuerth said Rice was ​“the guy that just inspired me.” After seeing Rice live in New York, he decided to contact Rice’s agent to see if he could get the guitarist to do a show in New Haven in the winter of 2008.

“I said, ​‘hmmm, this is good, maybe I could do this, so I emailed his agent in Nashville,” Wuerth said. Perhaps surprisingly, ​“it wasn’t all that difficult.”

In fact, booking Rice and setting up the concert turned out to be ​“easier than I thought it would be,” Wuerth said. It was also ​“primitive.” He was just starting his website up (the name Guitartown courtesy of his daughter) and didn’t have online ticketing. People sent him checks in the mail to buy tickets. But he persevered.

“I just said, ​‘well, I like him, I’m gonna have him come,’ and I knew he was popular and people would show up, which they did,” he added. 

“It was pretty crazy but it all worked out,” he said. ​“I thought, ​‘I can do this,’ because I didn’t really intend when I started to do 120 shows. I just thought it would be fun to produce shows and bring in artists that I liked mostly, and mostly in the bluegrass realm. I wasn’t even thinking anything about the future. I just started booking other shows.… I think I did seven or eight the first year, and I guess that’s been the average.” 

That first show with Tony Rice was held at the Little Theater in New Haven, as were subsequent shows for about a year until the theater closed for renovations. Wuerth brought in notable acts including Jessie Winchester, Carlene Carter, and the Del McCoury Band.

“I was very ambitious in those days,” he said with a laugh. 

With the Little Theatre closed, Wuerth moved to the Unitarian Society building on Hartford Turnpike and had shows there for around four years, where he was able to gather larger crowds, noting that at one he had around 370 people. 

“It was good there,” he noted, with plenty of parking and use of the kitchen, which enabled them to provide food and drinks. He also had his family helping out — his wife, her sister and mother, his kids. ​“It was fun there,” he said.

Guitartown next found a home at the Outer Space/Spaceland Ballroom complex for around four years, where he said he also helped build the stage. He then migrated at Best Video, which proved to be popular for an additional reason. 

“The bands, especially the younger bands, used to love to come to Best Video to play because they used to love the movies,” he said. They ​“were in heaven.”

Wuerth noted that they ​“packed the room” about eight times at the that venue. 

“It was very successful,” he said. ​“People loved it.”

Those shows stopped once Covid hit, but Guitartown pressed on.

“We really didn’t miss that much,” said Wuerth, who started doing shows outside in his yard in the fall of 2020 and proceeded with those for a couple of years using two covered decks and buying his own sound system. 

“I had always been totally afraid of sound, trying to control it, and being the sound guy,” he said. ​“I had no knowledge of it. Even in my band, I was like ​‘you set it up, I’ll play,’ so I had to learn the sound system and how to monitor the board — which is a small thing, but that was fun too, and challenging.”

As winter 2022 rolled around, Wuerth took the series back inside, to Café Amici. 

“Out of the blue I was looking for a place, and I knew there was a nice back room there that had a bar where they do parties, and so we tried one there and people loved it,” said Wuerth. ​“A lot of people came early for dinner before the show, and then they’d filter in the back room, which has round tables with chairs, so it seats about 63 people at the tables. And that’s what we’ve been doing now.”

Wuerth has done around seven shows there thus far. 

“It’s very comfortable there,” he said. ​“It’s really nice to be able to have people come and have dinner before the show, just hear the show right there. It’s like dinner theater.”

The May 5 milestone show features Rock Hearts, a band composed of four veteran New England musicians — Joe Deetz, Alex MacLeod, Billy Thibodeau, and Rick Brodsky — and CT-based musician Austin Scelzo, who has been to the Guitartown jams in the past and recently has been finding success in Nashville, doing fiddle camps, and ​“jamming with all the big bands.”

GuitartownCT continues to feature acts from all over, including Nashville, North Carolina, Boston, and New York, but Wuerth does not have to spend as much time searching out performers as he did 15 years ago.

“When I started out, I was contacting everybody by email because I was an unknown,” he said. ​“After a while Guitartown became known in the bluegrass world and people started contacting me. So, when acts are coming through town, or they’re going to be playing a festival in Maine or Vermont, they’ll say, ​‘well, on the way back, would you like us to come play there?’ So I would say probably half of the concerts now are initiated by the artists or the agents.”

Wuerth, of course, still books bands he likes.

“It’s my prerogative,” he said. ​“I try to find bands that are going to be popular, that people are going to like. I try to vary it — younger bands, veteran bands, bluegrass, string — so I kind of have varied genres. It’s all acoustic music based on acoustic instruments that are in the bluegrass mode.”

Bluegrass as a genre is having somewhat of a renaissance lately, which Wuerth attributes to a couple of factors, including the successes of Billy Strings, a musician who has been selling out venues all over the world (and who also played at Guitartown around 12 years ago) and Molly Tuttle, as well as an influx of graduates from Berklee School of Music, which has an American roots music program 

“Berklee has been the epicenter of New England bluegrass music for the last eight or 10 years,” said Wuerth. ​“Out of Berklee have come all of these really good young bands, and they all know each other, and they all know me now, because a lot of them have played here.” 

As word gets around among musicians, Wuerth has tried to make sure he is not booking too many bands. 

“I like to have three to four weeks between shows,” he said. ​“It’s still about eight a year. That’s always a challenge, not doing too many shows. Obviously it’s great when bands call you and want to come play and they’re really good, but it’s also a lot of work because I do everything myself: all the posters, all the emails, all the promotion. I do the sound system. I set it up. I take it down.” 

“I do everything, so it’s work, which I love, but I need a little break,” he added with a laugh. 

Wuerth’s labor of love is founded in a life that has had music in it from day one. Wuerth grew up listening to swing and classical music through his mother, who was a classically trained pianist. He got more into jazz and rock as a teenager. But it was attending fiddle contests in Bushnell Park and Vermont that piqued his interest in bluegrass, as well as one specific album: Will the Circle Be Unbroken, organized by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and featuring many well-known bluegrass stars on it like Jimmy Martin and Doc Watson. At some point he heard Tony Rice — ​“everything about him I just loved” — but he did not start playing bluegrass until later in life.

“I was a living room picker,” he said. ​“I played a lot of piano, and I played a lot of guitar, but I never played bluegrass until about 2005.”

He didn’t start playing music with others until around 2006. 

“When I first did that, it was scary, challenging, impossible, and fun,” he said. ​“I started playing with a friend of mine, and it ended up developing into a band called Ragweed, and we played a lot around the area for seven or eight years. It was fun, but it was definitely different.”

Wuerth found himself inspired by the bluegrass bands he was booking regularly. 

“I think I got serious about it when I started doing the shows,” he said. ​“I was saying, ​‘wow, this is just great music and it’s approachable.’” 

“The whole bluegrass jam scene is interesting because when you go to a festival with all the big-name bluegrass guys, they come out and sit and jam until three in the morning. Part of the whole appeal of bluegrass is you can mix and mingle and chat and play with all the people you admire, and there’s no real separation between the artist and the fan, so that I like too.”

Guitartown has also run a bluegrass jam for almost eight years now that is also currently held at Café Amici the first Sunday of each month from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. He said the jam, where any musician can come and sit in regardless of their experience, has a similar vibe as the shows.

“You get all these different people with different abilities … and you try to find common songs you can all enjoy … so it’s just this whole community thing about bluegrass that I really like. And I don’t know if there’s any other music that really has that kind of tradition, where you’re expected to talk to the artist afterward, you’re expected to play with the artist afterward, and jam. It’s just all part of the scene.”

For those who just want to experience the music, but have not had much exposure to it, Wuerth thinks they should give it a chance. 

“Bluegrass is kind of like a blend of jazz, country, blues, folk, and gospel all in one, so if you like any of those kinds of music, you’re going to find something in bluegrass that you like,” he said. ​“There’s something for everybody and the players are so talented, literally the best players I’ve ever heard in acoustic music are in bluegrass. They’re mind-blowingly good, so come out, and a good time is guaranteed for all.”

Tickets for the May 5 show can be purchased at the GuitartownCT website here. Further information about other shows can be found there as well, including a newsletter sign up.