Bluegrass benefit for Friends of Hope Valley Sunday

Staff Reports

The Friends of Hope Valley benefit is 1-5 p.m. Sunday at Sorensen's Resort on Highway 88 in Hope Valley. Barbecue lunch by Sorensen's and music by the Back Forty bluegrass band and Ten Dollar Pony. Cost $10. Information, Sorensen's, (530) 694-2203.

The Back Forty Bluegrass band returns for this year's benefit concert. The band began in 1992 as a simple jam group to playing for local and out of town events. Their vocals with that high lonesome sound and instrumental harmonies brings a crowd-pleasing response. Vicki Hass on fiddle, Joseph Martini on his 5-string banjo and Norris Schultz on bass are from Carson City, and Charlie Edsall on guitar and Ron Warren on mandolin are from Sparks.

Hass was born in Nevada and began playing fiddle after being influenced in the 1980s by the local bluegrass band the Slide Mountain Boys, and Byron Berline. She is an original member of Back Forty and has served as president of the Northern Nevada Bluegrass Association.

Gardnerville duo Ten Dollar Pony feature original and cover tunes in folk, pop, blues, and country rock. Whether delivering intimate and heart wrenching ballads with warm harmonies or raucous blues, their music ranges from sweet to wryly observant, to perversely funny, all served up with intelligence and wit. They have spent a lot of time on stage together over the last 8 years and it shows.

Sorensen's Resort hosts the Friends of Hope Valley benefit, serves the no-host barbecue, and will match funds raised by ticket sales.

The Friends of Hope Valley is a grassroots organization formed to protect the scenic, historical and recreational values of Hope Valley and the eastern slopes of Alpine County. Hope Valley is one of the last undeveloped high-altitude valleys left in the Sierra Nevada. "Friends" was instrumental in seeing that most of Hope Valley became public lands.