Earful of Family Fun

The Paramount Ranch, that Old West movie set tucked into the Santa Monica Mountains, is usually the backdrop for the TV show “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.”

But Sunday, the place near Agoura Hills will be a foot-stomper’s paradise when the Topanga Banjo-Fiddle Contest warms up for its 38th annual festival. For those who love old-time bluegrass and folk music, it’s a chance to get an earful.

Apparently, a lot of people love this music. The wingding draws about 5,000 people who watch more than 100 musicians compete for cash prizes and other goodies.

It’s not a stuffy contest. Professional bands, like the bluegrass groups Witcher Brothers and Gold Dust, also take a turn on one of the four stages. On another stage, musicians belt out drinking songs, or songs about California, or even American protest songs.

On the dance stage, the demonstrations run the gamut--Scottish country, clogging, English country, contra and square-dancing. In another corner, it’s not music on tap but poetry--cowboy poetry, that is--from the likes of Mike Mahaney and others.

Music is still king, though, with the banjo, fiddle, mandolin and guitar the tools of choice. If it sounds a far cry from rock and rap, it is, but a surprising number of younger people are hooked on it.

Take the Giacopuzzi family of Camarillo. The five of them make up the bluegrass band Pleasant Valley. Dad Richard plays guitar; mom Shelly takes the bass; Adam, 17, plays fiddle; Keith, 14, mandolin; and Mallory, 11, the Dobro.

“Everyone sings but me--they won’t let me,” said Richard Giacopuzzi, a Somis veterinarian.

They’ve been regulars at the Topanga festival the last seven or eight years. The band has picked up a second place, but in the individual categories, Adam has walked away with the top prize in advanced fiddle three times, and Keith has taken it for mandolin twice.

A couple of months ago, the family started playing a regular gig every other Saturday night at Jimmy’s Diner in Camarillo. They practice two or three nights a week, for half an hour or so, squeezing it in around homework and sports. Adam also teaches four students.

But it was his teacher, Charlene Gastineau, who first gave the Giacopuzzi family--and many others--the bluegrass bug. In addition to teaching classical violin, Gastineau gives her students some fiddle tunes for fun and encourages them to compete.

Richard had played the guitar since junior high school, and he began accompanying his son. Then Keith took up the mandolin at 9, and pretty soon they were playing at churches. Shelly learned the bass, and Mallory, who had been singing with the family since she was 8, picked up the Dobro six months ago.

The Topanga festival has seen them even younger, said Dorian Keyser, who has been involved with the festival since 1965 and recently stepped down as coordinator. He remembers a 4-year-old who climbed on the stage and sang “Take Me Back to Texas, I’m Too Young to Marry.”

The record holder for the oldest was a 98-year-old woman who had to be lifted from her wheelchair to perform an old Appalachian tune. She died a few months later.

Rules for the competition, which includes advanced, intermediate and beginner levels, are few. The music should be traditional or bluegrass. Bands play two tunes, one instrumental and one with vocals. Individual entrants play one tune. And electric instruments are a no-no.

The festival is also a chance for anyone to bring an instrument and join one of the many random jam sessions going on all day throughout the grounds.

“That’s probably the best music,” Keyser said.

Keyser, 72, will be there as usual, singing and playing the guitar. He’ll pitch in with a drinking song or two--one, “Hell Bound Train,” is about a drunk cowboy who swears off booze after a brush with the devil.

There will be other old-timers as well. Earl and Helen Huff are regulars. Helen, who grew up in Hawaii, plays the ukulele and harmonica, and Earl plays bass and harmonica, among other things. They’re in several musical groups, busy virtually seven days a week.

One of those days, Wednesday, is a tradition at their Simi Valley home. For the last 16 years, they’ve hosted a weekly hootenanny that draws about 25 regulars who jam with them from 8 to midnight.

“I’m still going pretty good,” said Earl Huff, 76, a retired machinist.

This year, as usual, he hopes to play in the Topanga festival’s band division. As of last week, he was trying to pull together a group that includes a 12-year-old musical whiz and a member who is in his 80s and has health problems.

In addition to the music, the festival is also a stage for folk artisans whose talents range from weaving to wood-carving to leather crafts. And a trip to Paramount Ranch in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area is a chance to stroll through the re-created western town that serves as home for TV’s “Dr. Quinn” series.

The Paramount Ranch has been home to the Topanga Banjo-Fiddle Contest since 1990. In fact, the contest hasn’t been held in Topanga since 1969, but the name has stuck all these years.

The event actually took root in 1961 at a private home in Topanga Canyon when 26 five-string banjo pickers and five fiddlers gathered in a musical showdown before some 500 people.

Then, after Los Angeles County passed its ordinance restricting outdoor music festivals in 1970, the Topanga bunch moved to Santa Barbara, Santa Monica, UCLA and other locations before settling at Paramount Ranch.

BE THERE

* Topanga Banjo-Fiddle Contest and Folk Festival takes place Sunday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., at Paramount Ranch near Agoura Hills. Take the Kanan Road exit off the Ventura Freeway, go south on Kanan nearly a mile, then left on Cornell Road 2.5 miles to the entrance. Tickets are $7 for adults, $4 for ages 10-17 or 65 and older, free for those under 10. (818) 382-4819.