A Fitting Venue for Music With Mountain Gospel Roots

Ralph Stanley’s first Orange County concert since 1994 comes courtesy of the Southwest Bluegrass Assn., an organization of 2,000 musicians and fans in Southern California, Arizona and Nevada.

“This is the very first concert ever for our association,” said SBA President George Finney of Rialto. “We’ve got some new board members, some new blood and excitement, and we’ve been talking for some time about doing something like this.”

The show will take place in the sanctuary of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Orange, a fitting setting for a musician whose repertoire is steeped in the Appalachian gospel tradition. Finney said that former association president Don Clark belongs to the church and arranged for use of the 500-seat hall.

“Hopefully, this is the beginning” of an ongoing attempt by the SBA to stage perhaps two major bluegrass concerts a year in Orange County, Finney said.

“We do run on a shoestring. We’re taking a big risk [on the Stanley show], and we’re willing to underwrite any losses as a first-time try. When the dust settles, if it looks like something we can pursue that’s not going to bankrupt us, we want to continue.”