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Special to the Daily Journal/Messenger

Bluegrass musicians kick out an impromptu tune at Pendleton's Jammin' on the Green.

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Click on photo to enlarge

Special to the Daily Journal/Messenger

Jammin' on the Green audiences have swollen to about 40 to 50, and musicians have peaked at approximately 18. Currently, the jams are scheduled to run through Oct. 10.

PENDLETON — On Friday evenings, Pendleton’s Village Green shifts to shades of azure. The venerable square began hosting bluegrass jam sessions in mid-May, with the Pendleton Area Business Association (PABA) sponsoring the events.

Dubbed Jammin’ on the Green, the shows are decidedly casual. Bluegrass players intertwine improvisations, while audience members listen from lawn chairs set up in the grass. There’s no admission and no house PA system. The PABA backing pays for refreshments, with proceeds used to buy bottled water for the musicians.

PABA member Jean Vegod — who operates Pendleton-based Timeless Tours and Travel — got the jam rolling, hoping to draw more people to the downtown.

“We have some people that will come and bring their chairs and then we have some people … you see their cars go by and they kind of slow down. Then they pull in and park and either sit on the step or bank or just sit on the grounds,” Vegod said. “He have families with small children who brings picnics and put out a blanket.”

It was Pendleton attorney Darnell Newton who first suggested the concept, telling Vegod, “If we could get the word out and have bluegrass musicians here, we’d have people all over town.”

Jammin’ on the Green isn’t a debauched hootenanny: no alcohol is allowed, there’s just music, live oak trees and Southern dusk. Initially the bluegrass was performed on a brick patio behind Farmers Hall. However the musicians soon discovered late afternoon sun blasted the spot, so they relocated to shade-laden turf.

The evenings have evolved in other ways as well. After beginning as a Thursday night gig, Jammin’ on the Green was moved to Fridays. Time was pushed back from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. to allow the musicians more time to get to Pendleton from their day jobs. Usually the music ends around 9:30 p.m., but some nights the tunes go till 11.

Players arrive from Williamston, Greer, Seneca and even Lavonia, Ga. Vegod got the word out for the Pendleton jams by posting flyers in shops along the downtown square. Additional transmission occurred at the Highway 76 BI-LO, where handbills were slipped into grocery bags, and on the Internet, with bluegrass Web sites adding the Pendleton jam to their event calendars. Jammin’ on the Green is also listed prominently in the “Happenings Around Pendleton” e-mails local Nancy Hellams sends, as Vegod puts it, “to half the state.”

Jammin’ on the Green audiences have swollen to about 40 to 50, and musicians have peaked at approximately 18, Vegod said.

Easley-based guitarist Don Dilelio is a regular. Most Fridays, he totes his Martin HD-28 axe and usually at least two other members of his bluegrass combo Different Strokes to Pendleton. Different Strokes prefers to keep the rust off at jams instead of rehearsals.

“It’s hard to get everybody (in the band) in one place, but with the jams, you don’t have to call anyone,” Dilelio said. “They just show up.”

Playing songs like the instrumental “Train 45” at the Pendleton jam, Dilelio said his band’s repertoire includes about 200 tunes. Since Different Strokes only plays one or two formal gigs a month — including birthday parties and the occasional festival — they lay down most of their grooves at jams. Besides Pendleton’s, Dilelio often participates at jams in Pumpkintown, Liberty and Owens.

“Nobody’s hoggish,” Dilelio said of the musicians at local jams.

Now 70, Dilelio dove into bluegrass 16 years ago. Although he’d played country covers — Merle Haggard, George Jones, etc. — growing up in Pennsylvania, after moving to Oklahoma, he abandoned his music.

”I slid the guitar under the bed,” he said.

Years later, Dilelio relocated to the Upstate. Eventually his zeal for string bending returned, and the country roots transferred well to his new interest: bluegrass. The latter genre’s improv-heavy approach reeled him in.

“I know people who have been in bands for years and they can’t really jam,” Dilelio said. “All they know is what they already know … what they’ve rehearsed. But a jam will bring things out of you that you never would have thought you could have done.”

When asked about the Pendleton event, Dilelio cited the open atmosphere of the Village Green as a key aesthetic.

Currently, Jammin’ on the Green is scheduled to run through Oct. 10, the night before Pendleton’s Fall Harvest Festival. However, Vegod — who also works with Fall Harvest — said the bluegrass could continue.

“It has begun to take on a life of its own, and the Village Green is a public place …”

For more information on Jammin’ on the Green, call (864) 646-8864.