TALKEETNA — Lulu Smalls said she remembers fondly the day she got started playing at the Talkeetna Bluegrass and Music Festival.    

She was playing at the Talkeetna Moose Dropping Festival when “Dirty” Ernie Wheatley, the festival’s organizer, approached her.

“Dirty Ernie come up to me and he said... ‘I need a PA and what would you charge me for a sound system?’” Smalls recalled by phone as she helped set up this year’s festival. She recalls telling Wheatley, “Nothing if you let me play.”

Frontiersman File photo Banjo pickin’ is a staple for musicians and spectators at the Talkeetna Bluegrass and Music Festival, which begins this weekend.

And thus began 28 years of summer music in Talkeetna. Her summertime family was born.

“The people that work the festival or volunteer, this is the only time we all see each other and get together it’s like a big family reunion for us,” she said. “It’s kind of like a little Alaskan Woodstock.”

The festival kicks off Friday. Smalls, who has been working for months to put together the lineup, said there are a couple of acts that she thinks shouldn’t be missed.

First, hailing from the Kenai Peninsula, is the Mabrey Bros. Band.

“They’re the house band from the Rainbow Bar in Kenai and they are a killer, killer rock’n’roll band,” she said. “As a musician, I think I made a pretty good call on that one.”

And then there’s the other headliner — Three-Legged Mule, — who also hail from the Peninsula but from Homer rather than Seward.

“These guys have an incredible following down there and they play the greatest foot-stomping music,” she said. “I’ve been trying to get them to come up here for three years.”

This year’s festival will also feature something that hasn’t been a part of the lineup for quite some time — open-mike hour.

“That initially was how the festival used to find its players. A lot of people used to show up on open mike night,” she said.

The festival follows close on the heels of this summer’s installment of the yearly Moose Dropping Festival, which took place in mid-July. That event drew a large crowd to the tiny Alaska town, many of whom stayed to cause problems. Alaska State Troopers at the time described Talkeetna as coming “unglued” for a weekend.

Smalls said she’s not worried that the rowdies will return to attend Bluegrass.

“Generally speaking, we’ve never had that kind of problem, ever,” she said.

She said security at the festival runs a tight ship, enforcing rules barring weapons from the festival and keeping alcohol confined to campsites and to the beer garden.

“I think there was an instance many, many years ago where there was a fight,” she said. Security helped get the guys to the hospital. She’s not sure how things turned out for the fighters, but, “They were still glad they came to the festival.”

If anyone gets too rowdy, she said, security has no problem calling the Alaska State Troopers, with whom Wheatley has a been working well with in recent years, Smalls said.

She said the festival is also making an effort to keep the youngsters in check, saying that kids who come up have to come with adults.

“If there’s nobody in that car that’s 18 or over they’ve got to wait until someone can sponsor them,” she said. It’s just a way of putting out the message that, “they’ve got to act like adults if they’re going to come to an adult function.”

But really, the festival isn’t about a bunch of rules, she said. It’s about coming to Talkeetna and enjoying being free and camping for a weekend, all the while listening to some good music.

She said she hopes to be a part of it until she passes on. And possibly even after.

“One day when Lulu’s gone, when y’all least expect it, someone’s going to have a Star Wars hologram of me on that stage yelling, ‘Talkeetna! Hello!” 

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.