NACO, Ariz. — Sooner or later, a musical secret in the desert may catch the ear of more people.

For the second year, Pete Campbell managed to corral some of the best musicians that cross cultural heritages and continents to entertain at the annual Old Time Music Festival, which started Friday and ran through Sunday.

“It has something to please everyone,” says not just Campbell, but many people and players who came to the desert border town to hear world-renowned fiddler and Native American flautist Aruel Bird, rollicking banjoist Billy Lilly and a host of others.

“This is the best music and dance show in the state,” Tucsonan Barbara Seyda said. “I loved the dance on Friday night.”

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Seyda and her friend, Elena Martin, were at the festival bright and early Sunday morning dancing to an Irish jig being played by several fiddle players during a workshop.

Bird, a Scottish-Paiute, who was trained as a classical violinist from age 9, also was warming up at the workshop. He was presented with the 2007 Native American Music Awards Artist of the Year.

“I wanted to play a trumpet, but my family only had a violin. It was a large violin made for a big man so I struggled with it; then a teacher took pity on me,” Bird said.

Family life was difficult for Bird and his siblings.

“I was so shy, so lonely and my violin was my way of escaping. It was a matter of survival,” he said. “My teacher brought to me this sense of magic through music. It became my path, my journey.

“She taught that you don’t have to be the best or the fastest. You just have to play with passion. So, I threw my heart into it.”

On the concert stage, an eclectic duo was thrilling the crowd with music that blended a multitude of cultures, with a bit of Led Zeppelin thrown in for good measure.

Chipper Thompson and Roger Landes have mastered the bouzouki, an ancient Greek instrument much like a large eight-stringed mandolin, and brought it into music genres from Mississippi Delta Blues, Persia, Hungary, Romania, Ireland and even Mexico.

The two met through the maker of the instrument and decided their combination of Appalachian and Irish music would make a platform from which to build a large repertoire of music from across the globe.

Off in another building, a guitar workshop was being held where newbies were given pointers by the pros and learned a new technique or two for realizing the sound they’re were looking for.

“This is the greatest festival in the world and the people who don’t come next year are just stupid,” announced Jeanie McLerie of Bayou Seyco, who was sitting in.

Billy Lilly, who stepped in just to chat, said he was classically trained on Hawaiian steel guitar, not exactly the guitar he had envisioned when he asked his folks to get him a guitar.

Now an accomplished banjo picker, he said he was surprised at the welcome all these forms of music received in the Southwest.

“ I expect it in Louisiana (his home state), Kentucky and Tennessee, but out here?” he asked.

Lilly explained that every region has its own twist to a song. Things learned in Louisiana by a Tennessean and played in Georgia adds a new twist that includes region’s character and so on.

“One song can grow into many different versions,” he added.  

There was also a jamming tent where the musicians got to play with their peers, which was a big hit, Campbell said.

Other musicians performing over the weekend included the Cajun-Old West group Bayou Seco, Western singers Motel Arizona, the string band music of the Privy Tippers, and the spicy Tex-Mex Rubio Family.

Campbell estimated the festival brought in around 600 people, an increase over last year.

“This year’s fest has met all expectations,” Campbell said. “And next year, it will be just as good.”

Herald/Review reporter Shar Porier can be reached at 515-4692 or by e-mail at shar.porier@bisbeereview.net.