JamVember in July, a weekend-long bluegrass non-festival, will be held on the 19th, 20th & 21st of July at Camp Kee-wanee in Greenfield, MA just 10 minutes from the intersection of Rt. 2 & I-91. It starts at 6 pm on Friday and ends at 1 pm on Sunday. https://jamvember.com/index.html for more information
Aoife O’Donovan and Hawktail join together for a night of joyous music. Hawktail opens the evening with their signature songs and cosmopolitan sound. Aoife O’Donovan will then take the stage with Hawktail as her band, performing songs from the Grammy-award winning musician’s 4th studio album All My Friends (out March 22, 2024). O’Donovan continues to enchant audiences worldwide with her soul-stirring music and unwavering passion for storytelling through song. Deemed “a vocalist of unerring instinct” by the New York Times, she has released three critically-acclaimed and boundary-blurring solo albums including literarily crafted Age Of Apathy, which received three Grammy nominations. Her newest album, All My Friends is based around a collection of songs Aoife O’Donovan wrote, inspired by women’s suffrage and the passage of the 19th amendment. The album is a deep dive into the reimagining of the life of Carrie Chapman Catt – one of the movement’s leaders and founder of the League of Women Voters – juxtaposed with Aoife’s own experiences as a woman and mother. Hawktail is the acoustic instrumental trio of fiddler Brittany Haas, bassist Paul Kowert, and guitarist Jordan Tice. Though at first glance it looks like an acoustic super-picker side-project, their all-original music is cohesive and unique, distinguishing them as an ensemble with a sound built from the ground up. Flush with orchestral sweeps and sparse vigils, with strains of the American South and the North Atlantic. Together, they have fostered a reputation as a rare ensemble of composers and instrumentalists able to take the listener on a journey, without the use of words.
Little Wishbone is a rollicking old-time string band based in the New Hampshire & Maine seacoast. If you like Old Hat Stringband or Green Heron, you'll love Little Wishbone! $10 cover
New England’s Five Best Bluegrass Bands Saturday July 20, 2024 9:00AM - 8:00 PM 451 Meetinghouse Rd. Gilmanton, NH Free Rough Camping Fri & Sat with Advance Tickets Join us at “Smith Meetinghouse” for an AMAZING DAY OF BLUEGRASS! This event is the 250th Anniversary of the establishment of the Meetinghouse. The First Congregational Society in Gilmanton is a Non-Profit 501(c)(3) organization that maintains the historic buildings on this site. The Bluegrass Festival is a fundraising event to help the annual costs of maintaining and preserving the buildings and grounds. Bring your own lawn chairs, blankets and appetite, we will have great vendors onsite! *$50 Tickets at the gate or $45 available by check or money order through June 30, 2024 Please address check to “FCSG Meetinghouse” and mail to: 544 Meeting House Road, Gilmanton, NH 03237 Please include self-addressed, stamped envelope
New England’s Five Best Bluegrass Bands Saturday July 20, 2024 9:00AM - 8:00 PM 451 Meetinghouse Rd. Gilmanton, NH Free Rough Camping Fri & Sat with Advance Tickets Join us at “Smith Meetinghouse” for an AMAZING DAY OF BLUEGRASS! This event is the 250th Anniversary of the establishment of the Meetinghouse. The First Congregational Society in Gilmanton is a Non-Profit 501(c)(3) organization that maintains the historic buildings on this site. The Bluegrass Festival is a fundraising event to help the annual costs of maintaining and preserving the buildings and grounds. Bring your own lawn chairs, blankets and appetite, we will have great vendors onsite! *$50 Tickets at the gate or $45 available by check or money order through June 30, 2024 Please address check to “FCSG Meetinghouse” and mail to: 544 Meeting House Road, Gilmanton, NH 03237 Please include self-addressed, stamped envelope
At Roadrunner Boston.
Ossipee Valley is a music festival in Maine. The festival features four stages, food trucks, craft beer, yoga, barn dances, workshops, kids activities, craft vendors and camping. It is dreamily situated on the banks of the Ossipee river, amongst tall pines and goat barns, in southern Maine, under an hour from Portland or North Conway, and 2.5 hrs NW of Boston. The festival is known for featuring ascendant acts in roots, bluegrass, americana, folk, world, and blues music, but it is about more than just the music: Ossipee Valley is a community where all are welcome. Moon dancers, flatpickers, gangs of kids on bikes, barefoot granolas and retired RV grandmas, wallflowers, instigators, listeners, players, makers and shakers unite under the fresh summer sky. Come join us. Don't forget to join us for the Ossipee Valley String Camp-a 5 day immersive educational experience that comes with a pass to the festival, for seven whole days of musical bliss.
Larry Bellorín hails from Monagas, Venezuela and is a legend of Llanera music. Joe Troop is from North Carolina and is a GRAMMY-nominated bluegrass and oldtime musician. Larry was forced into exile and is an asylum seeker in North Carolina. Joe, after a decade in South America, got stranded back in his stomping grounds in the pandemic. Larry works construction to make ends meet. Joe’s acclaimed “latingrass” band Che Apalache was forced into hiatus, and he shifted into action working with asylum seeking migrants. Currently based in the Triangle of North Carolina, both men are versatile multi-instrumentalists and singer-songwriters on a mission to show that music has no borders. As a duo they perform a fusion of Venezuelan and Appalachian folk music on harp, banjo, cuatro, fiddle, maracas, guitar, upright bass, and whatever else they decide to throw in the van. The program they offer features a distinct blend of their musical inheritances and traditions as well as storytelling about the ways that music and social movements coalesce.
Masters of their trade, The Lonesome Ace Stringband bring grit, skill and abandon to Americana music, bridging old-time, bluegrass and folk traditions into a seamless hybrid of original material that is at once fresh and timeless. Instrumentation alone sets this Toronto-based trio’s sound apart: consisting simply of fiddle (John Showman), clawhammer banjo (Chris Coole), and upright bass (Max Heineman). The spine-tingling harmonies and interchanging lead vocals only bring more magic to the equation. They’ve become festival favourites at Rockygrass, Celtic Connections, Winnipeg Folk Festival, Merlefest and regularly tour the USA, UK, Germany and, of course, Canada. With more than a decade of group music-making under their belts, they’re releasing their fifth album, a feisty and mighty collection of all-original material titled ‘Try To Make It Fly’ (October 13, 2023).
Some of New England's finest bluegrass musicians pay tribute to Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard.