The award winning Charm City Bluegrass Festival in Baltimore, MD, has just announced it 2017 lineup!
The festival features indie-folk trio The Lone Bellow; an all-star band featuring Andy Thorn and Drew Emmitt of Leftover Salmon and Adam Aijala and Ben Kaufmann of Yonder Mountain String Band; eclectic bluegrass jammers Cabinet; progressive bluegrass band Seldom Scene; renowned Baltimore guitarist and singer-songwriter Cris Jacobs; eight-piece American roots orchestra Dustbowl Revival; powerhouse contemporary bluegrass band Lonesome River Band.
Additional performers includes Horseshoes & Hand Grenades, Valerie Smith and Liberty Pike, Danny Paisely & The Southern Grass, Kitchen Dwellers, Country Current (the U.S. Navy Bluegrass Band), Frankie Short & The Northern Connection and the battle of the bands contest winner (TBD).
Tickets are on sale now for the festival, which won Event of the Year in the 2016 International Bluegrass Music Association Momentum Awards.
In addition to the two main stages, a third stage will feature festival performers giving intimate performances and taking audience questions. As always, there will be an open bluegrass jam throughout the day.
General admission tickets for $55 and VIP tickets for $160 are currently on sale here. The improved VIP includes enhanced VIP meals, fewer tickets available to improve restroom and meal lines, a larger and elevated VIP seating area centered for optimal viewing of both stages, standing room only space directly in front of the stages and bottomless Union Craft Brewing beer.
For each ticket sold, the festival will donate $2 to the Howard Peters Rawlings Conservatory and Botanic Gardens, which sits next to the festival grounds, to support horticulture education programs.
The 8×10 in Federal Hill will once again host the festival’s official after party, with artists to be announced.
Union Craft Brewing returns as the festival’s official beer vendor, and they will be joined by a variety of the area’s finest food and drink vendors.
The festival will also feature a raffle to benefit Believe in Music, a nonprofit that aims to give inner city Baltimore students a multifaceted music education.
After a sold out inaugural festival at Union Craft Brewing in 2013, the festival moved to Baltimore’s iconic Druid Hill Park for the 2014 festival. The festival has continued to grow each year, attracting more than 3,000 attendees in 2016.
Partners Phil Chorney (CEO), Jordan August (COO), and Adam Kirr (CMO) aim to keep Baltimore’s bluegrass tradition alive and well. Charm City can trace its bluegrass roots back to the 1930s, when Southern Appalachian musicians began migrating to Baltimore seeking work. The music they brought with them made Baltimore a bluegrass haven in the 1950s and 1960s.
Continuing in that tradition, the Charm City Folk and Bluegrass Festival has featured legends Tim O’Brien and Tony Trischka, 14-time Grammy award winner Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder, Grammy award-winning dobro virtuoso Jerry Douglas, Keller Williams and The Travelin’ McCourys, Steep Canyon Rangers, Sierra Hull, The Wood Brothers, Noam Pikelny and Chris Eldridge of the Punch Brothers as well as a variety of regional talent.
Follow the Charm City Folk and Bluegrass Festival on the web at charmcitybluegrass.com and on Facebook at facebook.com/
