Now in its 5 year, The River City Bluegrass Festival, Friday, Saturday & Sunday, January 9, 10 & 11, 2009, is a rare chance to see the 'best of the best' in acoustic and bluegrass music. RiverCity is an interactive, move-around-and-make-friends music event. The festival, which is the largest winter bluegrass/acoustic music festival ever held in Portland, features two and a half days of non-stop music and workshops.

Entering its second year at a new site in Oak HIll NY, Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival released the beginning of a lineup as an inducement for holiday ticket purchases. Through December 31, full festival admission and camping is available at a discounted $135. The first performers named to the 2009 lineup are perennial festival hosts Dry Branch Fire Squad pllus Del McCoury Band, Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band, The Steeldrivers, Crooked Still, Red Stick Ramblers and Farewell Drifters. That's a solid foundation, but we'll reserve judgment untill we see more names. FP festival page.

Quite possibly the most prestigious musical event today, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival has hit the big 4-0 and in turn, has outdone itself in booking nothing less than the cream of the crop. The 2009 lineup is incredibly diverse, both stylistically and chronologically, and will take music from jazz, pop, rock, soul, gospel, folk, salsa, blues, R&B, funk, and lots of music rooted in Louisiana, such as Cajun and zydeco. The event is scheduled to take place the weekends of April 24-26 and April 30-May 3 and it's a wonder how they've managed to cram hundreds of artists into a mere seven days. There are so many artists that one wouldn't know where to start unless they have a specific genre in mind. So for now, let's extract some of the rock bands that will be playing.

Although an official schedule has yet to be released, the lineup has been broken up between the two weekends. During the first weekend, Dave Matthews Band will be featured as one of the headliners (sadly, sans the original sax player). Wilco, who strangely drew in a larger crowd than Rage Against the Machine at Lollapalooza, will undoubtedly be received with open arms.  Read more »

Planet Bluegrass put off its Telluride Bluegrass Festival lineup announcement until after Christmas, but it rolled out an exciting preliminary lineup for RockyGrass 2009, which runs July 24-26 at the Platnet Bluegrass Ranch in Lyons CO.

With about two-thirds of the lineup named, the top headliners so far are Steve Earle & The Bluegrass Dukes, Hot Rize with Red Knuckles & The Trailblazers, Del McCoury Band and Earl Scruggs with Family & Friends. Not at all bad. There are also a bunch of descernable themes running through the program.

Hard-core bluegrass is represented by younger traditional bands like Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper and Danny Paisley & The Southern Grass in addition to Scruggs and McCoury. New grass experimentalism is also well expressed with Mike Marshall, Darol Anger, Three Ring Circle and California.

Claire Lynch, Darrell Scott and Tim O'Brien join Earle in the lineup as distinctive songwriting voices. The Kruger Brothers and Swedish stringband Väsen represent international influences, while Bearfoot, Sarah Jarosz and The High 48s signal that there is a youthful spirit coming up through the ranks.  Read more »

The self-proclaimed "Northeast's premier indoor festival" rolled out the main stage lineup for the 24th Joe Val Bluegrass Festival, set to run February 13-15, 2009, at the Sheraton Hotel in Framingham MA. Headed by breakout bluegrass stars Dailey and Vincent, the lineup is packed with blue-chip bluegrass acts, mostly from the genre's mainstream.

Other headline names include Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper, Steep Canyou Rangers, Claire Lynch Band, Josh Williams, Dry Branch Fire Squad and a new Kruger Brothers Bluegrass Project with featured members Adam Steffey and Bobby Hicks.

That's a lineup that should be appreciated by the tradition-leaning audience of the Boston Bluegrass Union, which has produced the festival since 1984 as a tribute to a pioneering bluegrass performer from the Boston area. Joe Val won the International Bluegrass Music Association award for Event of the Year in 2006.  Read more »

Although displayed on the site's main page as running from November 14th-16th, the schedule indicates that a day appears to have been added at the beginning. So the event will supposedly start on Thursday the 13th, featuring additional performances by Perpetual Groove and The Motet. Other headliners include JJ Grey and Mofro, Ivan Neville's Dumpstaphunk, Yonder Mountain String Band, Soulive, The New Mastersounds, Lettuce, The Everyone Orchestra featuring Jon Fishman and Michael Kang, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Dr. Claw (another Ivan Neville outfit), and many more.  Read more »

Ted Lehmann attended 26 music festivals in 2008—mostly bluegrass but some with a broader mission. His thoughts on the state of the market concludes with this observation:

Festivals, in order to succeed, need to reach out to a wider and more diverse audience. Varying the kinds of music, even within the label bluegrass, will help to create a more welcoming and interesting environment. Reaching out to a younger and more culturally diverse audience will increase the size and enthusiasm of audiences. Establishing clear guidelines for audiences in terms of smoking, drinking, dancing, and other behaviors and then ENFORCING them will pay off big time. Much of the festival environment is still attractive and will continue to entertain a wide variety of visitors. Camping, field picking, visiting with old friends, a range of vendors, exciting music, and a festive atmosphere all yield a good time. Thoughtful promoters will find ways to continue the traditional elements making up successful festivals while attracting new audiences through creatively altering their programs and formats.  Read more »

The headliners named for the 2009 Stagecoach festival will give plenty of draw for the SoCal country audience, with genre heartthrobs Brad Paisley making his festival debut and Kenny Chesney returning after topping the bill in 2007. Reba McEntire should delight that same audience with her throwback country style but updated media personality. Kid Rock could add appeal for a crossover audience with his rap rock style.

Miranda Lambert provides some balance to the hunks in the country chick department, where the initial lineup looks to be otherwise somewhat light. This is an initial lineup only, however.

I'll let the country music bloggers and media analyze the bookings from the Nashville perspective. Festival Preview has followed Stagecoach since its 2007 debut more for its side stages, where an impressive array of alt-county, Americana, bluegrass and western artists have been featured.

The 2009 lineup offers some interesting names in these related categories, which combine to give Stagecoach a well rounded character that differentiates it from other pure Big Country blowouts. A few names that jump out at me are:  Read more »