Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival 12 Full Schedule / Picks / Spotify Playlist

The 12th year of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival shows the premier showcase for great (and FREE!) Americana and roots music is showing no signs of slowing down. This year might prove to be the best yet as old friends like Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle and Ralph Stanley are joined by event newcomers like punk-turned-folkie Chuck Ragan, Texas sweethearts The Trishas and Americana darlings The Civil Wars, who pulled out of last year’s HSB.

Have fun, and remember to wear layers and stay hydrated out there (and upwind.)  Below find the schedule with my picks in bold.

 

 

Friday Oct 5 (10:00am – 7:00pm)

Star Stage
10:00am Poor Man’s Whiskey and Preservation Hall Jazz Band

Banjo Stage
12:00pm John Reilly and Friends (featuring Becky Stark and Tom Brosseau)
    1:15pm Chuck Mead & His Grassy Knoll Boys
    2:40pm The Jerry Douglas Band
    4:15pm The Time Jumpers (Vince Gill, Dennis Crouch, Paul Franklin, Larry Franklin, Andy Reiss, Dawn Sears, Kenneth Sears, Joe Spivey, Jeff Taylor & Billy Thomas)
    5:45pm Elvis Costello Solo

Arrow Stage
12:00pm Chuck Ragan
1:00pm Pickwick
2:10pm Chris Carrabba
3:20pm Patterson Hood & the Downtown Rumblers
    4:45pm Jon Langford & His Sadies feat. Sally Timms
6:15pm Reignwölf

Rooster Stage
12:00pm Simone Felice
    1:00pm Chuck Prophet & the Mission Express
2:20pm Beachwood Sparks
3:25pm Ben Kweller
4:25pm Jenny Lewis
5:45pm Conor Oberst

Saturday Oct 6 (11:00am – 7:00pm)

Banjo Stage
11:00am World Famous Headliners (Big Al Anderson, Shawn Camp, Pat McLaughlin, Michael Rhodes & Greg Morrow)
12:10pm Alison Brown Quartet with Stuart Duncan
1:25pm Buddy Miller
2:45pm Tribute to the Founding Fathers: Warren Hellman, Earl Scruggs and Doc Watson featuring Alison Brown, Stuart Duncan, Tim O’Brien and Bryan Sutton, with special guests Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris with Heidi Clare & Colleen Browne (from the Wronglers), Peter Rowan, Nick Lowe & more!
4:15pm The Chieftains
5:45pm Steve Earle & the Dukes (& Duchesses)

Rooster Stage
11:00am The Go to Hell Man Clan with Special Guests the Wronglers featuring Jimmie Dale Gilmore
12:00pm Lloyd Cole
1:10pm Guy Clark & Verlon Thompson
2:30pm The Lumineers
  3:50pm Patty Griffin
    5:30pm Robert Earl Keen

Star Stage
    11:00am Roger Knox and the Pine Valley Cosmonauts
    12:30pm Dirty Three
    2:10pm Dave Alvin & the Guilty Ones
3:45pm Cowboy Junkies
5:45pm Chris Robinson Brotherhood

Towers Of Gold Stage
11:40am Red Baraat
1:20pm Justin Townes Earle
3:00pm Les Claypool’s Duo De Twang
4:45pm The Head & the Heart

Arrow Stage
11:00am The Trishas
    12:05pm Reckless Kelly
1:30pm Bill Kirchen & The Hammer of the Honky-Tonk Gods
2:45pm Heartless Bastards
4:05pm Jerry Jeff Walker
    5:35pm The Flatlanders feat. Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore & Butch Hancock

Porch Stage
11:00am Joe Pug
12:10pm Sara Watkins
1:25pm Little Green Cars
2:40pm Allison Moorer
3:50pm Robyn Hitchcock
4:50pm Sierra Hull
6:05pm Seasick Steve

Sunday Oct 7 (11:00am – 7:00pm)
Banjo Stage
11:00am Dry Branch Fire Squad
12:05pm Laurie Lewis & The Right Hands
1:20pm Peter Rowan
2:45pm Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mountain Boys
4:15pm Tim O’Brien Party of 7
5:45pm Emmylou Harris

Rooster Stage
11:00am Jim Lauderdale
    12:05pm Kevin Welch & Kieran Kane & Fats Kaplin
1:10pm Jesse Winchester
2:20pm Glen Hansard
3:35pm Nick Lowe
4:50pm Todd Snider
6:10pm The Civil Wars

Star Stage
11:00am Giant Giant Sand
12:40pm The Knitters
2:15pm DOUG SAHM’S PHANTOM PLAYBOYS featuring: dave ALVIN, steve EARLE, delbert McCLINTON, boz SCAGGS, jimmie VAUGHAN… and whoever the cat drags in…
4:05pm The Del McCoury Band
6:00pm Keller Williams, Steve Kimock & Kyle Hollingsworth featuring Bernie Worrell, Wally Ingram & Andy Hess

Towers of Gold Stage
12:00pm The Milk Carton Kids
1:30pm Soul Rebels
3:10pm Dwight Yoakam
5:00pm Patti Smith and her band

Arrow Stage
11:00am Lucero
12:05pm Moonalice
1:25pm Rubblebucket
2:45pm Son Volt
4:10pm Luther Dickinson & the Wandering
5:45pm ALO

Porch Stage
11:00am The New Orleans Bingo! Show
12:10pm Tiny Television
1:25pm The Barr Brothers
2:40pm Amanda Shaw & the Cute Guys
3:55pm The White Buffalo
5:10pm Walter Salas-Humara
6:20pm Jonny Two Bags & Salvation Town

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival 2012 Lineup

The upcoming Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, the 12th annual and the first after the passing of benefactor and spiritual leader Warren Hellman, continues a practice it began last year by teasing us with audio hints to reveal it’s roster.

It’s a fun undertaking that social media helps to uncover the more obscure performers. Once the audio mystery has been solved you find HSB 12, as as it has in recent years, offers a stellar roster of roots and Americana performers with the occasional current rock favorites (Heartless Bastards) and baby boom indy darlings (Patti Smith, Nick Lowe.)

These latter, I’m assured when bemoaning the Americana acts that could have filled the slots, put the “Hardly Strictly” in Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. Personally I’d put The White Buffalo (The White Buffalo is now on the bill!) or Corb Lund in any of their places.

As mentioned HSB 12 is the first Hardly Strictly since the festival benefactor Warren Hellman passed away December of last year. Hellman made his bones in private equity investing and, in the truest form of benevolence and love of music (that I share) funded the free festival out of his own pocket every year since its inception, I’ve been told that his will has provided for the event’s continued funding for at least a decade after his death.

The beautiful stretch of Golden Gate Park where the festival’s 5 stages are erected had it’s name changed from Speedway Meadow to Hellman Hollow in tribute.

The festival’s being a free event has led to serious overcrowding the last few years to the point where moving from stage to stage has become a chore and, on hotter days, a risky endeavor. Most of my my friends pick=jk a stage with the roster they most prefer and settle in with a blanket and cooler.

I spend the day braving the crowds and visiting these friends. After all, as an Americana music blogger it will not do to lay in the grass while Ralph Stanley or Buddy Miller echos from a distant stage.

Remember bring water, stay upwind from the weed, and leave your young children and pets at home, Especially on warmer days they don’t deserve the self-inflicted torture of the crowds.

Here’s to great music and here’s to Warren Hellman, a man I met briefly (and fittingly at the Ryman Theater in Nashville.) He was warm and gracious and his love for this music poured from him. Bless you Mr. Hellman and the legacy have left San Francisco. If you haven’t see it take a look at the archived Hellman tribute concert from Ocean Beach,

Here’s my best guess at the bill so far; Emmylou Harris has not been mentioned yet but as the sole performer that has been on the bill since the first HSB look for her addition.

Elvis Costello, Patti Smith, The Head and the Heart, Glen Hansard, Patty Griffin, Dwight Yoakam, The Lumineers, Nick Lowe, Heartless Bastards, Robert Earl Keen, Son Volt, Ralph Stanley, Lloyd Cole, Les Claypool, Todd Snider, Dirty Three, Dave Alvin, Rubblebucket, Sara Watkins, Buddy Miller, Jerry Douglas, The Milk Carton Kids, Del Mccoury, Soul Rebels Brass Band, Peter Rowan, The Chris Robinson Brotherhood, Laurie Lewis, Red Baraat, Giant Giant Sand, Little Green Cars, Chuck Prophet & The Mission Express, Tiny Television, The Wandering, Laurie Lewis And The Right Hands, Amanda Shaw & The Cute Guys, Mike Farris and the Roseland Rhythm Revue, Chuck Mead & His Grassy Knoll Boys, Tim O’brien Party of Seven, Time Jumper, Steve Earle and the Dukes (and Duchesses), The Go to Hell Man Clan, Patterson Hood & the Downtown Rumblers, Old Crow Medicine Show