The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass for 2010 line-up has been posted

[Jim MacDaniel]

The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival just announced its line-up for this year's free festival in Golden Gate Park on October 1, 2, & 3. More acts will be added later as they are signed, but so far the line-up includes the following...

Holly Golightly and the Brokeoffs, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Justin Townes Earle, Nathaniel Rateliff, Jenny & Johnny featuring Jenny Lewis & Johnathan Rice, Buddy Miller, Jonathan Richman, Elvis Costello and the Sugarcanes, Jerry Jeff Walker, Conor Oberst, Nick Lowe, The Band of Heathens, The Dukes of September Rhythm Revue featuring Donald Fagen, Michael McDonald & Boz Scaggs, Kelly Willis, Hazel Dickens, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, Earl Scruggs, Dave Alvin & the Guilty Women, Gillian Welch, Lucero, Blue Highway, David Grisman Quintet, Carolyn Wonderland, Hot Tuna Electric, Kevin Welch, Kieran Kane & Fats Kaplin, Steve Earle and the Dukes, Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band, Patti Smith, Laurie Lewis & the Right Hands, the subdudes, Robert Earl Keen, Randy Newman, Moonalice, Mondo Cane, Railroad Earth, Martin Sexton, The Avett Brothers, The Magnolia Sisters, Anderson Family Bluegrass, The Flatlanders featuring Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore & Butch Hancock, Dry Branch Fire Squad, The Wronglers, Joan Baez, Kinky Friedman, Indigo Girls, Yonder Mountain String Band, Keller & the Keels, Margot Leverett and the Klezmer Mountain Boys, Richard Thompson, Citigrass, Bonnie Prince Billy & the Cairo Gang, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue, James McMurtry, Skip Gorman, Doc Watson & David Holt, The Del McCoury Band, Rosanne Cash, Fountains of Wayne, Evie Ladin, Jon Langford, Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys, David Olney & Sergio Webb, T Bone Burnett and Friends, The Ebony Hillbillies, The Felice Brothers, Emmylou Harris, Umphrey's McGee, Wendy Bird, Jackie Greene, Patty Griffin, Peter Himmelman

[Marcus CA]

Maybe The Dukes of September Rhythm Revue will inspire some other interesting collaborations. I nominate Patti Smith and Earl Scruggs.

[MandoNicity]

Holy ####!!! What a line up!!! I'd love to see every one of those bands/musicians. That's spectacular! And here I am on the right coast. Fuss and bother....


JR

[Mandolin Mick]

That's quite the lineup!

[BradKlein]

Although I'd heard of Hardly Strictly, I didn't know much. And that line up, for a FREE festival, seemed just impossible, until a little research turned up what many of you probably know already, that the whole thing was founded and is funded by investor, Warren Hellman. In a Forbes interview in 2006, he was asked about money and philanthropy.

Hellman: There's the quote by [Texas financier Clint] Murchison: "Money is like manure. If you spread it around, good things will grow--and if you pile it up, it just smells bad' [ Eds: More or less].

I do believe that. I don't have any passion for or interest in collecting stuff. I don't have any interest in owning expensive art or Lamborghinis. It's just another thing to maintain. It's not a moral judgment; it just doesn't move me at all.

What does move me is philanthropic stuff. Giving really does move me. Part of it is selfish: It's fun to be appreciated. But the other part of it is that good things really are growing. The San Francisco Foundation changes lives. I describe the festival frequently as the world's most selfish gift. It's a fantastically selfish gift, but it is a gift. There are hundreds of thousands of people there who are appreciating it. Just being able to do something that is completely not commercial, that is pure, hopefully, pleasure for the participants--to create a surrounding where the musicians and professionals like it as much as the crowd does. How could you have more fun than that? What the hell is money for if it isn't for something like that?

[Toycona]

For those of you who don't live in the Bay Area, this is a world class weekend festival (and free! thanks to Warren Hellman), but it has grown to become an ENORMOUS event. So my suggestions are: Take public transit, come early, stay late, bring a picnic lunch and a chair (and some sunscreen) and move around from stage to stage (don't stick to one stage only).

Hope to see you there!

Toycona

[barney 59]

For those of you who don't live in the Bay Area, this is a world class weekend festival (and free! thanks to Warren Hellman), but it has grown to become an ENORMOUS event. So my suggestions are: Take public transit, come early, stay late, bring a picnic lunch and a chair (and some sunscreen) and move around from stage to stage (don't stick to one stage only).

Hope to see you there!

Toycona

It takes a year or two to figure out all the woodland trails that will get you from stage to stage ahead of or in spite of the crowds and to end up at a great spot to see the show even though there were thousands in front of you and to not have to push or shove to do it. I have mastered it and can be right up front at one stage and right up front at the next. It does get bigger geometrically every year and Warren has set it up so that it should continue indefinitely and I suppose it will continue to grow. I tend to really hate giant crowded events but I like this one. Forget the chair or the blanket it's easier without luggage.