Photo Credit: Owen Ela
Back for its 33rd official annual year to the beach town of Newport, Rhode Island, and looking to make a splash on the folk music community once again, The Newport Folk Festival has just announced, via Consequence of sound, the artist line-up to its 2016 celebrations. The festival will feature plenty of artist from all over the music spectrum, as well as plenty of different interactive activities that will help captivate attendees and guarantee fun times. The event will be going down from July 22nd thru the 24th and looks to be one of the prime stop overs on anyone’s festival list.
Beginning in 1959 as a counterpart to the previously established Newport Jazz Festival, Newport Folk Festival is an annual 3-day folk-oriented festival that takes place in the picturesque town of Newport, Rhode Island at Fort Adams State Park. It was founded by George Wein, who had already established the Jazz Festival, and is backed by the full original board comprised of Theodore Bikel, Oscar Brand, Pete Seeger, and Albert Grossman. The festival had a knack for introducing its national audience to a number of performers who would go on to become major stars, one example of such is Joan Baez who appeared as an unannounced guest for Bob Gibson in 1959, and later on 1963 Baez invited Bob Dylan as a guest at the 1963 festival. However, if you thought that folk music was the only genre that this festival would have, you would be mistaken. In the 60’s, artists like Johnny Cash, Muddy Waters, Jose Feliciano all would be part of the festival, bringing a more eclectic fan base to the already popular event. During the end of the 60’s the festival had fallen on hard times, causing itself to close the doors for a number of years beginning in 1971, but to much excitement had been revived in 1985 to come back with a force, becoming one of the major folk festivals in the US and has been going strong ever since with only minor differences.
In 2010 SPIN Magazine described the music of the event as part of the festival’s “rich history of uniting disparate genres of music…The one common thread: each artist’s sound is celebration of American music, thus qualifying it as “folk,” or “carriers of culture.”
Just as with previous years, this year boasts a stacked line-up of popular folk acts to tickle attendees fancy, with performers like Flight of the Conchords, The Oh Hellos, Father John Misty, Norah Jones, and plenty more, it seems like Newport should be a destination on anyone’s travel plans this summer.
GA & VIP Tickets are now available.
Newport Music Festival 2016 official line-up (UPDATED: 06/02/2016):
Friday:
Flight of the Conchords
Ray Lamontagne
The Arcs (new)
Violent Femmes (new)
case/lang/veirs
St. Paul & The Broken Bones
Brett Dennen
Matthew Logan Vasquez
The Staves
Aoife O’Donovan
Radical Face
Fruit Bats
Raury
Basia Bulat
Amasa Hines
Wild Child
Freakwater
JR Harris
For Pete’s Sake
Saturday:
Patti Smith & Her Band
Norah Jones
Ryan Adamns with The Infamous Stringdusters feat. Nivki Bluhm
Graham Nash
Father John Misty (Solo)
Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats
Del & Dawg
Frightened Rabbit
Dave Simonett & Dave Carroll
Margo Price
Amy Helm
Rayland Baxter
John Moreland
Songhoy Blues
Lady Lamb
Ruby Amanfu
The Cactus Blossoms
Banditos
For Pete’s Sake
Sunday:
Alabam Shakes
Elvis Costello
Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros
Middle Brother
Glen Hansard
Phil Cook Presents “Southland Revue” feat. The Blind Boys of Alabama & Amelia Meath (Sylvan Esso)
Preservation Hall Jazz Band
Brian Fallon
The Oh Hellos
Hayes Carll
Villagers
Strumberllas
Son Little
Julien Baker
Joan Shelly
River Whyless
Ian Fitzgeraldw/ Smith & Weeden
Berklee Gospel & Roots Choir
For Pete’s Sake
Ray Lamontagne
Brett Dennen
Villagers
case/lang/veirs
Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats
Son Little
St. Paul & The Broken Bones
Dave Simonett & Dave Carrol
Joan Shelley
Fruit Bats
Ruby Amanfu
Rauby
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