Newport Folk Festival Announces 2018 Lineup Featuring Courtney Barnett, Sturgill Simpson and Hamilton Leithauser With Rostam

Photo Credit: Sharon Alagna

The 2018 Newport Folk Festival is back for its 35^th year and a classic lineup has been announced. The event will take place July 27-29 at Fort Adams State Park in Newport, RI; with more artist announcements coming soon.

A dynamic list of artists this year will feature the likes of Sturgill Simpson, Passenger, The War and Treaty, Darlingside, Fantastic Negrito, Gary Clark Jr. and many more. The festival is accessible in just about every way imaginable and is only one and a half hours away from Boston and three and a half hours away from New York City.

Considered one of the first modern music festivals in America; the folk gatherings inaugural year was in 1959 and was started by George Wein and Albert Grossman. The festival saw some of the best performers of the time such as Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger and the Kingston Trio and throughout the sixties experienced success until it was cancelled in 1970 and did not make a return until 1985.

The difference between older festivals and the new arrival in 1985 was that the event went from nonprofit to a for-profit venture and the festival started to mix veteran acts with up-and-comers; like in 1986 when a 14 year old Alison Krauss was introduced as a fiddle virtuoso. Since 1986 Newport Folk has continued to bring the best of what is considered to be pure Americana, folk, country, bluegrass and good old fashioned fun.

The 2017 lineup featured household names such as Angel Olsen, Fleet Foxes, Drive-By Truckers, The Avett Brothers, and Wilco while featuring the lesser known such as Offa Rex, Pinegrove and Mt. Joy. 2016 brought much of the same fun and mix of names such as Flight of the Conchords, Ray Lamontagne, Patti Smith, Norah Jones, Alabama Shakes and Elvis Costello.

Update: 3/15

Nicole Atkins, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Caamp, Charlie Parr, JD McPherson, The Lone Bellow and Phoebe Bridgers have been added to the 2018 Newport Folk Festival lineup. The festival will continue with rolling updates throughout the next few weeks so stay tuned for more updates.

For ticket information you can go here.