The inaugural Earl Scruggs Music Festival has announced that at this time, the event is still set to take place September 4 and 5, 2020 at Tryon International Equestrian Center in Mill Spring, western North Carolina. The Festival will be a benefit for the Earl Scruggs Center and Isothermal Community College.
The festival will focus on bluegrass and American roots music, featuring an all-star line-up of artists. The list of artists scheduled to perform include Old Crow Medicine Show, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Ricky Skaggs, The Earls of Leicester, Junior Brown, Acoustic Syndicate, Jerry Douglas, Alison Brown, Rebirth Brass Band, Jim Lauderdale, Darin & Brooke Aldridge, Dom Flemons, Radney Foster, Blue Highway, Dale Ann Bradley, Chatham County Line, The Barefoot Movement, The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys, Unspoken Tradition, Chatham Rabbits, Anna Lynch.
“Earl was my uncle, so I knew him a long time,” says JT Scruggs, a board member of the Earl Scruggs Center. “The first Earl Scruggs Music Festival presents an opportunity to bring exposure and new visitors to the Earl Scruggs Center in Shelby, North Carolina. The proceeds from the festival will also help to keep the center in good financial shape. The festival will bring great music and many different groups to the region. And I hope that people will hear things about Earl that they may have never heard before as all the artists share their personal stories. I know that Earl would be proud of what we are doing and that we are remembering him through the festival.”
Guitar maestro Jerry Douglas says: “As far as I’m concerned this festival named in his honor is far overdue. But I also believe that’s the way Earl would want it to be. We can only hope that we can make him proud in how we perceive his legacy to the world.”
“I grew up in North Carolina and I feel so lucky to have that in common with legends like Earl Scruggs,” said Noah Wall of The Barefoot Movement. “He was such a trailblazer, not just a pioneer of bluegrass, but he also pushed the boundaries of traditional music. I don’t think he set out to be different for the sake of standing out, I think he did it for sake of the music itself. He just sought after good music, music that moved him, and that is so inspiring to me.”
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Author: World Music Central News Room
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