This seven member musical melting pot combines soul, zydeco, folk, blues, rock, cajun and country. The Sacramento News and Review notes “the ‘gumbo’ metaphor in the band’s name is no mistake—a lot of ingredients may go into the mix, but they’ve all simmered long enough that an overall bouquet emerges before individual flavors make themselves known.”
Furthermore, as one of Northern California’s longtime, favorite feel-good bands, “it’s a safe bet that Mumbo Gumbo could get the most resolute hard-shelled Baptist to get up and shake a leg.”
What are we waiting for? Friday May 26th when Mumbo Gumbo hits the main stage at Strawberry Music Festival!
We are pleased to announce that Broken Compass Bluegrass will make its debut appearance on Strawberry’s Main Stage this year. We have received many requests to book these talented musicians, whose leader, Kyle Ledson, picked up his first instrument during a Fiddle For Kids workshop at Strawberry, when he was just 3 years old. A fortuitous shift in the lineup has allowed us to fulfill those requests, and you don’t want to miss their debut.
We look forward to seeing The Navigators again at Strawberry sometime in the future, and are amped about the silver lining that is Broken Compass Bluegrass.
“We present this music to scintillate your souls, soar your spirits, groove your bodies, and bounce your booties,” – that’s the Puffball Collective, a Santa Cruz based purveyor of funky dance jams.
They feature a wide range of music to keep your feet and faces happy, including an amazing catalog of original tunes ranging from acid jazz to freaky funk, Americana to bluegrass, rock~a~billy to sweet soul, and blues to psychedelic rockers.
They also do The Allman Brothers, The Grateful Dead, Sly Stone, The Beatles, heck, they even puffball’iize Peter Rowan and Bob Dylan.
Ah, such spirit-lifting revelry. So, what are we waiting for?? Strawberry!!
“A master song-crafter who mines gems from the Sierras of his soul and sings with tremendous heart. There’s gold up in them hills,” – Elmore Magazine.
Born to a cattle ranching family in Oakdale, CA, Willy Tea Taylor has a penchant for 4 string tenor guitars and baseball. Known for his poetic storytelling, Taylor shares his experience and songs without pretense, and with a deep love for music that got started partly at Strawberry.
One year in high school Willy Tea saw Greg Brown play at the Strawberry Music Festival. “I just sat there and said, ‘Oh my gosh, all I need to do is get a guitar because that is what I want to do forever,’” (Riverfront Times).
Get a guitar he did, and we are tickled to have him return this year. See you on the meadow for Willy Tea Taylor!
“To ask how Laurie Lewis’s music is relevant in this day and age, in the broader folk, Americana, and bluegrass scenes as a whole, would be similar to asking how a brick in a home’s foundation is relevant to its structure. Her influence, her reach and her artistic intent are quiet stalwarts on which so much has been built,” Justin Hiltner, Bluegrass Situation.
That’s right, and oh how we love our Californian, Grammy-winning ground-breaker! We’ve been smitten for years, and we’re not alone. Lewis has musical and literary admirers such as Linda Ronstadt, Wendell Berry, and Barbara Kingsolver, who writes “[Laurie Lewis’] poetic invocations of living nature are some of the most moving I’ve heard.”
A superstar songwriter, singer, player, producer, and teacher, she’s currently touring like crazy with an all-star band. We can’t imagine a more perfect Sunday evening at Strawberry – we’re thrilled to welcome back Laurie Lewis & The Right Hands.
Maline Hazle, leader of the Camping Assistance Crew, recalls her first Strawberry Music Festival as an entrance into a world of music she’d never known. Her parents brought her up on Frank Sinatra, and she’d seen Johnny Mathis, the Beach Boys – all very big names of the time. After tapping into the music scene at Strawberry, she notes “I was astonished at the range and depth of talent that I was never aware existed.”
Photo by Dave Bonnot at the Strawberry Big Bear Stage Fall 2017
She was living in the Bay Area, working as a reporter for the San Jose Mercury News. Besides the normal range of politics, she also covered terrorists, Mafioso murder, Patty Hearst, and once a prison gang put out a hit on her! (We’re glad she’s still around.) Also while at that paper, Maline’s esteemed reporting won her part of a joint Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Loma Prieta Earthquake.
Barry, her husband who passed just six years ago, worked as a public safety officer – director of emergency services. One day back in 1982, a friend of Barry’s had come to work glowingly describing a brand new festival he had just attended in Strawberry, CA. Maline and Barry decided to give it a try.
It was the second year of the festival (and its first year at Camp Mather), when Maline and Barry arrived, got settled, and “picked up some chairs and just followed people.” The time was around 5pm early Friday evening (when the festival was only three days), and they weren’t sure what to expect. As they entered the music meadow, Fiddlestix was playing. They were both instantly hooked from that moment on. Between the two of them, they’ve never missed a festival since.
Happily, in addition to Strawberry, Maline and Barry soon got involved in grassroots music in the Bay Area. They became regulars at the Freight and Salvage in Berkeley, and members of the Northern California Bluegrass Society (formerly the Santa Cruz Bluegrass Society). Clover Creek Music Booking was born, where they arranged west coast music tours for folks like Kathy Kallick and Marley’s Ghost.
Photo by Laurie Sylwester at the Spring 2013 Festival
A little while after moving to Oak Run, CA to build their own home near shady oaks and a gurgling creek, Maline joined Redding’s newspaper, The Record Searchlight, as a reporter and later, an editor. But y’know, homebuilding and reporting didn’t slow her down.
For three years after they first moved north Maline and Barry produced a bluegrass festival for the Redding Rotary – the Shasta Serenade. They featured some top of the line folks – Nashville Bluegrass Band, Don Reno, Lou Reid, Gibson Brothers. A bunch of Strawberry staffers volunteered for it.
Even closer to home, they found some neighbors who also went to Strawberry – Bruce and Linda Wendt. Soon both couples conspired to create a rural concert series patterned after Strawberry, and the Oaksong Society for the Preservation of Way Cool Music was born. Furthermore, Barry manned his own radio show for 20 years at North State Public Radio’s KCHO, and they both attended the International Bluegrass Music Association conference (IBMA,) and Folk Alliance conferences, as well. It was at a music conference in Arizona that they met one of Strawberry’s founders – Charlie Cran.
Barry and Maline became fast friends with Charlie, adding to another Strawberry founder, Mitch Third, whom they knew as well. As they became closer to Strawberry and its masterminds, their volunteer positions (previously Set-up/Tear-down and Garbage), morphed into “pretty much whatever Charlie needed.” Charlie would frequently call on Barry across the radio – “Big Bear!” Often it was a request to take good care of people with special needs, like CPAP machines or wheelchair accessible camping. Eventually, their title evolved into Camping Assistance Crew, with the general idea that they would “try to help people have a good time.” Their crew, usually 8 or 9 people, arrive so early and leave so late that they spend near 2 weeks on site at each festival.
Photo by Dave Bonnot at the Strawberry Big Bear Stage Fall 2017
Maline and Barry’s many friends and two sons also got hooked on Strawberry. One of them, Brian Hazle, is now very active in the organization. “It changed our lives,” says Maline, “as individuals, and as a family.”
When asked for more thoughts on Strawberry, Maline explained that she experiences Strawberry as more than a music festival; she sees it as a community where people respect one another. She appreciates it as a place where people can relax, be themselves, be inspired, and not feel threatened. “The Strawberry Way is real,” she says, “it’s a true philosophy of life.” Some of Maline’s best friends she’s ever made are at Strawberry. “It’s kind of like going home.”
The festival is incredibly grateful for the contributions by you and your family Maline, thank you so much for your commitment to and cultivation of Strawberry!
You can still purchase tickets to arrive on Wednesday, May 24th even though our 5-Night Camping with Group B is sold out. 5-Night Camping tickets with Group C arrival at 4pm are on sale now.
Strawberry Music Festival is a five-night family-friendly campout with entertainment and activities for all ages, in a beautiful forest setting that is easy to get to, and easy to get around. Make plans to kick off your summer season with a taste of delightful Strawberry jam.
Buy ticketsonline 24/7 or call us M-W, 10-2 at (209) 984-8630.
For more information or to view the lineup, visit our website. You can also send a message to info@strawberrymusic.com if you have questions or want help with your ticket order.
“One of the Best New Voices in Roots Music” is how Rolling Stone just headlined a review of Sunny War’s recent album, Anarchist Gospel. Sparing no affection for War’s “acoustic street-punk poetry,” the magazine goes on:
“War has always drawn from a number of traditions (Eighties hardcore, Delta Blues, Seventies singer-songwriter, folk busking). But never before have all those styles sounded more seamlessly integrated than on Anarchist Gospel, her latest LP.”
Pop Matters writes that her War’s new work “opens space for resilience born of clear-eyed honesty about life and its challenges.” And from the L.A. Weekly, “I haven’t heard a young guitarist this dexterous and ass-kicking in eons.”
Sunny was scheduled for last year, but couldn’t make it — we’re super excited to welcome her this year!
If you like Jason Isbell, Zach Brown, Leftover Salmon or Paul Simon, or maybe even if you don’t, you’ll probably love longtime Bay Area darling, Jimbo Scott. “Jimbo Scott stops the room with his voice and hearts with his words. I love every chance I get to see him live!” – KC Turner, presenter.
JIMBO SCOTT AND YESTERDAY’S BISCUITS
In late 2022, Jimbo joined forces with an all-star lineup of Nor Cal cats with years in bands like The Risky Biscuits and Carolyn Wonderland, resulting in “Yesterday’s Biscuits.” But these biscuits are as fresh as ever, and we happily anticipate some delectable Strawberry jam.
Check out their latest video, a cover of Fiona Apple’s “Criminal.” Jimbo tinkered with this song for years, and says he always loved how heads would turn when his deep baritone would rumble with “I’ve been a bad bad girl.”
This is your friendly reminder that 1-Day ticket sales have begun, and that the 5% discount on adult camping tickets ends at the end of the day tomorrow. To buy tickets or for more information go to https://strawberrymusic.com/tickets/ or call us M-W. 10-2 at (209) 984-8630.
• 1-Day Tickets (without camping) go on sale at 10:00am on Tuesday, March 21, 2023.
• Coupon Code: 23strawberryexpires at11:59pm on Wednesday, March 22, 2023.
• Coupon Code: CAMP23 will apply a 5% discount to camping ticket orders of $1000 or more and is good from this Thursday, March 23, 2023, through April, 26th.
• 5-Night Camping Tickets -Group B (including 2pm arrival) are almost gone. 5-Night Camping with Group C with arrival at 4:00pm will be available (for purchase or upgrade) until adult camping tickets are completely sold out.
We hope the new discount will help families save money and encourage festival friends to bundle ticket purchases. Do not wait to get your 5-Night Camping tickets – Group B if you want to arrive at 2:00pm on Wednesday, May 24th.
