Alison Brown at the 2026 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival – photo © Dave Berry
Another year of great free music has come and gone in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, put on by the Warren Hellman Foundation. This year saw more blue than grey skies, equal amounts of colorful hair and grey hair; headliners galore, and lots of new and familiar bands from the Americana scene, with a few bluegrass and old-time acts sprinkled in. As usual, I focused my photo pit travels on the bluegrass and old-time acts, but sometimes, I just can’t resist capturing some of my non-BGOT favorites, like Los Lobos this year. I like to get out of the way and let the artists tell the story, and I was lucky to catch up with Laurie Lewis, Jeff Kazor, and Molly Tuttle to get a local’s perspective, and maybe a backstory or two about this festival we love every Indian summer in San Francisco.
Laurie Lewis shared these thoughts from her back stage tent.
Hey Laurie, another great set from you and the band. To start, I was wondering if you could you tell us a Warren Hellman story.
Tell you a Warren story… okay. Well, as you probably know, Warren was a huge fan of Hazel Dickens. And they struck up a very unlikely friendship over the years. I mean, he just admired her so much. And, you know, he’s like a billionaire, and she’s one of, what, 13 kids or something like that. Very poor upbringing. And I think they were talking about their upbringings, and he said he used to spend his summers at this mansion in the Oakland Hills, the Dunsmuir Mansion, I think. He was telling her about it, and about this huge lawn out in front, and peacocks on the lawn and all this. And she looked at him, and she said, “That makes me want to throw up.”
That sounds like Hazel. What do you personally like about this festival?
One of the things I just love about this festival is there is no advertising anywhere. It is totally free, and it’s like you don’t realize how hard it is on your eyes to constantly be seeing things that are trying to get your attention.
No beer banners.
Yeah, no beer banners, no giant inflated beer bottles. None of that stuff. It’s just very clean and beautiful-looking to me.
Talk about the first time you played here.
The first time I played here was the second year, and all the locals were kind of up in arms. How can they have a bluegrass festival and not have any local bluegrass musicians, or even hardly any bluegrass? Although they did have more bluegrass back then. And so I got hired the next year, and I thought it was really important to just sort of showcase California bluegrass, so I put together a band for that one-time deal with Todd Phillips on bass, Roland White on guitar, Butch Waller on mandolin, Herb Peterson on banjo, and Gabe Witcher on fiddle. And we played on the banjo stage at 12.30 or something, the same slot I’m still holding down after all these years.
Share some things people might not know about this festival.
There’s a secret party for the artists on Saturday nights, and I get to lead the house band, which, of course this year is the Right Hands. Oh, something else that may not be obvious to the outside world. Everything backstage runs so incredibly smoothly. It is amazing. And most of the people who work here, a huge, huge bunch of them, have been here the whole twenty-five years or almost that long. And we develop friendships, you know. I see them every year. And it’s just a fantastic crew they’ve put together.
That’s great Laurie. Thanks so much.
You’re welcome
Jeff Kazor, who’s band, the Crooked Jades, had a great set on Horseshoe Hill, had this to say.
Hi Jeff, what’s your response to the age-old saying “you can’t go home again.”
Yeah, home and everything else changes, so you gotta just go with the way things are evolving and see where that takes you.
As a longtime HSBG artist, tell us something about this festival that most people would not know.
It started out as two stages, and it was called Strictly Bluegrass. In the early days, it was a celebration of bluegrass and old-time, and putting that music forward for all to enjoy.
Do you have Warren Hellman stories?
It seemed like in the early days Warren just wanted to bring his heroes to the West Coast. Hazel Dickens, and, of course, Emmylou Harris come to mind.
Share a memory about the early days of HSBG.
The Crooked Jades played the very first one. It was a small festival, very foggy, but we loved what Warren was trying to do, and we were so honored to play!
Do you adjust your show when playing here in front of a lot of your long-time fans?
It’s important for us to always hold our old time integrity, but we have so many ideas that we want to explore, and it’s hard to stay within the traditional confines, so we do hope to present new interpretations and investigations while presenting and honoring the traditional. We love the energy of a driving fiddle tune from the old time catalog. We will always want to play those and get folks on their feet and dancing.
Anything else you want to say about the festival?
Love that it’s an intergenerational audience. It’s such a positive communal experience centered on music, where folks stop and listen, and because it is free, it’s for everyone! That’s really very special.
What else do you have coming up soon that you are looking forward to?
Our 10th album, Beautiful World, releases on CD October 26. We’ll have a special album release celebration (with performance of course) at the 4 Star Theater on December 4th.
Even though Molly Tuttle now resides in Nashville, we’ll always consider her a California local, and she took some time from her busy schedule to share these thoughts.
Hi Molly, can you recount some lesser-known things about this festival?
I just learned that the first year it started as just one stage! Emmylou Harris performed at the very first one and returns every year.
Do you ever meet Warren Hellman?
I met Warren Hellman backstage at Hardly Strictly when I was a teenager. I always felt so grateful to him for putting on such a wonderful free festival that changed my life as a young person, and especially for bringing out my biggest hero, Hazel Dickens, to San Francisco.
Talk about your early experiences at HSBG?
I went for the first time when I was twelve or thirteen years old, mainly because I wanted to see Hazel Dickens and had been obsessed with her music. The next time I went, I scored a backstage pass and actually got to meet her. I first played here when I was about fifteen years old. I played with an all-female Bay Area bluegrass band called The Barefoot Nellies. We played an afternoon set on the rooster stage, and that’s when I got to meet Warren Hellman backstage. I also went to the after-party that year at Slims and sang A Few Old Memories in honor of Hazel since she was there.
Do you modify your setlist from your tours when playing in California?
My dad (Jack Tuttle) sits in with me on one of my songs, San Francisco Blues. It’s special to bring him up on stage, since he is the one who brought me here every year growing up, and introduced me to the music of so many of my heroes who have played here over the years.
Anything else?
It’s a very special weekend that fills my heart every time. It’s probably my favorite place to get to play because the San Francisco music community means so much to me, and I love getting to feel like a part of it.
All photos copyright Dave Berry 2026
