Molly Tuttle at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 2024 – photo © Dave Berry
Another year has come and gone for the now 24-year-old free music festival in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park known as Hardly Strictly Bluegrass (HSB). It all started as the Strictly Bluegrass Festival in 2001 with a small single-stage bluegrass-only festival, due to the unlikely relationship between billionaire festival backer Warren Hellman and activist singer Hazel Dickens, whose music Mr. Hellman admired. As is well-known, the following year the name changed to Hardly Strictly Bluegrass and the festival expanded to Americana acts and beyond, where bands mostly play single sets rotated across five stages. It’s taken a while to refine the timings and location of the stages to reduce cross-stage sound interference, but with the addition last year of the smaller more intimate Hillside stage, and the relocation of the ever-popular Arrow stage, the sound has definitely improved.
This year, temperatures well into the 90s had a significant impact as could be seen by crowds moving to the shade away from the center area, especially at the main Banjo stage, where you could easily walk to the front and find a seat if you were willing to bear the heat. It’s safe to bet that many who couldn’t, took advantage of the HSB-TV service. Remarkably, the festival including HSB-TV, is totally free and commercial free, which is certainly a testament to Warren Hellman and the Hellman family’s vision of keeping it funded beyond his passing in 2011.
This year there was a lot more bluegrass, bluegrass adjacent, and old-time acts on the bill, including national touring acts like Tony Trischka’s Earl Jam, Infamous Stringdusters, Greensky Bluegrass, Alison Brown, Viv & Riley, Aoife O’Donovan & Hawktail, and Dry Branch Fire Squad. That list now includes California stalwarts Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, AJ Lee & Blue Summit, and of course the Bay Area’s Laurie Lewis & The Right Hands.
In addition to Molly Tuttle’s well-honed set, the band shared the stage with Steve Earle where a large portion of the set included songs from Steve’s album, The Mountain, which was recorded with The Del McCoury Band back in 1999.
Other highlights included a set at the Arrow stage by now 90-year-old Alice Gerrard, where she and her lovely band ran through some of the material she performed with Hazel Dickens throughout the years. I’d be remiss not to mention the presence of the forgotten instrument of bluegrass, the accordion, about which Laurie Lewis educated the fans at the Banjo stage. She told of how Sally Ann Forrester played with Bill Monroe on Goodbye Old Pal in the bluegrass key of B. Playing the accordion in her band, the Right Hands, was San Francisco product Sam Reider.
Sam also played a wonderful set with his band, the Human Hands, at the Arrow stage including a young mandolinist Teo Quale from the Crying Uncle Bluegrass Band, and Roy Williams on fiddle.
What else can you say, a grand time was had by all. Forever thanks to Warren and the Hellman family for this incredible gift.
All photos by Dave Berry
