Fourteen bands and musicians from a variety of genres highlight the 28th annual Four Corners Folk Festival, which returns to Reservoir Hill in Pagosa Springs, Colo., from Aug. 30 to Sept. 1.
Headliners include Bluegrass Hall of Famer Sam Bush, acclaimed Latin rock band Ozomatli and rising indie rock singer/songwriter Sunny War.
“We are excited to welcome back festivarians to Reservoir Hill for the Four Corners Folk Festival,” said KSUT Executive Director Tami Graham. “The lineup reflects both the festival’s long history and the quality of our diverse on-air programming that our listeners appreciate.”
While still maintaining deep acoustic music traditions, the 2024 Four Corners Folk Festival lineup reflects the music heard on the KSUT Music Blend by including artists in rock, Americana, country, bluegrass, folk, Native American and other genres.
“Part of KSUT’s mission is music discovery,” said KSUT Development Director and Music Director Chris Aaland, who serves as the talent buyer for the festival. “Our lineup includes core artists like Sam Bush and Drew Emmitt alongside up-and-coming acts like Lizzie No and the Fretliners.
“We are also proud of our roots as one of the nation’s oldest tribal radio stations, and we’re committed to presenting Indigenous performers in a variety of genres.”
This year’s Indigenous performer, Monica Taylor, is a rising star in Oklahoma red dirt, country and folk circles, and is of Cherokee descent.
Single-day, weekend and patron passes are on sale at www.ksutpresents.org, as are camping passes and a very limited quantity of vehicle passes.
TopHouse, the Jeremy Garrett Band, Laurie Lewis and the Right Hands, the Stillhouse Junkies, Rebecca Frazier, Rachel Garlin and Farmington Hill complete the bill.
Bush is no stranger to the Four Corners bluegrass scene. Earlier this summer, he performed at his 50th Telluride Bluegrass Festival, where he’s earned the nickname “The King of Telluride.” He is one of just six people to be inducted twice into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, first as a member of New Grass Revival in 2000 and later as a solo performer in 2023. Such albums as “Glamour & Grits,” “Howlin’ at the Moon” and “King of My World” have become fan favorites. Bush will be appearing at the Four Corners Folk Festival for the sixth time.
The Grammy-winning Los Angeles group Ozomatli has built a legion of fans since forming in 1995. They are best known both for incorporating their activist viewpoints with an eclectic mix of musical styles, which blend American genres such as jazz, funk, reggae, ska, hip-hop, soul, and rock and roll with Latin and tropical sounds like salsa, cumbia, merengue and Norteño. They performed to a sold-out audience of more than 1,500 people at KSUT’s 2023 Party in the Park.
War is a Nashville-based singer/songwriter who began her career by forging a unique path through acoustic folk-punk music. She released a series of EPs and albums, including 2018’s “With the Sun” and 2021’s “Simple Syrup.” Four Corners Folk Festival fans discovered her in 2022 when she performed as one-half of War and Pierce with fellow songwriter Chris Pierce. Just last year she released “Anarchist Gospel,” which fielded such national hits as “No Reason” and “New Day,” both of which received substantial airplay in major AAA radio markets around the country.
Drew Emmitt is a household name in the Colorado bluegrass and jam band world. He is one of the founding members of Leftover Salmon, which introduced itself to the Four Corners in the early 1990s. The multi-instrumentalist (it’s not uncommon for Emmitt to switch between electric guitar, acoustic guitar, mandolin and fiddle in a single concert) has released three solo albums and another with String Cheese Incident singer/guitarist Billy Nershi in addition to his near 35 years of touring and recording with Leftover Salmon. His band at the Four Corners Folk Festival will include Leftover Salmon’s banjo player, Andy Thorn, and Emmitt’s guitarist son, Eli Emmitt, who is a recent Fort Lewis College graduate.
Garrett is best known as a founding member of The Infamous Stringdusters. While he is best known as a fiddler, he also performs on guitar and mandolin on his solo recordings and tours. His recent solo albums expands on his work with the Dusters, which has become one of the nation’s top-grossing jam bands regardless of genre. Garrett’s 2020 project, “Circles,” incorporated electronic sounds with acoustic instruments, while 2022’s “River Wild” was a true bluegrass record.
TopHouse is a new name to local music fans, but the Nashville-based quartet has developed touring strongholds in the Midwest and on Colorado’s Front Range. Their original sound owes as much to rock and Celtic as it does to folk and bluegrass. Critics compare their sound to Mumford and Sons, and The Head and The Heart.
Lewis is widely regarded as one of the pioneering women of bluegrass. A triple threat on fiddle, guitar and mandolin, she has been one of the anchors of the Bay Area bluegrass scene since the mid-1970s. Lewis is a Grammy winner and multiple IBMA award winner, for best song in 1994 and twice for female vocalist of the year in 1992 and 1994. She has released more than 20 albums through the years, both solo outings as well as projects with Blue Rose, Kathy Kallick, Tom Rozum and, since 2006, with her current backing band, The Right Hands. Earlier this summer, she released her latest album, “Trees.”
The Stillhouse Junkies formed in the tasting room of Durango Craft Spirits in 2017, where they performed on a nearly weekly basis for a couple of years. Winners of the 2021 IBMA Momentum Band of the Year award, they’d already recorded a couple of albums and an EP as indie artists before released the widely acclaimed “Small Towns” album in 2022, exposing them to bigger festivals and more national airplay. The core duo of Fred Kozak (guitar, mandolin) and Alissa Wolf (fiddle) added a new bassist, Matt Thomas, earlier this summer. Thomas cut his musical teeth with such bands as Man About a Horse, The Reckless Folk and Tonewood.
No is a fast-rising star in the Americana and folk worlds, having won the praise of Billboard and Rolling Stone magazines for early albums like 2017’s “Hard Won” and 2019’s “Vanity.” In the last decade, she has toured with Iron and Wine, Adia Victoria, and Sarah Shook and the Disarmers while performing at the Newport Folk Fest, Americanafest, South by Southwest and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. Her new record, “Halfsies,” will certainly draw Grammy attention and has been featured on AAA and Americana stations around the nation.
Frazier is an award-winning guitarist, singer and bandleader from Virginia with strong ties to Colorado. The first woman to appear on the cover of Flatpicking Guitar Magazine, she was part of the popular Front Range band Hit and Run Bluegrass in the mid-2000s along with Aaron and Erin Youngberg (of FY5 fame), ex-husband John Frazier and dobro player Todd Livingston. Her second solo album, “When We Fall,” was released in 2013, and it was more than a decade before she dropped “Boarding Windows in Paradise” earlier this month. The new album features a host of guest artists, including Sam Bush, Béla Fleck, Stuart Duncan, Barry Bales, Josh Swift and Trey Hensley.
Garlin is a San Francisco-based singer/songwriter who has released eight albums, including 2023’s “The Ballad of Madelyne & Therese,” which is a soundtrack for the story of forbidden love. Set both in the present day and the 1940s, it follows its namesake couple as they navigated times when their love could only be undercover, in code or in the margins of bars.
The Fretliners are a Front Range bluegrass band that pulled off the rare band contest double by winning both the Telluride and Rockygrass band competitions in 2023 (something that was only done once before, by Spring Creek in 2007). One of the hardest-working bands in bluegrass, they had mainstage appearances at Telluride Bluegrass, Rockygrass, the Durango Bluegrass Meltdown and Rhythms on the Rio in 2024. They released their eponymous debut album in 2023, followed by a three-song EP this past June.
Taylor has woven a lifetime and stories from her rural Cherokee roots near Stillwater, Okla., but also one that was enhanced by living in Telluride during her young adulthood, where she discovered her musical voice. Early records like 2009’s “Cimarron Valley Girl” and its follow-up, “Cotton Shirt,” helped establish a regional following in her native state’s red dirt scene. Her breakthrough album, 2022’s “Trains, Rivers & Trails,” featured her own originals, plus loving covers of John Hartford’s “Gentle on My Mind,” Billy Bragg and Wilco’s “Minor Key,” and The Byrds’ “The Ballad of Easy Rider.”
The Durango-based Farmington Hill has been rocking local bars and festivals since forming more than a decade ago. Fronted by singer/guitarists Erik Nordstrom (Lawn Chair Kings) and Paul “Bubba” Iudice (The Freeman Social, The 13’s) with intention exploring alternative country and cowpunk, the group includes original member Kelly Rogers on lap steel and bassist Jim Belcher and drummer David Sachs. Collectively, the five members bring a combined 100 years of experience in the Four Corners music scene. Farmington Hill has released three albums, including 2013’s “Bridge to Nowhere,” 2016’s “More Rock Than Eagle Block” and a live album.
