I've never been to Suwannee.
That's a strange thing to admit for a guy who writes about Americana music and calls Florida home these days — but there it is. The Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park has been hosting pickers and singers and late-night campground jams for longer than I've been serious about the guitar, and I've somehow never made the drive up to Live Oak. That changes October 8th.
I'll be there with a media credential for Six-String Travels — my first big-festival credential — and my son Hayden will be alongside me with a photo pass. Four days, October 8 through 11, for the 9th Suwannee Roots Revival. Eight hundred acres of Spanish moss and cypress along the river that Stephen Foster made famous. If you've never been either, here's what we're walking into.
This festival is a family story. The first Suwannee Roots Revival was held in 2016, carrying a tradition that goes back further. Director Beth Judy and her late partner Randy Judy started the park’s spring and fall music festivals in 1997, and she still runs both Roots Revival and Springfest today. I’ll be sitting down with her this weekend.
The heavy hitters
Trampled by Turtles, Sam Bush, and Leftover Salmon top the bill, and that's a murderer's row of American roots music all by itself. Peter Rowan's on the lineup too — a man who played with Bill Monroe, if you need your history straight. Donna the Buffalo, Shadowgrass, Eddie 9V, Shinyribs, the Lee Boys with Roosevelt Collier. It's deep all the way down.
Who I'm chasing
Sam Bush I've got to see — the man practically reinvented the mandolin, and at a festival like this you don't watch Sam Bush from a distance, you get up close and try to figure out how his hands do that.
Jim Lauderdale is a legend, full stop. Twenty-plus albums, songs cut by everybody from George Strait to the Dixie Chicks, and he still shows up and plays like he means it. If I get five minutes with him, I'll count the trip a success.
But the one I'm circling is Verlon Thompson. If you know, you know — Verlon was Guy Clark's right hand for decades. His guitarist, his co-writer, his producer, his friend. Guy Clark is a hero of mine, one of the reasons I picked up a guitar in the first place, and Verlon carries those songs in his hands the way nobody else on earth does. I've reached out about an interview. We'll see. Fingers crossed.
Verlon Thompson at Suwannee Roots Revival. Photo: © MGoehner.
And then there's Suns of Stars — a newer band that came recommended by Dave from Honey Miller & Friends, and Dave's ear I trust. That's the thing about this festival: the lineup tells you who's playing, but the people tell you who to see.
More than the stages
What sold me on Suwannee isn't just the bill — it's the way the place works. The campground picking parties. The workshops. Folks bringing their own instruments and falling in with strangers until 2 a.m. under the oaks. Ten years in, this festival has a reputation for the unplanned stuff: surprise sit-ins, artists wandering into each other's sets, songs happening because the night felt right. You can't schedule that. You just have to be there with your ears open.
That's the plan. Be there. Ears open. Guitar in the truck, just in case.
I'll be filing from the festival all weekend — reviews, photos from Hayden, and interviews if the good folks say yes. If there's someone on this lineup you want me to track down, reply and tell me. I'm taking requests.
See you down by the river.
— Ed
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