Rocky Mountain Folks Festival

For over 30 years our "Summit on the Song" has brought together some of our favorite songwriters of all genres to the Planet Bluegrass Ranch in Lyons, CO for three days of music, camping, and inspiration.

Plant your chair along the St. Vrain River for epic performances on the main stage, intimate sets in the Wildflower Pavilion, and magical moments with your Festivarian Family.

Schedule of Events:

10:00am: Gates Open

10:30am-12:30pm: Songwriter Showcase

Discover your favorite new artist as we open the 31st Annual Rocky Mtn Folks Festival with 10 solo singer-songwriters in our Songwriter Showcase.

12:45pm-1:45pm: Michaela Anne

Michaela Anne had no way of knowing what lay ahead when she began writing her gorgeous and aching new album, Oh To Be That Free-sobriety, pregnancy, a global pandemic, and the hemorrhagic stroke that would nearly kill her mother were all just around the corner-but listening back in the warm glow of hindsight, it's almost as if she was writing a survival guide for her future self. The songs are profoundly vulnerable here, hinting at everything from Brandi Carlile to Kacey Musgraves as they reckon with the flaws and faults that keep us up at night, and Michaela's delivery is tender and empathetic, insisting that we're worthy of love not in spite of our shortcomings, but because of them. And so the freedom Michaela sings of isn't the wild freedom of youth or rebellion, but rather the spiritual freedom that comes from learning to accept what is rather than what ought to be, from learning to appreciate what you have rather than what you want, from learning to look in the mirror and love the person staring back.

Oh To Be That Free follows Michaela's 2019 Yep Roc debut, Desert Dove, which helped land her festival invitations everywhere from Bonnaroo to XPoNential alongside praise from Billboard, USA Today, The Associated Press, Paste, and more. The World Cafe raved that "Michaela Anne's voice shines like a beacon," while NPR hailed her "stunning vocals," and Rolling Stone named the album one of the year's best country and Americana releases.

2:00pm-3:15pm: Willi Carlisle

For folksinger Willi Carlisle, singing is healing. And by singing together, he believes we can begin to reckon with the inevitability of human suffering and grow in love. On his latest album, Critterland, Carlisle invites audiences to join him: "If we allow ourselves to sing together, there's a release of sadness, maybe even a communal one. And so for me personally, singing, like the literal act of thinking through suffering, is really freeing," he says.

Rooted in the eclectic and collective world of his live shows, Carlisle's third album, Critterland takes up where his sophomore album, Peculiar, Missouri left off, transforming Peculiar's big tent into a Critterland menagerie and letting loose the weirdos he gathered together. The album is a wild romp through the backwaters of his mind and America, lingering in the odd corners of human nature to visit obscure oddballs, dark secrets, and complicated truths about the beauty and pain of life and love.

3:45pm-5:00pm: Sir Woman

Sir Woman, Austin Music Award's Best New Act of 2020, was primed to hit the road promoting its much-anticipated debut album Party City, when the world changed.

With fewer reasons to celebrate, soul-singer Kelsey Wilson (Wild Child, Glorietta) ditched the party vibe she planned for her maiden, solo debut in favor of a more aptly titled record for troubled times. *****, a genre-bending, Motown-influenced five-song EP, is set for an Oct. 16 release under Wilson's acid-trip inspired stage name on Austin's Nine Mile Records.

Wilson's backing band - drummer Amber Baker (Jon Batiste) and back-up singers Spice and Roy Jr. - were joined on the album by guitarist Nik Lee and multi- instrumentalist Dan Creamer (Shakey Graves, The Texas Gentlemen), and critically acclaimed country-pop artist Robert Ellis.

5:30pm-6:45pm: Handmade Moments

7:15pm-8:30pm: John Vincent III

After touring his acclaimed, self-released 2019 debut album, Songs From the Valley, John Vincent III was ready for a bit of a break. Nearly four years later, the 27-year-old Los Angeles/Houston-based singer/songwriter has distilled that once-in-a-lifetime experience into his beautiful and evocative sophomore full-length, Songs for the Canyon.

Co-produced by Vincent with Tom Elmhirst (Adele, David Bowie), and featuring additional production from Tony Berg and Ryan Hadlock, Songs for the Canyon is a massive leap forward from a proudly DIY artist who has already built a diehard fan base on the strength of his heartfelt, stripped-down, folk-tinged sound.

9:00pm-10:30pm: The Wood Brothers have learned to trust their hearts. For the better part of two decades, they've cemented their reputation as freethinking songwriters, road warriors, and community builders, creating a catalog of diverse music and a loyal audience who've grown alongside them through the years.

That evolution continues with Heart is the Hero, the band's eighth studio album. Recorded analog to 16-track tape, this latest effort finds its three creators embracing the chemistry of their acclaimed live shows by capturing their performances in real-time direct from the studio floor with nary a computer in sight. An acoustic-driven album that electrifies, Heart is the Hero is stocked with songs that target not only the heart, but the head and hips, too.

"We love records that come from the era of less tracks and more care," explains co-founder Oliver Wood. "When you use a computer during the tracking process, you have an infinite number of tracks at your disposal, which implies that nothing is permanent, and everything can be fixed. Tape gives you limitations that force you to be creative and intentional. You don't look at the music on a screen; you listen to it, and you learn to focus on the feeling of the performance."

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