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

10:45am-11:45am: Cindy Kalmenson

12:15pm-01:15pm: Peter Mulvey

Peter Mulvey has been a songwriter, road-dog, raconteur and almost-poet since before he can remember. Raised working-class Catholic on the Northwest side of Milwaukee, he took a semester in Ireland, and immediately began cutting classes to busk on Grafton Street in Dublin and hitchhike through the country, finding whatever gigs he could. Back stateside, he spent a couple years gigging in the Midwest before lighting out for Boston, where he returned to busking (this time in the subway) and coffeehouses. Small shows led to larger shows, which eventually led to regional and then national and international touring. The wheels have not stopped since.

Nineteen records, an illustrated book, thousands of live performances, a TEDx talk, a decades-long association with the National Youth Science Camp, opening for luminaries such as Ani DiFranco, Emmylou Harris, and Chuck Prophet, appearances on NPR, an annual autumn tour by bicycle, emceeing festivals, hosting his own boutique festival (the Lamplighter Sessions, in Boston and Wisconsin)… Mulvey never stops. He has built his life's work on collaboration and an instinct for the eclectic and the vital. He folds everything he encounters into his work: poetry, social justice, scientific literacy, & a deeply abiding humanism are all on plain display in his art.

1:45pm-3:00pm: Making Movies

Psychedelic Panamanian band Making Movies is on a mission– to reconnect with the rebellious spirit in Latin American folklore. Their music represents the culture of the Americas in a way that delivers the chills of hearing something singularly special, yet feels oddly familiar.The Latin Grammy nominated band has collaborated with Ruben Blades, presented at major international festivals and toured alongside Los Lobos, Maldita Vecindad, Ozomatli, Hurray For the Riff Raff, Flor De Toloache, Thievery Corporation, and many more.

3:30pm-4:45pm: Margo Cilker

Margo Cilker's sophomore album, Valley of Heart's Delight, refers to a place she can't return: California's Santa Clara Valley, as it was known before the orchards were paved over and became more famous for Silicon than apricots. Margo is the fifth generation of Cilker's born there, and in this 11-song collection, family and nature intertwine as guiding motifs, at once precious and endangered, beautiful and exhausting. The trees here are family trees, or they're apricot trees, but suburban sprawl isn't looking good for either. Cilker moved from California to the Pacific Northwest in her mid-twenties and wrote much of Valley of Heart's Delight while living in Enterprise, Oregon, a small town near the Snake River and powered by the river's massive, publicly-funded hydroelectric dams. The dams (part of the same system Woody Guthrie was hired to write about) provide clean electricity to much of the western US but make it extraordinarily difficult for anadromous fish (such as Steelhead Trout) to return from the ocean and spawn in their native streams. Valley Of Heart's Delight feeds off of this tension - how we live in and off of nature, how we live within and without family, and why we return to the places we were born.

5:15pm-6:30pm: The Mother Hips

San Francisco, CA: The Mother Hips are back with a new album, When We Disappear, a compelling new studio album. Based in Northern California, the Hips headed to New Mexico, spending time at Ghost Ranch before settling in at Jono Manson's Kitchen Sink studio in Sante Fe in late 2021 for the sessions. Self-produced, When We Disappear features nine new tracks co-written by co-founders Tim Bluhm and Greg Loiacono - a collection of lit-psych rock songs Inspired by psychology and literature - as well as a raw, garagey cover of Buffy St. Marie's 1964 addiction song "Codine."

Hailed by the San Francisco Chronicle as "one of the Bay Area's most beloved live outfits," The Mother Hips' headline and festival performances have became the stuff of legend, finding them sharing stages with everyone from Johnny Cash and Wilco to Lucinda Williams and The Black Crowes. Rolling Stone called the band "divinely inspired," while Pitchfork praised their "rootsy mix of 70's rock and power pop," and The New Yorker lauded their ability to "sing it sweet and play it dirty."

7:00pm-8:30pm: Pokey LaFarge

In March 2020, the veteran singer-songwriter packed up and left his Los Angeles abode behind, putting his belongings in storage in anticipation of spending extensive time on the road in support of his then-forthcoming album, Rock Bottom Rhapsody. He couldn't wait to head down to Austin a few weeks later to showcase those songs and launch the album with his band at South-by-Southwest. Then the pandemic hit and all of LaFarge's well-laid plans went into thin air.

Stuck in East Austin with nowhere to go, LaFarge did what he does best: he got to work. Throughout his career, nine albums to date including a stint on Jack White's Third Man Records, the singer-songwriter has never been one to look back in anger or disappointment. LaFarge used the sudden change in plans to his advantage, having perhaps his greatest period of personal growth in the midst of this crippling pandemic.

It came as no surprise that the songs instantly started to flow out of him. LaFarge is an artist who refuses to rest on his laurels and compromise. He's always motivated and ready to create - and when he's at peace in isolation like he was here, the results can be magical. Looking in, inspired by the deep soul not just from these shores, but from distant geographical places like Africa or South America, LaFarge set out to create a body of work that paired emotional lyrics with a killer groove and grabby melodies.

Written by LaFarge and co-produced with Chris Seefried, the album is one of LaFarge's strongest and most mature lyrical efforts to date. The album's title, In the Blossom of Their Shade, is taken from a lyric in the stunning, yet dusty "Mi Ideal." That song sonically draws influences from the Southwest, South America and Caribbean. The distant warmth of the music, especially rhythmically, adeptly coincides with the longing that's expressed in the lyrics.

9:00pm-10:30pm: Bonny Light Horseman

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