When we share a festival lineup announcement, we usually list the headliners and then a number of bands which we consider “HT faves,” i.e. groups we’ve spent a lot of “ink” covering over the past few years. This year’s Newport Folk Festival the initial lineup is filled with a ridiculous amount of HT faves so this next sentence will be quite long. Joining headliners My Morning Jacket, Jackson Browne and Conor Oberst will be HT faves Iron & Wine, Dawes, Deer Tick, Punch Brothers, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, TuNe-YarDs, Gary Clark Jr., Alabama Shakes, Blind Pilot, Charles Bradley and the Extraordinaires and Carl Broemel. Each of these bands and about a dozen more will descend upon gorgeous Fort Adams State Park in Newport, Rhode Island on July 28 and 29.
Event organizers have done a fantastic job putting together a lineup chock full of bands who embody the festival’s historic past. My Morning Jacket front man Jim James will do double duty as he’ll appear with MMJ as well as his New Multitudes project with Jay Farrar, Will Johnson and Anders Parker. Young upstarts Gary Clark Jr. and Alabama Shakes will make their first Newport Folk Festival appearances and we bet it won’t be their last.
Here’s a look at the full initial lineup announcement…
Saturday July 28
My Morning Jacket / Iron & Wine / Patty Griffin / Guthrie Family Reunion / Dawes / Deer Tick / City & Colour / Preservation Hall Jazz Band / Alabama Shakes / Sharon Van Etten / Blind Pilot / First Aid Kid / Brown Bird / Jonny Corndawg / Spirit Family Reunion / Robert Ellie / Frank Franfield / The Apache Relay / Honeyhoney / Sleepy Man Banjo Boys / Elizabeth Mitchell & You Are My Flower
Sunday July 29
Jackson Browne / Conor Oberst / The Head & The Heart / Punch Brother / Tallest Man On Earth / tUnE-yArDs / Tom Morello: The Nightwatchman / Trampled By Turtles / Charles Bradley & His Extraordinaires / Gary Clark Jr. / Of Monsters And Men / New Multitudes f. Jay Farrar, Will Johnson, Anders Parker & Yim Yames / Sara Watkins / Jonathan Wilson / Deep Dark Woods / Carl Broemel / Ben Sollee / Spider John Koerner & His Rag Tag Boys / Joel Rafael / Joe Flectch & The Wrong Reasons / The Kossy Sisters / Berklee City Music Choir
Look for more acts to be announced in the coming months. Two-day passes for Newport Folk are on sale now and one-day tickets will be available this morning at 10AM via the event’s website and Ticketmaster.com. Last year’s fest sold out two weeks ahead of the event.
