Join us in making this year's Watermelon Pickers' Festival a spectacular success! By sponsoring the festival, you'll help us continue a cherished tradition that keeps bluegrass and roots music thriving in our community. Your support ensures that festival-goers leave with unforgettable memories and the knowledge that your contribution played a key role in their wonderful experience and memories of a great weekend of music and community. Click the button below to learn more. Then, get in touch and request a sponsorship application-let's make magic happen together!

Band Lineup and Schedule:

Foghorn String Band
The Foghorn Stringband is the present day gold standard for real-deal hard-hitting genuine old-time American string band music, with eight albums, thousands of shows, over 15 years of touring under their belts, and an entirely new generation of roots musicians following their lead.

Host Band - Furnace Mountain Band
Furnace Mountain consists of Aimee Curl on bass and vocals, Dave Van Deventer on fiddle and vocals, and Morgan Morrison on guitar, bouzouki, and vocals, and Danny Knicely on mandolin and fiddle. The band creates music that is at times lively and raucous, with spirited fiddle melodies weaving in and around the powerful rhythms of the bass and bouzouki, and other times poignant and poetic, with sublime vocal harmonies beautifully interpreting some of the oldest songs ever written.

Seth Mulder and Midnight Run
Born in the holler of Tennessee's first legal moonshine distillery, Seth Mulder and Midnight Run blend tradition with innovation through genuine songwriting and tasteful arrangements, bringing to life their original music and lost covers like no other in the genre. Combining elements of bluegrass, country, and folk music, their sound resonates with traditional and contemporary audiences alike. "In the day and age where authenticity is everything, Seth Mulder and Midnight Run are the real deal."

John R. Miller
John R Miller is a true hyphenate artist: singer-songwriter-picker. One of his biggest long-time fans is roots music favorite Tyler Childers, who says he's "a well-travelled wordsmith mapping out the world he's seen, three chords at a time." Miller is somehow able to transport us to a shadowy honkytonk and get existential all in the same line with his tightly written compositions. Miller's own guitar-playing is on fine display here along with vocals that evoke the white-waters of the Potomac River rumbling below the high ridges of his native Shenandoah Valley.

Miss Tess
Miss Tess is one of those singular artists who deserve all the superlatives and accolades one could hoist upon a rare talent such as hers. This unassuming chanteuse is, as they say in the business, a true "triple threat" - a superb songwriter and adept multi-instrumentalist with an extraordinary voice that can sing the birds from the trees. Her music takes root and draws from an era when country music, contrary to popular belief, was downright sophisticated, and filled with instrumentalists who were every bit as hip musically as their jazz counterparts - stretching back to a time when Western swing bands and jazz bands played a lot of the same material - albeit with a different accent, informed by their physical location.

From China to Appalachia
GRAMMY Award winning American Roots artists Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer join with Chinese classical hammered dulcimer player Chao Tian in a show that combines music from China to Appalachia and beyond. Instrumentation includes yangqin (Chinese hammered dulcimer), gourd banjo, five-string banjo, ukulele, guitars, dumbek, cello-banjo and mandolin.

The Plate Scrapers
Born from the tradition of Bluegrass jams and potlucks, The Plate Scrapers - Derek Kretzer (banjo), Andrew Jordan (guitar), Robbie Mann (fiddle), Jody Mosser (dobro), and Kevin Johnson (bass) - have been putting in the work and showcasing their love for the genre since 2014.

They have since released 4 studio albums, 3 live albums, and have toured relentlessly up and down the east coast and into the midwest. They have been featured on WAMU Bluegrass Country Radio, performed as an IBMA Official Showcase artist, and their latest release, Artifacts (2024) had multiple singles on the Airplay Direct bluegrass/folk charts as well as rave reviews from Bluegrass Today.

Pictrola
Pictrola fuses modern bluegrass with rock, jazz, folk, swing, and jams, performing a mixture of originals and fun takes on crowd favorites. The band originated when members met at DelFest Academy in 2017 and has since evolved into a powerful group with a well-honed and varied repertoire, featuring close vocal harmonies and skillful instrumental work.

Short Hill Mountain Boys
The Short Hill Mountain Boys play their own blend of bluegrass, old-time, cajun, classic country, and folk music with a rare passion. Their harmony vocals, fiddling, and guitar picking are tight and practiced like the suit-and-cowboy-hat bluegrass acts, but imbued with the authenticity, spontaneity, and infectious good time of old time mountain music, in which they are well steeped. The Short Hill Mountain Boys' love of the music and skilled musicianship makes converts of audiences new to the genre and is sure to draw and impress aficionados.

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