Band Spotlight: The Hillbenders

     I hope everyone is getting all geared up for the 8th annual festival, because June will be here before we know it!  We almost have a full roster of bands, and will release an official schedule just as soon as everything is tacked down.  One of the bands already in our line-up are The Hillbenders.  If you have never had the opportunity to hear The Hillbenders, or even see them live, then you HAVE to be front and center when they take our stage!
    The Hillbenders were formed in 2008, and have been up and rising ever since.  They have performed at many great venues such as Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival, Walnut Valley Festival, Telluride Bluegrass Festival, and many many others.  They have performed at our festival in the past with great festival-goer reviews, and this year will be back again for more. 
     It has been said that the Hillbenders have all but created their own music genre, combining country, bluegrass, jazz and roots.  The wildly talented group consists of five members who are now based in Springfield MO; Mark Cassidy on banjo, Gary Rea on bass, Jim Rea on Guitar, Nolan Lawrence on mandolin, and Chad Graves on dobro.  This band pours their heart and soul into their music, and their spectacular stage performance. 
     The Hillbenders released their first album "Down To My Last Dollar" in 2010, featuring 11 original compositions, which you can check out here.
   

 The Hillbenders have a great website, www.hillbenders.com, and you can find them on facebook.  Go "like" them and let 'em know that you'll be catching them at the Eight Annual TallGrass Music Festival!


   Don't forget!  The TallGrass Music Festival is May 31st, June 1st, and June 2nd, and will be great fun for the whole family!  You can find us here, and on facebook. 

See you all there!





  

Welcome!

     Welcome to the TallGrass Music Festival blog!  Here we will be sharing news, festival information, music education, pictures, and any and every other nugget of knowledge and interesting fact we decide to throw at you. 

     So first, some basic info about the festival:

     The TallGrass Music Festival (formerly known as the Skiatook Bluegrass Festival) is held in beautiful Skiatook Oklahoma, on the Skiatook Sports Complex grounds.  This is the EIGHTH annual festival, and it just keeps gettin' bigger, stronger, and better every year!  This is a family friendy event with fun for all ages.  The festival is three days of live music featuring bluegrass and other roots music.  There will be plenty of RV and tent camping (which usually always includes all day and after hours picking and jamming).  There will also be arts and crafts and food vendors featuring some wonderful merchants  (some local!)  And this year will be the second year for the great kids activities!  The first night Thursday May 31st, is gospel night, and will start at 6pm and goes until 9pm, and will feature three bands, just to get things started off.

     Day two, Friday June 1st, starts at 1pm and goes until 10pm, and features a larger number of bands.  Also, on friday evening we will be having bluegrass karaoke!  So if you think you got the chops (or just down-right KNOW you do) come show it off and sign up!

     Day three, Saturday June 2nd, starts at 9am and goes until 10pm, making for a full day of music!  Saturday is kicked off with the youth fiddle contest, featuring some wildly tanlented young'uns, which is followed up by the youth fiddle performance, both of which are definitely worth catching!  Following the kids will be the band line-up for the day, which will be announced soon.  Saturday will also feature some kids performances from local student musicians. 

     Now that we've got all the formalaties out of the way, we will be bringing you lots more information frequently!  So that you don't miss a beat (no pun intended) please sign up for our email notifications of our posts, which can be found to the right of this page.  Just enter your email address, and we will do the rest.  And of course you can always keep up with us on our Facebook page, which will have blog links as well. 
 
     Please feel free to leave comments, email us, and check out our website and "like" us on Facebook.  Any feedback you give us is greatly appreciated, and we would love to hear from you.  Our contact information is listed on the main blog page in the link section (on the right), or you can follow the link here to the TallGrass Music Festival information, or email me at this link here.  If u are interested in being a vendor at our event please inquire here.

     The festival grounds are located in the Skiatook Sports Complex at 3020 W. 133rd St. N. Skiatook, Oklahoma 74070.  You can aslo view a map for directions to the festival grounds here.

Thanks for reading, and hope to see ya'll back soon!

Heather T.