Now in its seventh year, Black Bear Americana Music Fest presented roots, contemporary and traditional folk, country, blues, bluegrass and mixed-genre solo artists and bands on its main stage, acoustic stage, gazebo stage and workshop stages to an audience that ranged from those of us who saw the emergence and growth of these genres in the ’60s and ’70s to kids doing face painting. The festival ran from Friday, August 22 through Sunday, August 24 at its new location, Harwinton Fairgrounds in Harwinton, CT.

The festival’s partners, Ian Campbell, Beth Murphy, Al Vagnini and Evan Dobos, did a fantastic job curating and presenting a festival that brought acts from emerging to those who have been performing for decades.

Black Bear is a fantastic opportunity to sample so many different genres of music in so many different forms of presentation, from main stage to workshops and late-night songwriter circles, and delivers much to appeal to a wide variety of music lovers, year after year. With over fifty talented acts from such a broad cross-genre variety of music, it is a great place to go to see some of your favorite artists and bands. But it is also one of those great festivals for which you don’t even have to look at the schedule ahead of time to see who is playing, resting fully assured that you can just get your ticket and show up and discover one after another that you may never have heard of but for whom you will become a new fan. And, if you are a songwriter or musician or one who aspires to be, you will find many workshops that will provide you with new skills, ideas and challenges for your own personal musical growth. With plenty of flat areas for tenting or RVing, a huge shower stall trailer, and lots of good food from food trucks and “beverage” servers you will be all set for a comfortable weekend long experience.

What follows is a quick look at most of the performers at Black Bear. The simultaneous multiplicity of performances on separate stages made full coverage impossible.

The festival opened with a Songwriter Showcase by Danielle Miraglia, who delivered heartfelt socially conscious originals with a strong, steady thumping thumb on an old Gibson guitar, and Mark Wahl who delivered his well-crafted metaphorical songs with a deep baritone voice and excellent guitar skills, played on guitars he made himself.

Jennifer Taylor delivered her story songs about connections filled with emotion, delivered with melodies with a hook

Tyler Nail blended his southeastern US hometown influence to present captivating lyrical storytelling with intricate guitar parts.

Boston duo Cold Chocolate presented their fusion of folk, funk and bluegrass with guitar, mandolin, percussion and banjo to an appreciative audience.

Sam Robbins can perhaps be summarized as a storytelling troubadour in the style of James Taylor or Jackson Browne, but with an upbeat edge who delivers his original songs with excellent guitar arrangements played to perfection and sung with an appealing delivery.

The Alpaca Gnomes energetically delivered what might be described as jam band influenced original rock and folk music with positive lyrics.

With beautiful vocal harmonies and tastefully interwoven fiddle and guitar, the duo Honey Badgers delivered their folk oriented songs that invited listeners to look inward and explore emotion.

The Decker Bandits of Collinsville, CT filled the stage with a mix of bluegrass, funk, and rock/dance originals that put their energy out to the crowd.

The final act of Friday night was Southern Hospitality, a combination of headline acts with Victor Wainwright on piano, JP Soars and Damon Fowler on guitars, Terrence Grayson on bass and Chris Peet on drums, that got the crowd up and moving with their original Americana, blues and wide ranging roots music, with sprinklings of boogie-woogie, honky-tonk, and New Orleans piano. The crowd compelled an encore.

Josh Joplin Group brought their high energy indie rock to the stage to deliver their lyrically sharp songs with clever twists to an appreciative crowd.

Cricket Blue’s songs are like three and half minutes of literature delivered with catchy hooks and well composed arrangements.

Voyagr brought their blend of country and indie-folk, often in ballad form, with heartfelt lyrics and tight harmonies.

Sam Plourd gave an intimate set of her varied songs with an indie-pop flavor at the Gazebo to appreciative listeners.

La Dawn, Johnny Longo and the Koolhead Blues Band

Johnny Longo and the Koolhead Blues Band got the crowd to its feet. Not only did they deliver a high energy blues performance but they brought up people from the stage to dance on stage, including two little girls who fit in well enough that they could have been backup dancers. And their lead and backup singer, LaDawn, delivered a stellar solo R&B/soul performance that electrified the crowd.

Ryan David Green is an acoustic guitar virtuoso who brings fast fingerstyle playing, yet leaves spaces between his melodic notes, to create extremely well arranged pieces, whether instrumental or as accompaniment to his songs.

David Wilcox, who has been delivering his open tuning and other guitar playing, and the songs he crafts to go with it to audiences world-wide for decades, presented beautiful sets of his work on Saturday and Sunday.

Sisters duo, the Nields, have been penning their music and delivering their songs as an indie folk-rock duo or band for decades. In their performance they segued “America The Beautiful” into “Tyrants Always Fall” to great audience appreciation.

Over on the Gazebo Stage, Charlie Diamond performed a set of his Americana originals with an edgy voice that matched the story’s in his well-crafted songs, often based upon his own adventures on the road perfectly.

Belle of the Fall combines Julia Autumn Ford’s angelic voice with Tracy Walton’s upright bass and foot drumming for a captivating performance.

Saturday night’s finale was delivered by Shawn Mullins whose edgy soulful voice combined with his well-crafted story songs about real people in recognizable situations sit squarely in the Americana genre.

Massachusett’s Sean Maqwire, who describes his songs as “a way to interpret and process the world, offering his listeners a chance for self-reflection” brought a handful of his well-crafted songs to the Acoustic Stage.

Tall Travis, an indie folk band from Burlington, VT, with its unique bluegrass folk/punk influences, filled the Acoustic stage twice over the weekend and lit up the stage with their own brand of musical energy.

On Sunday morning, Kirsten Maxwell performed her own well-written songs with a powerful yet graceful voice and appealing acoustic guitar.

With a base provided by drums, percussion and infectious rhythm, flavored with guitars and brass, Entrain got the crowd moving with a concoction of funk, ska, reggae, rock and jam.

Jesse Terry gave us a set of his roots based “folky” Americana original songs, many based on events and stories from his own life, delivered with beautifully played acoustic guitar melodies and harmonies.

Ithaca, NY’s Rev Ezra, a duo on acoustic guitar and fiddle, played a captivating set of their originals, sitting at the folkie/bluegrass end of Americana, based upon their own life experiences and situations.

Upstate New York’s Rob McMahon presented his heartfelt songs that invite listeners to think and draw connections to their own life experiences, played over delicate melodies and clever arrangements on acoustic guitar.

Nashville’s folk pop solo artist Shanna In A Dress delivered an acoustic set of originals based upon her relationships with herself, others and the world often with messages or lyrical lines that so many have felt but few will say out loud, interspersed with her engaging stage banter, and ended with a song derived from lines that came from participants in her Songwriting workshop on Sunday morning.

Closing the festival down on Sunday was a dance inspiring powerful set of reverb/delay-driven early rock with a sprinkling of country, R&B and blues from Mark Gamsjager and the Lustre Kings

In addition to continuous performances each day on three separate stages, Black Bear presented nearly continuous different workshops over the three-day festival, including some in songwriting, music production, performance, improv and other music related subjects, all while Main, Acoustic and Gazebo Stage performances continued. This writer took the time to venture over to the Workshop stage several times throughout the festival to catch workshops on advanced guitar playing and musical composition ideas and songwriting given by festival performers.

Workshops on Friday afternoon included Guitar Styles & Songwriting, Melody Writing and Harmonic Technique, and Harmonica

On the Workshop stage on Friday night was the Sunset Song Swap with featured acts from the Main and Acoustic Stages: Jesse Terry, Kirsten Maxwell and Mark Wahl; and On Deck Late Night Stage featuring several festival performers that went until midnight.

On Saturday, the Workshop Stage included Outside the Box, New Ideas for Acoustic Guitar with Ryan David Green; and the Sunset Song Swap with Cricket Blue, Honey Badgers and Voyagr.

Sunday’s workshops featured Songwriting with Shanna In A Dress, and Guitar “Chop Shop” with Matt Smith, followed by Sunday Song Swap with Andrew Dunn, Sean Magwire and John John Brown.

A truly special component of Black Bear are the songwriter-in-the-round events that present both featured acts at the festival and other songwriters picked by the various event’s creators or organizers where songwriters alternate delivering their songs, primarily solo, on acoustic instruments for a few rounds. These songwriter round events continue until the wee hours of the morning. “In-the-round” events were held each day and night at The Big Orange Tarp (BOT), Pirate Camp, and the Jubilee Jam Tent. For many, these songwriter circles are a significant part of what makes a festival like Black Bear such a highly respected musical event.

Jubilee Jam hosted scheduled performers at its presentations, but also opened the door to songwriters like Frank Viele, who just happened to be at the Festival between gigs.

One of these, the “Big Orange Tarp”, or BOT as it’s known by its fans, featured solo performances in the round each night of the festival and into the wee hours of the morning by a number of those who performed at the festival, as well as by other songwriters, including this writer, all handpicked by Rowoth or Dunn. Among performers at the BOT were those above.

For many, the BOT and the other in the round songwriter circles represent one of the most cherished events at this and many other festivals (Kerrville, Falcon Ridge, and more) and represent what many feel is the best way to hear songs, unadorned by stage sound support, performed “in the raw” by the people who wrote them.

Even festival presenter Ian Campbell performed at one of the late night BOT songwriter circles, supported (as were many) by highly talented bassist and recording engineer Mark Dan.

In addition to the fantastic and well curated music and music related workshops for musicians and music lovers, the Black Bear Americana Music Fest provided a varied array of food, beverage and cocktail vendors as well as numerous vendors of craft items, tatoo artistry, sunglasses, face painting and more.

All in all, Black Bear was an excellent music festival and one which many will surely attend again next year.

See the gallery below for more photographs of the festival by NYS Music contributing photographers Carl Rubino and Cooper Uliano.