A new music festival will make its debut in Fayetteville this weekend.
The event, called the Arkansas Country Blues & Stringband Festival, is set for Nov. 3-5 at Fayetteville Public Library, Mount Sequoyah Center, B.C.’s Juke Joint in the Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, and the Fayetteville Square.
Headliners for the festival include blues artist Jontavious Willis, Robert Kimbrough Sr. (son of the legendary Junior Kimbrough), blues and jazz artist Jerron “Blind Boy” Paxton, regional bluegrass duo Creek Rocks, Nokosee Fields (great nephew of celebrated Cherokee fiddler Sam O’Fields), and others.
The event is being organized by local folklorist Rachel Reynolds and the Music Education Initiative.
Music kicks off on Friday night at 4 p.m. with Betse & Clark at the B.C.’s Juke Joint stage inside the Pryor Center, and continues through the evening with Brian Martin, Creek Rocks, Jerron Paxton, Jontavious Willis, and Robert Kimbrough St. Blues Connection set to perform.
On Saturday, festivities shift to the event center inside the Fayetteville Public Library with music set to begin at 1 p.m. and running through 10 p.m. that evening. Music continues at the library event center from 12:30 p.m. through 5 p.m.
In addition to the music, the event will include square dances, a quilt making workshop, kids workshops, food, a gospel brunch, a ‘ballad off’ competition, workshops, and more.
Tickets to the Jontavious Willis performance on Friday night are $20. The ‘Not your Mama’s Gospel Brunch’ set for 11 a.m. on Nov. 5 at Fayetteville Public Library is $25. Some of the workshops on Saturday also require tickets, but most of the festival events are free to attend. For more info on them, visit the event Facebook page.
A full schedule of events set for this weekend is below. To purchase entry to the ticketed events, call 479-879-1097.
For more information, visit the Facebook page for the event.
