19th International Bühl Bluegrass Festival, 5-6 May 2023 (update)

The BIB has always liked the International Bühl Bluegrass Festival, held in springtime at Bühl (Baden), a pleasant town between the Black Forest and the Rhine in south-west Germany. From the beginning (2003) the festival, financed by the city council, has put on top-ranking acts from the USA and Europe (e.g. Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, Red Wine).

This year's festival will be held on Friday and Saturday, 5-6 May. The Friday concert will be by Bavaria's Johnny and the Yooahoos (above left, who played Westport last year) and our old Dutch friends the Blue Grass Boogiemen. On Saturday bands will be playing between 10.00 a.m. and 4.00 p.m. at a free-admission, open-air stage in the city centre. The evening concert (5.00-11.30 p.m.) in the Bürgerhaus Neuer Markt, a first-class auditorium, will feature Boom-Ditty (F), Cousin Hatfield (NL), Fog Holler (USA; on this year's Westport lineup, and shown below) and Level Best (USA), who toured Ireland in October 2019.

Thomm Jutz, originally from around Bühl, is now highly respected in Nashville as a songwriter and as a performing and recording artist: he was the first immigrant to be nominated for a Grammy award in the Best Bluegrass Album category. He and Tammy Rogers brought out a Christmas album, Welcome the babe, last year; and Lost voices, his latest album with Tim Stafford, includes a song entitled 'Wild Atlantic Way', worth looking up for pickers in the western parts of this island. A sample can be heard on Lee Zimmerman's feature on Bluegrass Today.

Update 20 Feb.: For more details on Lost voices, see the Mountain Fever Records press release.

© Richard Hawkins