Once again the Spirit Of The Suwannee Music Park’s stages were filled with music, its woods were filled with campers and its beaches were packed with folks enjoying a li’l fun in the sun… with bands like Lotus, Charles Bradley and the Extraordinaires, Nahko and Medicine For The People, Elephant Revival, Dubconscicous and many more, it was business as usual for the home of live music. The Purple Hatter’s Ball is more than just another music festival, it’s a shining example of the best in human nature overcoming the worst thing a family could ever deal with.  It’s not what triumphs and tragedies befall you that tell the tale of your life, it’s how you react to them that shows the true measure of a life.  Sometimes the greatest of lessons are learned at the most terrible of costs, and from these moments of devastation the will to fight to make the world a better place is honed in all consuming fire. A fallen member of the music scene rests in peace, but her spirit has inspired a movement, a law and a group of friends to make the world a better place in her honor.

Rachel Morningstar Hoffman’s tragic life has been well documented by many far better writers than myself. The subject of profiles on shows like 60 Minutes, and Hoffman’s tale sparked a fire that has helped to shed light on police practices shrouded in secrecy. Shortly put, after her arrest for possession of a plant, Hoffman was pressed into cooperating on a police sting that went horribly wrong, resulting in her death at the hands of the men she was helping apprehend. It took months for the circumstances of her death to come to light, with a judge finding the government liable for their slip shod handling of the entire operation. Upon seeing the lack of regard for their daughters safety, her parents, working with Florida lawmakers, got legislation passed to help provide checks and balances on the ways law officers could send informants into harms way. Her law eventually reached the federal level.

The family joined with promoter Paul Levine, a friend of Rachel’s, to start a charitable foundation and found a music festival to keep her spirit and inspiration alive and shining to the world. On Saturday, a ceremony was held, as Margie Weiss, Rachel’s mother, gathered onstage to tell her story to everyone in attendance, to remind the old guard and inspire the new, before releasing a set of butterflies into the park, one for each year Rachel was with us, and one more to represent the future cut short.


Levine has worked hard to keep the balance between the music she loved, the music he feels she would have loved, and the message he hopes to help spread about knowing your rights. In doing so, he has built the kind of community that protects each other, and a party that Rachel herself would be proud to attend.

A Florida resident, she had strong ties to regional bands like Dubconscious, Shak Nasti and Catfish Alliance, as well as her love of national acts like Lotus. The musicians who play the Purple Hatters Ball react in predictable ways when hearing both the show’s sad origin and uplifting message, with artists taking time from their sets to share their connection, either personal or spiritual, with the fallen.

Charles Bradley was particularly shaken, as his life has also been marked with tragic circumstances. Ever a flamboyant showman, his stage twirls and dances were interrupted by his tears as, while relating the tale of meeting Rachel’s mother Margie backstage, he broke down in tears, leapt down from the stage and embraced her in the front row, before then hugging everyone he could while the band played on. It was a moving sight, and par for the course at the Purple Hatters Ball where every musician is playing for more than hearts and minds, they’re playing for hope of a better world.

Musically, the festival ranged from the chilling Elephant Revival, the crazy funk of Catfish Alliance, the straight ahead rock of bands like Mingo Fishtrap, Mouth and TAUK, to world music-inspired bands like Toubab Krewe and Benyoro on hand to give an unexpected, appreciate depth to the weekend.  The hyper positive message of Nahko And Medicine For The People fit right in, as the bands mixture of hushed moments of connection with the crowd mixed with bursts of dancing craziness. 

Lotus brought their jamtronica heavy sound to the Saturday night closing, building to crescendo after crescendo that had the audience rising and falling with them, a perfect synchronicity of listener and performer. The Empire Strikes Brass found their big band sound fit perfectly on the stage, as well as down by the Suwannee River, where they serenaded attendees who had gone down to the beach to enjoy a little swimming and some of the fine tunes playing on “Rachel’s Beach Stage.”


The Purple Hatter’s Ball tries to honor all of Rachel’s passions, including her love of art.  Noted psychedelic artist Alex Grey was onhand to sign books of his work, share stories of his time in the art scene, and try to inspire folks to seek their own creative path. Other music scene live painters such as Bean Spence also took to the stages, and a robust painting gallery was set up on stage left, with over a dozen artists drawing dancing crowds.

In one case, art and music combined to create a unique performance, as the Sexual Manatee Basshole had it’s first public performance.  The brainchild of Bigg E, it can only be described as Andy Kauffmann, Andy Warhol, Gallagher, a burlesque show, and an avant garde performance art piece all crammed into ninety minutes of pure insanity. Seriously, when I finish editing together the video I shot of this spectacle, I will share it with you folks as quite honestly, my words can not do it justice.

If there was any one thing that summed up the Purple Hatters Ball, it was the simplest of gestures, the smile.  Everywhere you went, on every face was the same expression, a shared singular happiness at being united for the best of reasons, in the best of seasons, the weather, the music and the energy of the people completely in harmony. Sacred steel artist and new area resident Roosevelt Collier closed out the festival in fine style, bringing members of Toubab Krewe among others to a “Let it all hang out” final jam session, with his peels of pedal steel guitar adding a touch of the sacred and holy to the proceedings, a fitting benediction to the weekend’s proceedings.  The park lived up to it’s name, as spirit and music combined into a ceremony of loving remembrance and a reminder that every life is special, every life can inspire and every life touches all and is part of the whole.

All photos by Rex Thomson and Joey Pye: