The Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum in Owensboro, KY will celebrate the music of Jerry Garcia with a weekend of performances by Kitchen Dwellers with special guest Lindsay Lou, Sam Grisman, members of The Infamous Stringdusters, and more. The weekend of November 22nd and 23rd will highlight the museum’s exhibit on the Grateful Dead guitarist’s bluegrass legacy which opened earlier this year.
Kitchen Dwellers will headline the weekend on Saturday with special guest and frequent collaborator Lindsay Lou. Garcia’s longtime compatriot David Grisman‘s son Sam Grisman will top Friday’s lineup with his band the Sam Grisman Project. Both bands will be supported each night by Fireside Collective who will perform a special “Fireside on the Mountain” set with help from The Infamous Stringdusters’ Travis Book. Book and his bandmate Andy Falco will be on hand all weekend long, performing tributes to Jerry on Friday and Saturday.
In addition to nightly performances, the Bluegrass Hall of Fame has a special weekend of programming scheduled for Deadheads traveling to western Kentucky. Along with daily tours of the Jerry Garcia: A Bluegrass Journey exhibit, the museum will host daily workshops, inviting fans to bring their instruments and learn the art of the bluegrass jam. Visitors can unwind in the afternoon with screenings of Festival Express and The Grateful Dead movie in the Woodward Theatre on Friday and Saturday, respectively. The museum will also have food trucks on-site all weekend and host a pre-concert lounge every afternoon and evening before the concerts.
Tickets for the Jerry Garcia: A Bluegrass Journey weekend at the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum are on sale here for $99 for the whole weekend. Those who purchase tickets will have the same seats for the entire weekend. See below for the full schedule of events.
Set to run at the museum for two years, Jerry Garcia: A Bluegrass Journey examines how Jerry’s bluegrass roots shaped the musician he ultimately became. The exhibit traces Garcia’s early affinity for bluegrass which inspired him to develop his skills as an ace banjo player, forming early groups like the Black Mountain Boys and the Hart Valley Drifters.
The exhibit also examines a fateful 1964 road trip that could have spelled the end of the Grateful Dead before the band ever even existed. Before the Acid Tests or the Summer of Love, Garcia and his friend Sandy Rothman loaded into Jerry’s Corvair and headed east. They set out to find the bluegrass contemporaries who are now considered pillars of the genre like Bill Monroe and the Osborne Brothers, but Garcia eventually felt homesick and returned to his beloved Bay Area. Once back in San Francisco, he formed Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions, which became The Warlocks, and ultimately the Grateful Dead.
The Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame utilizes rare artifacts including 12 of Garcia’s personal instruments, rare recordings, and more to construct a narrative in the 1,000-square-foot gallery. Historians also conducted over 20 new interviews to tell the story, conversing with David Nelson, Eric Thompson, Sandy Rothman, David Grisman, Peter Rowan, Sara Ruppenthal Katz, Carolyn “Mountain Girl” Garcia, Dennis McNally, Del McCoury, Billy Strings, Molly Tuttle, Sam Bush, Vince Herman, and more for a wide-ranging perspective of how Jerry has affected bluegrass through the decades.
