The 17-day Savannah Music Festival got underway last night (3/24). For years now, the SMF has featured world-class performers and top-notch production values. Over time, the festival — which is heavy on classical, jazz, and other genres we don’t cover much here at hissing lawns (hello, new contributors? anyone?) — has increasingly offered intriguing acts from the worlds of rock, pop, and world music. We spotlighted some of that programming earlier this year when five excellent lineup additions were announced.
I’m not going to try and summarize the whole festival in this post — read Do, read Connect — but here’s a list of some of the shows that would likely be of most interest to regular readers of hissing lawns. Our readership skews pretty young (or so the Facebook analytics tell us), and the SMF audience, well, often does not skew young. So there might be some stellar shows coming up that you haven’t heard anything about.
A few recommendations from the dozens of shows over the next two weeks and three weekends (more info and tickets can be found here):
- 3/25: organist Cameron Carpenter at the Lucas Theatre (trust us on this one)
- 3/26: Rokia Traore at Trustees Theater
- 3/29: Andrew Bird at the Lucas
- 3/30: Ry Cooder, Sharon White, Ricky Skaggs at the Lucas
- 3/31: Dwight Yoakam at Johnny Mercer Theatre
- 4/1: The Suffers and Langhorne Slim at the Ships of the Sea North Gardent
- 4/2: Ballake Sissoko at the Morris Center
- 4/2: North Mississippi Allstars and Charlie Musselwhite at the Ships of the Sea
- 4/3: Del McCoury and David Grisman at the Lucas
- 4/4: Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings at the Lucas
- 4/5: Dave Rawlings Machine at Trustees
- 4/6: Drive-By Truckers at Trustees
- 4/7: Dr. John & The Nite Trippers at the Lucas
- 4/8: Rhiannon Giddens and Mokoomba at Ships of the Sea
- 4/8: Stringband Spectacular (the finale of the SMF’s Acoustic Music Seminar) at the Lucas
- 4/8 & 4/9: My Brightest Diamond at the Morris Center
Note that some of those shows have limited if any tickets still available. The festival is not cheap, but I know how much some of you spend on drinks and dinner on a an average night on the town. You’ll forget those nights, but you’re unlikely to forget any of these shows anytime soon.