Sound Summit, the intimate annual music festival staged high above San Francisco Bay returns to the slopes of Mount Tam on Saturday, September 9. This year’s soundtrack to the most stirring backdrop around features performances from cosmic folk-rock storytellers Lord Huron; spellbinding Americana songstress Sierra Ferrell; captivating modern-day troubadour Kevin Morby; a special reunion of acclaimed Bay Area music collective Brokedown in Bakersfield (Nicki Bluhm, Tim Bluhm, Dan Lebowitz, Steve Adams, Scott Law, Dave Brogan); and Marin County’s own beloved funkmasters Vinyl.
High-spirited KNBR radio personalities Murph & Mac (aka Brian Murphy and Paul McCaffrey) return as the day’s dynamic Masters of Ceremonies along with KPFA’s “Dead to the World” radio host Tim Lynch. Andy Cabic of Vetiver fame will keep the groove going all day long, spinning records between sets.
Sound Summit is as much a community spirit as it is a community event. The San Francisco Chronicle has called the festival “a day of restorative celebration.” Produced as an annual celebration of and fundraiser for Mount Tamalpais State Park by Roots & Branches Conservancy, Sound Summit is staged at the historic Mountain Theater, a 4,000-seat natural stone amphitheater with stunning views of San Francisco, the Bay, and the Pacific beyond. There is no venue like it anywhere in the Bay Area. Fueled by past musical acts such as Wilco, Bob Weir & Phil Lesh, Herbie Hancock, Tedeschi Trucks Band, The War On Drugs, Grace Potter, Lukas Nelson and the Promise of the Real, Father John Misty, Jim James, Los Lobos, Dr. John & The Night Trippers, and many more, Sound Summit has provided $250,000 to Mount Tam to date. And it just recently funded the restoration of the Steep Ravine Trail, the mountain’s most popular, which had been closed to the public for over six months.
Tickets go on sale Friday, June 2 at 10:00 am (PDT) and are $120 for adults and $60 for youth 12 and under; children 2 and under are admitted free. To purchase tickets and for more information on the event, parking and shuttles, visit SoundSummit.net. Gates open at 10:00 am; music from 11:00 am – 7:00 pm.
About Roots & Branches Conservancy
Roots & Branches Conservancy is a San Francisco Bay Area-based non-profit organization dedicated to the conservation of natural resources, both physical and cultural. The broad arc of our mission ranges from regional environmental and educational work to the preservation and evolution of artistic and cultural traditions – musical, visual, narrative, and beyond. Wherever possible, we aim to create intersections between the environment, education, and the arts to their mutual benefit.
Towards those ends, our interests lie in producing resonant community experiences in our events, providing educational components in our programming, and making meaningful contributions to worthy beneficiaries.
Roots & Branches Conservancy was born in the context of drastic cuts in the California State Parks budget and our belief in the power of art and community to gather force for a good cause.
WHAT:
Sound Summit
WHEN:
Saturday, September 9, 2023
Gates open at 10:00 am; Music from 11:00 am – 7:00 pm
WHERE:
The historic Mountain Theater, East Ridgecrest Blvd in Mount Tamalpais State Park
TICKETS & INFO:
Tickets go on sale Friday, June 2 at 10:00 am
$120 for adults, $60 for youth 12 and under; children 2 and under are admitted free. To purchase tickets and for more information and transportation tips, including shuttle, hiking biking, and driving, and an updated concert schedule, please visit SoundSummit.net.
WHO:
Lord Huron
Evoking wide-open vistas and the spirit of travel, American indie outfit Lord Huron emerged in the early 2010s on the heels of the indie folk boom, bringing together an expansive and dynamic blend of folk, rock, pop, and threads of Americana. Led by Michigan native Ben Schneider, the Los Angeles-based Lord Huron -- who take their name from one of the five Great Lakes -- found mainstream success in 2014 with the release of their lush, Western-inspired second album, Strange Trails, whose closing track, "The Night We Met," reached an even larger audience in 2017 thanks to a key placement in the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why. They returned in 2021 with the streaming concert series Alive from Whispering Pines and their fourth full-length album, Long Lost.
Sierra Ferrell
Sierra Ferrell is honored to be nominated for the 2023 Artist of the Year by the Americana Music Association. With her spellbinding voice and time-bending sensibilities, Ferrell makes music that’s as fantastically vagabond as the artist herself. Growing up in small-town West Virginia, the singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist left home in her early 20s to journey across the country with a troupe of nomadic musicians, playing everywhere from truck stops to alleyways to freight-train boxcars speeding down the railroad tracks. After years of living in her van and busking on the streets of New Orleans and Seattle, she moved to Nashville and soon landed a deal with Rounder Records on the strength of her magnetic live show. Now, on her highly anticipated label debut Long Time Coming, Ferrell shares a dozen songs beautifully unbound by genre or era, instantly transporting her audience to an infinitely more enchanted world.
Kevin Morby
Kevin Morby is a Kansas City-based singer/songwriter. With his seven acclaimed solo albums and myriad records of various collaborations, Morby has become a true musical auteur. His singular vision, evocative lyrics, and aptitude for catchy, dense songwriting have placed him firmly among the ranks of modern icons. Each Morby record possesses its own unique persona and explores intriguing themes and fertile terrain through shifting, focused textures, and dexterous, dedicated skill. This Is A Photograph, Morby’s latest album, finds him making an Americana paean, a visceral life and death, blood on the canvas outpouring. The creatively invigorated songwriter has managed to align his finest songs, best vocal performances, most incisive lyrics, and most lush arrangements to date.
Brokedown in Bakersfield
Back together for the first time in nine years, Brokedown in Bakersfield is a collective of acclaimed artists joining forces in a spirited tribute to the Bakersfield sound: California country music made raw and rocking, spiked with twang and sweetened with heartfelt harmonies. First appearing to hundreds of music fans on a sunny Saturday morning at the 2011 High Sierra Music Festival, the group features Lebo of ALO on pedal steel, Scott Law on Telecaster, singer Nicki Bluhm of Gramblers fame, Tim Bluhm of The Mother Hips on vocals and acoustic guitar, along with rhythm section – Steve Adams of ALO on bass and Dave Brogan, former ALO drummer. Drawing from the powerful songbooks of Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, Gram Parsons, and more, Brokedown in Bakersfield showcases the striking songwriting and instrumentation of guitar-slinging country sounds that added oil to the Dust Bowl life of ‘60s- era Southern California – on the road, in the truck, out the back, and at the honky tonk.
Vinyl
Born in a garage in Mill Valley, California in 1995, Vinyl has become synonymous with Marin County music, Sweetwater, and good times. Their notoriously high-energy shows and seamless instrumental mix of salsa, Afrobeat, reggae, and funk have kept their crowds dancing for nearly 30 years. The band toured nationally and internationally for over two decades and played late-night/early-morning shows post-Jazz Fest in New Orleans for 15 years in a row. Vinyl has been joined on stage by a wide range of stars including Bob Weir & Phil Lesh of The Grateful Dead, Huey Lewis, Joan Baez, Les Claypool (Primus), Bernie Worrell (P-Funk), legendary Jamaican guitarist Ernest Ranglin, Poncho Sanchez, Sugar Pie DeSanto, Jerry Harrison (Talking Heads), and a long list of others.
DJ Andy Cabic is a long-time resident of the Bay Area who has filled rooms big and small with sound, both as a DJ and as the singer-songwriter of his group, Vetiver.
KNBR morning show hosts Murph & Mac (aka Brian Murphy and Paul McCaffrey) will return as the day’s dynamic masters of ceremonies along with KPFA’s “Dead to the World” radio host Tim Lynch.
