This year's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival (“HSBG”) in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park was—as usual, and as expected—a joyous and magical celebration for young and old, family and friends, musicians and music fans.

“It was like one of those late at night things,” says AJ Lee, mandolinist, singer, and namesake of burgeoning band AJ Lee & Blue Summit of the group’s origin.

There are few music festivals with the legacy of the High Sierra Music Festival (HSMF). After more than thirty years, HSMF has truly become far more than the sum of its parts. Sure, there's a ton of world-class music on several stages, parades, activities for kids, crafts and vendors, killer food, and all that. And of course, there's the camping scene, a hippie town that springs up almost overnight on the Plumas County Fairgrounds for the four-day festival around the Fourth of July each year.

AJ Lee & Blue Summit’s latest single “I Can’t Find You At All” is quite the family affair for Blue Summit guitarist Sullivan Tuttle. His sister, GRAMMY Award-winning guitarist and singer Molly Tuttle, joins Lee on vocals for a heartbreaking performance of the song written by none other than Sullivan and Molly’s father, Jack Tuttle.

What began as a simple lament for a long lost lover, AJ Lee & Blue Summit’s cover of Harlan Howard’s tune “He Called Me Baby” highlights the unmatchable chemistry between the members of one of the fastest rising groups in the worlds of Americana and Bluegrass. The Northern California-based quartet—Lee (mandolin), Sullivan Tuttle (guitar), Scott Gates (guitar), and Jan Purat (fiddle)—have dedicated their time to making music solely for the joy of making it, and the results are as pure as the process itself.

The High Sierra Music Festival, one of California's longest-running annual music festivals, is celebrating its 32nd year on July 4-7, 2024, in the golden Sierra hills of Quincy. Headliners this year include Ziggy Marley, Primus, and Greensky Bluegrass. They will be joined by a wide variety of bluegrass, jam, Americana, funk, folk, and worldbeat acts on multiple stages at the Plumas County Fairgrounds.

While it would be easy for a rapidly rising band like AJ Lee & Blue Summit to chase current trends or popular sounds, the Northern California quartet is more interested in discovering themselves and their music through sonics and textures truly their own. This is not the bluegrass of ambitious musicians intent on industry success, this is music made solely for the joy of making it.

Nat Keefe’s Concert Carnival came to town and performed “without a net” at The Independent on Sunday night, December 17, 2023. The venerable San Francisco club was full of talent, musical and otherwise, for the 18th annual fundraiser produced by Keefe (Hot Buttered Rum, BeatMower).

Closing out the month of July, the production triumph that is Planet Bluegrass made the magic happen once again with the legendary three-day event RockyGrass.

Bluegrass may have its roots in Appalachia, but it has sown its seeds far and wide. Northern California in particular has been fertile ground for country pickin' for decades, with legends Peter Rowan and David Grisman among the many genre luminaries who have made their home among the Bay Area's redwoods.