In honor of the AACW Blues Fest, The Village of Yellow Springs Public Arts & Culture Commission have put together a series of free events featuring world renown musicians. Revival: A Celebration of American Music will be at the John Bryan Community Center this weekend, September 25-27.
The cross pollination between many roots genres happened right here in America among a melting pot of cultures. Village Council member Carmen Brown says she's often thought about the place and time these genres originated from.
"You can take any old time bluegrass song and pop it on 12 bar blues. It's very similar and interchangeable. I started thinking about why that was, and started thinking about the region of Appalachia. What we had were Irish, Scottish, Italian, Welsh, German, and recently so-called emancipated Black people from the South, all together operating and trying to survive under the same classist system, an oppressive system. So that's my take on why the music works so well together, is because it was almost an impossibility for it not to."
To start the weekend off, Friday in the John Bryan Community Center gym, Joe Zavaan Johnson will be giving a lecture and performance surrounding the origins of the banjo. Then Saturday and Sunday, outside on the lawn, bands and musicians will take to the stage- including WYSO's very own Eric Henry and headliner Georgia Anne Muldrow. Nanyea Cafe, Lumpia Queen, and Life's Lemons will have food trucks on site as well.
For set times and more information on Revival: A Celebration of American Music, head on over to yellowspringsohio.org.
