Ray Bonneville is a hard driving, blues dipped, song and groove man writing about the people on the fringe of society. Ray’s vibe is loose and soulful, with a greasy guitar style, horn-like harmonica, smoky vocals and pulsing foot percussion. In 1999 he won the Juno award (Canada’s Grammy) and was nominated twice more. Ray’s song “I am the Big Easy” was the most played song by American folk DJs, and won “Song of the Year” in 2009. Ray won the International Blues Challenge in 2012 in Memphis.

Ray played the Sugar Maple Concert Series in 2019 and captivated the room with his songs and stories. You can catch Ray at the 2021 Sugar Maple Music Festival on Saturday, August 7.

Although the 2020 Sugar Maple Music Festival is postponed to 2021, we’ve created a T-shirt to commemorate this historic year and the festival that wasn’t. Like our annual festival T-shirt, it features the stellar lineup we had booked for the 2020 festival, puts a mask on our fiddler graphic and reads “cancelled by COVID-19.” It comes in two styles, one color and multiple sizes.  

We’ve created this shirt as part of a limited-time fundraiser for our nonprofit, which supports American roots music, dance and education and the musicians who keep it alive. Your donation of $50 or more will get you the shirt and help us continue supporting artists and music education during this challenging time.  Our support now is based on virtual (on-line) Roots & Reasons and performance events.  Please check out the Virtual Concert Calendar at the Sugar Maple Website.

We look forward to hosting live music events again when it’s safe for our musicians and roots music community and we are happy to report that the majority of those booked for the 2020 festival have agreed to be part of our 2021 lineup.

Reserve your shirt before August 30 by donating $50 or more, which you can make here. We also need you to send your order details (size, style, number, address) to us at fourlakesmusic@gmail.com so we can create the shirts and ship them to you.  

Thank you for your support. 

The border country of Texas is a rich tableau for multicultural traditional music.  Belen Escobedo grew up in San Antonio listening to a savory stew of Norteño, Tejano, mariachi and classic Texas country music.  The old songs left an impression in her mind as she learned violin in school and the local traditional fiddle styles on the side.  Many of the songs she plays are an eclectic mix of waltzes, polkas and other traditional forms brought by early German and East European settlers to Texas, in which the fiddle playing the melody lines came to be replaced in more conventional versions of this music by the accordion. 

Today, Belen is one of the few remaining practitioners of authentic fiddle-based Conjunto music, and Sugar Maple is excited to present her and her band, Panfilo’s Güera, for their first appearance in the Upper Midwest.  Belen was presented the Master of Texas Fiddling Award at the 2017 Festival of Texas Fiddling in recognition of her significance in maintaining this distinctive Texas musical style.  She and her band were recently featured in concert at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville.  Panfilo’s Güera includes Ramon Gutierrez on tololoche (bass) and Virginio Castillo on bajo sexto.  Their new self-titled live album showcases 17 traditional songs of the Texas borderlands.

~written by Brad Wolbert

On Saturday, Aug. 1, Appalachian Roadshow will play the 17^th Annual Sugar Maple Music Festival. Appalachian Roadshow honors the music, traditions and history of the Appalachian people and regions. The group is comprised of banjoist Barry Abernathy, mandolinist-extraordinaire Darrell Webb, Grammy-award winning fiddler Jim Vancleve, and legendary upright bassist Todd Phillips. On guitar is Zeb Snyder, a young phenom taking acoustic guitar circles by storm.

~written by Kimberly Schmitt

We’re excited to bring the Amythyst Kiah Trio to the stage for their very first Sugar Maple Music Festival performance. Born in Chattanooga and based in Johnson City, Amythyst Kiah’s commanding stage presence is matched by her raw and powerful vocals—a deeply moving, hypnotic sound that stirs echoes of a distant and restless past.

Accompanied interchangeably with banjo, acoustic guitar, or a full band, her eclectic influences span decades, finding inspiration in old time music, alternative rock, folk, country, and blues.

Our Native Daughters, her recent collaboration with Rhiannon Giddens, Leyla McCalla, and Allison Russell (Birds of Chicago), has delivered a full-length album produced by Rhiannon Giddens and Dirk Powell, Songs of Our Native Daughters (out now on Smithsonian Folkways). The opening track, “Black Myself”, written by Amythyst, was recently nominated for a Grammy for Best American Roots Song.

Mark your calendars for Saturday, Aug. 1 when the Amythst Kiah Trio takes to the 17h Annual Sugar Maple Music Festival stage.

~written by Kimberly Schmitt