The Mountain Music Festival 2008

Please Visit....

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...our brand new page for

Manitou Springs' Mountain Music Festival 2009 HERE.

We're Back....

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...for our 26th year...

..with a great lineup of dulcimer, guitar, banjo, and bluegrass music - all folk, all the time! Come back here and watch our page grow as we add artists and music, pictures and video!

So Save The Dates -

August 22, 23, and 24, 2008
Soda Springs Park
Manitou Springs, Colorado

Click HERE For Our MMF2008 Performance Schedule

Just Added!!!

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Joining our stellar lineup of performers for the Mountain Music Festival 2008 are five more acts, four who delighted our audiences last year at the Silver Jubilee 25th Annual Mountain Music Festival - and one making its debut here this summer.

DAKOTA BLONDE is one of the hottest Americana/bluegrass bands performing today - and their appearance at last year's MMF was one of the highlights of the festival. Veterans of outstanding folk gatherings like North Carolina's legendary MerleFest and Kansas' Walnut Valley Festival, Dakota Blonde's unique and subtle blend of folk, country, Celtic, and bluegrass sounds and traditions - performed with their signature tight harmony, outstanding musicianship, and onstage warmth - makes them a very welcome addition to MMF2008!

BING FUTCH is a man of many parts, nearly all of them musical. A master of the mountain dulcimer, Bing has demonstrated his amazing versatility with the instrument, both as a soloist and with his roots/rock group Mohave. As producer, director, instructor, and performer of the Dulcimerica videos available on Podcast and YouTube and as author of the songbook Dulcimerica: All Over The Map, Bing has boldly taken the dulcimer to some places it has never gone before - and we're lucky that one of those places will be his return engagement at MMF2008.

JUBILANT BRIDGE is a startlingly original modern folk duo who respect the traditions of the mountain dulcimer and the guitar while creating a distinctly complex and contemporary sound that is all their own. Their harmonies - both vocal and instrumental - are as intricate as CS&N and as tight as the Hollies, and their four CDs have won as wide critical acclaim as have their live performances across the country. The Mountain Music Festival is proud to present Jubilant Bridge for the first time this year.

JIM YOUNG is the pride of Southern Colorado's singer-songwriters, and no other artist matches Jim's subtle combinations of the diverse strains and rhythms that have shaped the music and the peoples of his beloved Southwest. Jim's quiet warmth and wry wit lend his performances a kind of open range authenticity that you just don't find in many other performers. In Jim's voice and guitar, you can hear a bit of cowboy, a bit of country, a bit of Spanish - and if you close your eyes, you can see the landscape he sings of stretching to the far horizon.

THE MANITOU PROJECT
Organized by Robert Force in 2007 with with his fellow MMF performers Bing Futch (see above), Judy Piazza (see below), Dave Batti (see everywhere on bass during the weekend), Quintin Stephens, Roger Zimish and Bud Ford III, the Manitou Project explores boundaries, pushes envelopes, and defies categorization. Eclectic and improvisational, the Manitou Project might be described as a neo/folk/fusion/jazz/Afro-Carib/world/progressive band. Or not - listen and be beguiled by their mesmerizing originality and forget the labels.

..and Join Us For Our Other Festival Programs on Thursday 8/21 At Kinfolks Mountain Shop and Saturday Night 8/23 at the Ancient Mariner Pub - Details In The Right Hand Column.

Click HERE For Our MMF2008 Performance Schedule

Featured Performers

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Robert Force

...is perhaps the most aptly named musician in the country today, because Robert is just that - a force in music, education, community action, and half a dozen other areas as well. A legend among mountain dulcimer players both for his In Search Of The Wild Dulcimer instructional text and for his extension of the instrument's vocabulary from its traditional folk origins into blazingly original styles of play and performance, Robert also engages audiences with a wry wit that is the perfect complement to the passion of his musicianship. Long a mainstay at the MMF, Robert returns to Manitou Springs with his usual - and forceful - combination of visionary innovation and musical artistry.

Bob Haworth

...is the Renaissance man of popular folk music. Called "the best independent musician working in America today," Bob continues to entertain and amaze audiences with the full range of his astoundingly diverse abilities as a performer - he is a master instrumentalist on banjo and guitar (and saw - you need to see this to believe it), a singer who combines vocal power with sensitive interpretation, and a songwriter of everything from wickedly witty satire to the tenderest of romantic ballads. Bob's tales from his travels around the world as a member of The Brothers Four and The Kingston Trio are just as much fun as his "Bob O'Luney" one-man band performance. All the Bobs will be at the MMF once again to our delight - and yours.

Judy Piazza

...is the very embodiment of the concept of world music. Her artistry is rooted in the rhythms and melodies of peoples and cultures from around the world - from ethereal Native American chants to the delicate gossamer strains of her dulcimer and guitar work to the haunting echoes of the aboriginal didgeridoo to the powerful strains of the many drums and percussion instruments of which she is master. Judy's vocals and stories weave these disparate musical elements into a seamless and unforgettable performance.

Cripple Creek
...is a couple of folks whose craft at making mountain dulcimers is matched only by their mastery at playing them, a world-class tenor banjo player, a robust tenor whose own songs have the simple eloquence of a Guthrie or Paxton, an angelic vocalist and a bassist to anchor your sound on - that's Manitou's own Cripple Creek. Through decades of performance and multiple CDs, this band has delivered roots music, gospel, Americana, satire, protest, and just about anything else you could call folk in rich four part harmony - and with a delightful sense of humor that consistently finds its mark but leaves no one wounded and everyone smiling, usually as they're singing along with the group.

The Chilly Winds

..is a group that brings back the sounds and the memories of the popular folk bands of the late 1950s through the mid-1960s like the Kingston Trio, The Clancy Brothers, the Chad Mitchell Trio, and more. Their driving rhythms and sweet harmonies have delighted audiences at the last several MMFs, not in small measure because much of the audience sings along with most of their songs, which is exactly what they want everyone to do.

Click HERE For Our MMF2008 Performance Schedule