Tom Netherland is a freelance writer and music journalist. He also volunteers his time to host Country Song Round Up every Friday at 12:30 pm on Radio Bristol from inside the Birthplace of Country Music Museum. This article was written for the Bristol Rhythm and Roots Reunion’s Festival Guide. In addition to the festival schedule and artist bios, the Festival Guide will include more articles like this, offering an in-depth sneak peek at some of your favorite festival artists and activities! The Festival Guide will be inserted into pre-festival editions of The Bristol Herald Courier, Smyth County News, Wythville Enterprise, Richlands News Press, Floyd County Press, and The Roanoke Times. During the festival, it will also be available at all festival ticket booths.
Many years ago, Tyler Childers hitchhiked to Bristol. He camped, slept in his tent by night, and by day enjoyed his first exposure to Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion. Now he’s selling out such iconic venues as Red Rocks in Colorado and the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.
Welcome to the 25th Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion. Through trying times and unforgettable moments, the venerable festival marks its silver anniversary in pure golden style in downtown Bristol from Friday, Sept. 11 through Sunday, Sept. 13. Lifetimes of memories will be made.
“Cool festival,” said Tyler Childers back in 2017. “My first time to Bristol, I hitchhiked. It’s an awesome place, man.”
Years earlier and years later, Leah Ross sat at her desk with more Bristol Rhythm memories than most anyone else. For one, much of Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion was devised while sitting at her kitchen table. The former executive director of the Birthplace of Country Music, who left the organization to pursue new opportunities after last year’s festival, looks back fondly on the lean and lively years.
“We’re blessed,” Ross said. “Just look at our lineup.”
Frankly, she could make the same comment every year. But this year’s festival features such luminaries as Sierra Ferrell, Old Crow Medicine Show, St. Paul & The Broken Bones, Los Lobos, The War and Treaty, Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives, The Del McCoury Band and more. Way more.
Like Bristol friend Jim Lauderdale. And troubadour the Darrell Scott String Band featuring Rob Ickes. Kentucky’s Laid Back Country Pickers makes a popular return. Likewise, Bristol resident Dallas Wayne, Texan country singer Sunny Sweeney, and dozens more.
Take rhythm & blues duo The War and Treaty. Michael and Tanya Trotter made an unbilled Bristol Rhythm debut in 2017. During the final performance on the last day of that year’s festival, they suddenly appeared on stage on State Street. Few, if anyone, in the audience knew who they were.
“Sometimes (music) takes us to the unknown,” Michael Trotter said. “Music can take you anywhere.”
Call it a Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion moment, but The War and Treaty soon became stars. They were booked for Bristol Rhythm in 2018. Since then, they have appeared multiple times on the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. In 2020, they performed alongside John Legend and Cyndi Lauper on the Grammy Awards. In 2024, they earned two Grammy nominations.
“We see cultures come to our shows,” Tanya Trotter said. “The music brings it all together. Makes sense. It’s a gift to spread love like that.”
See The War and Treaty on Friday, Sept. 11.
Jim Lauderdale returns for the umpteenth time to Bristol Rhythm. Like Marty Stuart, Bristol rates as more than just another town on his tour itinerary.
“Whenever I come to Bristol and walk around these streets,” Lauderdale said, “I get this kind of goose bump feeling.”
On more than one occasion, well after the midnight hour, this writer has spotted, stopped, and chit-chatted with Lauderdale while he was walking downtown in Bristol.
“(Roots) are the backbone of everything I do,” Lauderdale, who will perform during Bristol Rhythm on Friday, Sept. 11 and Saturday, Sept. 12, said.
He’s a soul akin to that of Marty Stuart. A member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, he and his crackerjack band of greats, His Fabulous Superlatives, will twang Bristol on Sunday, Sept. 13.
“When I drive through Poor Valley and Bristol,” Stuart said, “I feel it. You need to watch authenticity. Johnny Cash brought a story to the table. Merle Haggard brought stories. It was like they brought letters from home, from where they came from.”
That’s Bristol Rhythm. In its 25th year, the people who visit, the people who play music, the people who work the festival – they bring their stories, their authenticity. Like songs in a songbook, they contribute to the ongoing epic labeled Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion.
“I tell people I have three homes, Tom,” Stuart said. “I was born in Philadelphia, Mississippi. I live and make music in Nashville, Tennessee. That’s two. And my heart is in the Birthplace of Country Music, Bristol, Tennessee. There’s no place like it.”
