PRESENTED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH KALW

The Freight celebrates the 10th year of the Berkeley Bluegrass Festival, May 2 & 3, 2026. With concerts co-curated by Grammy-award winner Laurie Lewis and Leah Wollenberg, plus curated instructional workshops, Berkeley Bluegrass Festival brings together leaders of the genre, up-and-coming artists, and music fans for three days of concerts, jams, workshops, and good old-fashioned merriment to kick off the summer music festival season.

Berkeley Bluegrass Festival Emcee: Allegra Thompson

Click here for more information about the festival including workshops and jams.

Jason Carter

In Lloyd, Kentucky, on U.S. 23, there’s a sign on the Country Music Highway dedicated to renowned fiddler Jason Carter. It was placed there because of his other accomplishments: the Grammy awards, the worldwide tours, and the many other accolades he’s earned through his music. But for Carter, joining the legendary names honored on that stretch of highway just might mean the most. “There’s a certain sound that’s up there that you just don’t hear anywhere else,” he says. “I think that played a big part in how I sound today.”

True to those Kentucky roots, Carter continues to pour all he has back into bluegrass. For thirty years, he has been the fiddle player for the Del McCoury Band—the most awarded group in bluegrass history. He’s won three Grammy awards, including 2018’s “Best Bluegrass Album” with the Travelin’ McCourys, of which he is a founding member. And he’s taken home five IBMAs for “Fiddle Player of the Year,” a staggering number that isn’t quite so crazy once you realize just how many bluegrass greats have turned to Carter for collaboration.

As a fiddler, Carter has been featured on albums by Steve Earle, Ricky Skaggs, Dierks Bentley, Charlie Daniels, Vince Gill, Asleep at the Wheel, and many more, all in addition to his tireless touring and recording with Del as well as the Travelin’ McCourys. On Carter’s forthcoming solo album, Lowdown Hoedown, listeners may recognize instrumental contributions from such legends as Jerry Douglas or Sam Bush alongside vocals from young trailblazers like Sarah Jarosz or Billy Strings. This time, though, Carter is singing lead.

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Chris Jones & Night Drivers

Chris Jones & the Night Drivers make some of the most distinctively elegant yet driving bluegrass music heard anywhere today. Deeply rooted in tradition but never bound to it, they deliver original music with tight arrangements, emotional authenticity, and engaging humor. As actor and banjo player Steve Martin says, "Chris Jones' voice is there with the great masters," adding that the Night Drivers are "some of the best players in bluegrass."

Collectively, Chris Jones & the Night Drivers have won 12 IBMA awards and have racked up 27 #1 songs. The band's full-length release, their first all-original album, Make Each Second Last, has received rave reviews and yielded an unprecedented eight consecutive #1 songs, including the title track "We Needed This Ride." Their song, "Riding the Chief," co-written by Chris and Thomm Jutz, was nominated for 2022 IBMA Song of the Year. They have topped both the Bluegrass Today and Roots Music Review airplay charts with the latest album. Their new EP, Pages in Your Hand, has also yielded two more #1 songs, including the title track.

In July of 2022, they made their debut on The Grand Ole Opry and were soon asked to return.

Chris Jones & the Night Drivers are currently signed to one of bluegrass music’s top record labels, Mountain Home Music Company, for whom they’ve recorded five critically acclaimed albums. Chris Jones & the Night Drivers have become popular repeat performers at major festivals like Merlefest in North Carolina, California’s Huck Finn Jubilee, and the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas. They have filled a wide variety of venues around the world, touring across the U.S. and Canada, and all over Europe, including Germany, Switzerland , the Czech Republic, and Ireland.

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Laurie Lewis & The Right Hands

For nearly four decades, Laurie Lewis has gathered fans and honors for her powerful and emotive voice and her versatile, dynamic songwriting. She is a sought-after recording producer and an equally skilled teacher and mentor.

And she is an inspiration and a ground-breaker – across genres, across geography and across gender barriers.

Laurie has shown us how a woman can blend into any part of the classic bluegrass singing trio, and she showed us how a great voice could move fluidly between bluegrass and other types of music. She showed us how a female fiddler could emulate the strength and grit of the early bluegrass musicians. She has shown how a Californian can appeal to traditional bluegrass audiences, as well as winning acclaim in the worlds of Americana and folk music.

She has shown us how to lead bands of talented musicians – learning from them while helping them make their best music. And she has shown us how to thrive in a constantly changing musical environment – without ever sacrificing her art.

The singer/songwriter. Although she has played roots music since her teenage years and performed in various bands from her early 20s, it wasn’t until she was 36 that Laurie decided to venture out on her own. Her solo recording, Restless Rambling Heart, introduced the national music audience to Laurie’s talents and versatility. The CD, produced by Tim O’Brien, features seven originals and showcases her stunning vocal range and control.

Since that time, Laurie has twice been named Female Vocalist of the Year by the International Bluegrass Music Association, and won Song of the Year for her rendition of the now-standard “Who Will Watch the Home Place?” She has collaborated on numerous other award-winning recordings.

While steeped in the bluegrass tradition, Laurie’s songwriting demonstrates her ability to surpass the limitations of that genre. Her works reflect her wide range of influences: from old time and country to Tin Pan Alley, jazz standards and early rock ‘n roll.

Her songs have been recorded by Kathy Mattea, Patsy Montana and the First Ladies of Bluegrass, led by Missy Raines, among others.

Poet, essayist, novelist, and environmental activist Wendell Berry has asked her to set some of his poems to music. Laurie has been nominated for GRAMMYs for her own projects and has been prominently featured on others’ Grammy-winning works.

Her partners. The year Laurie’s first solo CD came out was also the year she started working with Tom Rozum. Their duet harmonies, coupled with their unique arrangements of traditional and contemporary songs, rank them as one of the great singing pairs in modern acoustic music. Tom also has played an important role in all of Laurie’s bands on four instruments, as well as on lead and harmony vocals.

Laurie has always surrounded herself with stellar performers, whether in her sizzling bluegrass band, The Right Hands, as a duo with guitar goddess Nina Gerber, or long-time musical soulmate Tom Rozum. She also has toured with countless great musicians in a wide variety of ensembles.

A recent project, and Laurie Lewis, is a series of duets with old friends (Kathy Kallick, Tom Rozum, Craig Smith, Mike Marshall, Nina Gerber, Barbara Higbie, and Todd Phillips), and the newest generation of acoustic standouts (Molly Tuttle, Leah Wollenberg and Tatiana Hargreaves).

The teacher. For almost as long as she’s been performing, Laurie has been sharing her passion for bluegrass and her knowledge of the voice, bluegrass instruments and song arranging with eager students at music camps across the country. She has become a mentor to many young women, among them Tatiana Hargreaves and Kimber Ludiker, who have gone on to stellar professional music careers.

The producer. Laurie has been producing other musicians’ recording projects since 1989, when she worked with guitarist Scott Nygaard on his acclaimed solo album, No Hurry. Since then, she has produced more than a dozen CDs. These include Music from Rancho DeVille, which she completed for her friend Charles Sawtelle after his death, and Bittersweet, noted singer/songwriter Alice Gerrard’s first-ever CD of all original material.

She has helped launch the amazing T Sisters and other young Bay Area artists like Melody Walker and Jacob Groopman. Her record label, Spruce and Maple Music, has been recognized for outstanding quality in recording, artwork and artist roster.

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Critical Grass

Critical Grass is a collection of San Francisco East Bay musicians who accidentally discovered each other at a Berkeley restaurant. The name arose when two of the band members were coincidentally wearing merch from the Critical Role Dungeons & Dragons podcast. (Nerds.)

They dig both traditional and modern bluegrass and great songwriters. They perform Bill Monroe and Stanley Brothers tunes but also play Townes Van Zandt, John Prine, Norman Blake, and John Hartford–because they’re awesome. However, they truly love female songwriters. They perform songs by Kathy Kallick, Martha Scanlon, Kate Wolf, and Hazel Dickens. They have Joni Mitchell in their sights, but songwriting like that does not yield easily. 

They also enjoy exploring the edges of the genre, including hippie-grass (often closing sets with “Midnight Moonlight”), old-time (Jeremy plays a mean clawhammer), and Irish (Leah was a County Clare fiddler in a previous 19th-century life). If they like a song, and it seems to sit comfortably into their instrumentation and voices, they embrace it.

Critical Grass celebrates their obligation to share and perpetuate music. Leah is a full-time fiddle teacher at Manning Music in Berkeley, and one of her students has played a tune with them at a gig. They’re always eager to have a young’un come up and play a song.

Finally, they give back to the community—even neighbors on the other coast. In October of 2024, they organized and played a “Bluegrass Benefits Asheville” show at Armistice Brewing in Richmond, California, to raise money for Asheville, North Carolina, and the surrounding region after the devastation of Hurricane Helene. They were proud to raise over $700, which went to BeLoved Asheville and United Way of Asheville.

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