The Gamble Rogers Music Festival will be held May 4-6 at the Colonial Quarter, 33 Saint George Street, downtown St. Augustine. Four stages will feature local, regional and national groups. The festival features live Americana music, storytelling, family activities and more — all within the magnificent and historic Colonial Quarter of America’s oldest city — St. Augustine, Florida.
Among the several dozen performers for this heritage music festival are the Grammy Award-winning Peter Rowan as well as Nashville star Verlon Thompson, multi-instrumentalist and award-winning vocalist Mean Mary, folk-blues ground-breaker Veronika Jackson, Blue Grass power-house Red and Chris Henry’s All Star Band along with many regional standouts such as Bell and the Band, Brian Smalley, Rotageezer, Sam Pacetti and many others.
Gamble Rogers balanced a love of balladry and folk songs with a passion for the oral tradition and storytelling. The son and grandson of influential architects, Rogers was described as both a “modern troubadour” and the “resurrection of Will Rogers and Mark Twain.”
Rogers was a master performer — enchanting an audience with Travis-style guitar finger picking and relating downright rib-tickling tales about the inhabitants of the fictitious Oklawaha County.
The Atlanta Constitution called Rogers, “an American treasure worthy of inclusion in the Smithsonian.”
Rogers was just hitting his peak when he died, on October 10, 1991, trying to save a man from drowning. The recreational area in Flagler County, where the accident occurred, was later renamed, Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area.
23rd Annual Gamble Rogers Music Festival Performers
Peter Rowan
Verlon Thompson
Veronika Jackson
Brian Smalley
Passerine
Sam Pacetti
The Starlight Trio
The Adventures of AnnaBell Lynn
Bell and the Band
Red and Chris Henry’s All Star Band
Wild Shiners
Flagship Romance
the Obscure Brothers, Brian Smalley
The Ashley Gang Reunion
Remedy Tree
Rotageezer
Belmont and Jones
Tickets and information are available at www.gamblerogersfest.org
