Bristol Rhythm and Roots Reunion celebrates the diversity of foundational American musical genres, and while banjos, fiddles, and mandolins may be the first instruments that mention of the festival conjure to mind, on Friday of this year’s festival, the dominant sounds came from horns, organs, and powerful soul voices.
Blank’s first day at Bristol:
Pulling in we tend to park on Solar Hill somewhere and amble down past Blackbird Bakery towards the Birthplace of Country Music Museum to check in and enter the festival footprint.
We angle past Cumberland Park Stage, our favorite, and see something there or get something solid in us in the food vendor alley that snakes past under the shade of the Bristol Hotel up towards the State Street Stage, where Madeline Edwards sang powerful soul ballads a la Adele.
Perusing some booths on State, up towards the middle we hear a racket coming from the 6th Street Stage, a cool alleyway parking lot stage where some of the hottest younger indie-inflected rock stuff tends to happen in Bristol. We catch KG and the Bad Habits, a ferociously fun group of youngsters putting some passionate emo edge to their alt-country, even going so far as a cover of the genre’s seminal hit, Fall Out Boy’s “Sugar We’re Going Down.”
From there, the theme of vocal passion continued and also the rest of the bands we saw celebrated blues, jazz, funk, disco and soul, and the dominant instruments were horns and organs.
Jim Lauderdale and Donna the Buffalo’s Anniversary Jam sounded like Grateful Dead mixed with Dr. John, sounded like the True Blood soundtrack–basically great American swampy Southern Rock. Several songs came from Lauderdale’s joint album with Robert Hunter, famed lyricist for the Grateful Dead.
Back at 6th, Johnson City act Florencia and the Feeling, now a touring band with multiple albums in their fifth Bristol appearance, absolutely rocked the stage on a professional level with incredible musicianship, lively jams, fun costumes and increased charismatic stage presence from frontwoman Flori Rusinol, and a smattering of killer covers “Voules-Vouz” by Abba, “Dance” by Jamiroquoi and “Rock With You” by Michael Jackson into “All Night Long” by Lionel Ritchie. The crowd was dancing and singing along, and on the jammier, more progressive originals, the band took the crowd into a headier musical cosmos with sensational jazz-fusion horn, organ and guitar solos and again, Flori’s now exceptional theatrics and vocal dynamism taking on rock star proportions.
Back on State, The War and Treaty wowed with neosoul review, complete with blues, funk, jazz, soul, gospel and country influences. The husband-wife team Michael and Tanya Trotter exude passion in everything they do and it’s utterly contagious. The dressed-up show-band style, real piano on stage, horn section, full-blown soul-blues vocals and backing from close family friend mother-daughter singers created a warm intimate and top-level professional level musical-killer vibe to the large, engaged crowd that seems to grow every time they play the festival.
Finally, St. Paul and the Broken Bones from Alabama put their lively neosoul revue on full display, frontman Paul Janeway having cut his teeth in Southern gospel church singing and now flamboyantly addressing the crowd from the top of a utility ladder in their midst, adorned in glittering gold garb of a flowing imperial robe cut. Again horns and organ swells, passionate soul vocals continued the theme of celebrating the urban side of Southern and roots music.
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Tonight the obvious big anticipation comes for Sierra Ferrell at 9:30 on Cumberland Square Park Stage, the hypnotically ethereal bohemian sprite who’s long been a festival favorite but returns this year as a decorated pop icon, having swept the Americana portion of the 2025 Grammys and spent the past year collaborating with everyone from Marcus Mumford to Post Malone. She’s a rare performer that Rhythm and Roots is getting at the height of her powers and pop appeal.
Other acts to check out today:
Mon Rovia, 7:30, the act directly before Ferrell on the same stage. He’s a ukelele-wielding, slowmaxx-advocating transplant from war-torn Liberia, bringing gentle, peaceful folk rock from a viral TikTok sensation to a real recording and touring career, one of the hottest stars on the rise at the festival and will be a great prelude to Ferrell’s set.
Another great one-two punch earlier in the day:
4:30 Larry Keel and Jon Stickley will do some great acoustic jamgrass on the State Street Stage followed not long after by the highly-anticipated Acoustic Syndicate reunion show at 6:30pm and you could even stay on for jamgrass legend Del McCoury on the same stage at 8:30.
