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Live Oak Music Festival celebrating its 20th anniversary June 13-15

By Staff

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Grammy Award sinner Poncho Sanchez will perform on opening night, June 13, of the 20th annual Live Oak Music Festival. / Contributed

It’s the 20th Anniversary of the Live Oak Music Festival, a three-day concert and camping event held every year on Father's Day weekend at the Live Oak Campground off of Highway 154. This year's festival will be held Friday through Sunday, June 13 through 15.

One hundred percent of the proceeds from the Live Oak Music Festival go to support KCBX Public Radio.

Grammy Award winner Poncho Sanchez and his Latin Jazz band will perform on Friday night. As the leader of the most popular Latin jazz group in the world today, it’s Sanchez’s congas and seasoned ensemble that do all the talking.

Live in concert, Sanchez spins vivacious tales that pay homage to the glories of a half-century tradition that was born when Afro-Cuban rhythms merged with bebop. One-on-one, the Chicano conguero is equally expressive, recounting in vivid detail the encounters, friendships, and passions that have contributed to his remarkable career as a bandleader and recording artist.

Behind the choice of every song and album title, there's a story which Sanchez delights in telling: (www.ponchosanchez.com/flashed.html)

On Saturday night, Nappy Brown brings the roots of soul music mixed with melismatic gospel techniques and the blues. The roots of soul music were planted during the mid-1950s by a handful of visionaries.

Ray Charles was a prime motivator in this movement, as were the “5” Royals. And so was Nappy Brown, whose hair-raising platters for Savoy Records boasted some of the most intense vocals of their era.

Brown once again will unleash those powerful pipes at the 20th Anniversary of the Live Oak Music Festival.

And for Sunday's grand finale, it’s Nanci Griffith. Whether performing her own poetically evocative material or the compositions of her influences, friends, and peers, Grammy Award-winner Griffith possesses a powerful gift for inhabiting the songs she sings — for communicating unspoken intimacy and heartache through her tender voice and lilting, delicate phrasing.

At the outset of a career that has now spanned nearly three decades, Griffith first emerged as a writer of startling depth and subtlety, crafting sparse uncluttered vignettes that revealed a wealth of emotion in even the most humble of characters and settings.

With her gifts as a songwriter lending invaluable insight, Griffith has also grown into a formidable interpreter of other people's songs, as demonstrated on such albums as the Grammy Award-winning “Other Voices, Other Rooms.” (http:/nanci

griffith.com/index.php)

Live Oak, as it has become affectionately known, is more than just a music festival — it is an experience rooted in music and community.

These two elements together create a three-day journey into a timeless place that is far removed from ties and clocks, suits and schedules.

The festival features an aural collage of live music ranging from traditional, folk, bluegrass and gospel, to blues, jazz, classical and world music.

To see the complete three-day line-up and to order tickets, visit www.liveoakfest.org, or call 781-3030.

Full festival adult tickets are $115; teen tickets $75; and children's tickets $35. Day tickets are $35 for adults and teens and $15 for children.