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Gillian Welch, here with partner David Rawlings, will headline Saturday, June 4 at the 2016 Nelsonville Music Festival.
Gillian Welch, here with partner David Rawlings, will headline Saturday, June 4 at the 2016 Nelsonville Music Festival.

Gillian Welch Announced as Saturday NMF Headliner


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Stuart’s Opera House has announced the latest addition to its 2016 Nelsonville Music Festival lineup: Grammy-nominated Gillian Welch, who will headline on Saturday, June 4.

Welch and her partner and guitarist David Rawlings are no strangers to Athens County, having performed at Stuart’s Opera House back in 2003. She first appeared on the scene as a young singer-songwriter armed with a voice and sensibility far beyond her years, earning widespread acclaim for her deft, evocative resurrection of the musical styles most commonly associated with the roots of traditional and early country music.

It was as a child that Welch became fascinated by bluegrass and sibling harmonies, in particular the work of The Stanley Brothers, The Belmore Brothers and The Carter Family. Welch and Rawlings have released five acclaimed albums, including her debut Revival in 1996, which along with their 2001 release, Time (The Revelator) and 2011’s The Harrow & The Harvest, received Grammy nominations. Welch also performed on two songs and was associate producer on the O Brother Where Art Thou? soundtrack in 2002, which won a Grammy award for Album of the Year. The New Yorker has described Welch and Rawlings’ music as “at once innovative and obliquely reminiscent of past rural forms.”

Welch and Rawlings joins a lineup that includes Randy Newman (Sunday, June 5), Gary Clark, Jr. (Friday, June 3), Courtney Barnett (Thursday, June 2), Mac DeMarco (Friday), Tallest Man on Earth (Saturday), Lake Street Dive (Saturday), Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats (Thursday), Charles Bradley & His Extraordinaires (Saturday), BADBADNOTGOOD (Friday), Angel Olsen (Friday) and Nikki Lane (Sunday).

Other acts include Fruit Bats, Marco Benevento, Ibeyi, Diarrhea Planet, Son Little, John Moreland, All Them Witches, Town Mountain, My Bubba, Michael Hurley, The Wild Reeds, Heron Oblivion, Joan Shelley, Steve Poltz, Daniel Bachman, The Pines, Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments, White Mystery, All Dogs, Hańba, Last Good Tooth, Angela Perley & The Howlin’ Moons, Adam Torres, Mojoflo, Swarming Branch, S.W. Hedrick, Drift Mouth, Water Witches, DANA, Dune, Nightstalker, Weedghost and Jack Wright, with more to be announced.

The Nelsonville Music Festival, scheduled for June 2-5 at Hocking College, features more than 60 acts on multiple stages, along with camping, kids’ activities, artisan vendors, food, a beer garden and more. Both weekend passes and single day tickets are available at nelsonvillefest.org.