Pixie and The Partygrass Boys may be far from their humble beginnings, but they still don't take themselves too seriously. What began as a group of ski bums playing house parties in the Cottonwood Canyons of Salt Lake City has evolved into a nationally touring band that always aims to have the most fun possible. Along with the skill and expertise that comes from nearly a decade of performing together, they bring the energy of closing weekend at your favorite ski resort to the stage. They have captivated audiences across the nation with their unique blend of heartfelt songwriting, high velocity instrumental excellence, silly outfits, and sing-along anthems. Pixie and The Partygrass Boys invite the audience into their world every time they take the stage, hoping to share a piece of the magic they've found on the mountain tops and in the desert canyons of their Utah home. 

Pixie and The Partygrass Boys have been touring extensively since the release of their 2018 debut EP "Utah Made," becoming a five-year fixture at WinterWonderGrass as well as gracing the stages of High Sierra Music Festival, Gem and Jam, Delfest, Jam Cruise, Hangtown, Sawtooth Valley Gathering, Bourbon and Beyond, and countless venues across the USA. They have supported such prestigious acts as Billy Strings, The Infamous Stringdusters, The Brothers Comatose, and Lake Street Dive. They recently signed on with record label Americana Vibes and are eagerly awaiting the release of their 4th album, "The Chicken Coop Sessions: Vol. 1," which harkens back to their origins, paying homage to the covers that brought them together for those canyon house parties so many years ago. 

The country simplicity that imbues Hayes Carll’s songs can sometimes hide the social conscience and sharp humor that also runs through them, but if you want to find those things, they are there. In fact, Carll has spent over 20 years having a conversation about what it is we’re all doing here with anyone who will listen. He makes us laugh––but then he makes us cry. We judge a song’s protagonist, only for Carll to spin us around to commiserate with them. “I like to tug at heartstrings, find commonality with others, reflect on my own life, and sometimes I do it in a lighthearted way,” says Carll. “A lot of musical styles found their way onto this record, but my first and most formative influences came from country music. This is a country singer-songwriter record. It’s just unapologetically me.” Carll is talking about You Get It All, his eighth album. His voice, rich but worn, has never sounded better. As a songwriter, he is in top form, turning droll confessions, messy relationships, motel room respites, and an exasperated, hitchhiking God into modern nuggets. The New York Times likened Carll’s ability to undergird humor with a weightier narrative to Bob Dylan. When Carll talks about the sounds that are in his own head, he mentions Randy Travis. That juxtaposition defines the singularity of Carll’s career: He exists in a space of his own, informed by John Prine, Tom Waits, and Dylan but also by Travis, Kenny Rogers, and Hank Williams, Jr. Those influences may have made him hard to pigeonhole, but he’s still been embraced. Two Americana Music Awards, a Grammy nomination for Best Country Song, and multiple Austin Music Awards line his resumé́. He’s had the most-played record on Americana radio twice. His songs appear on the screen regularly and have been recorded by Kenny Chesney, Lee Ann Womack, and Brothers Osborne, to name a few. You Get It All was produced by Allison Moorer and guitar legend Kenny Greenberg. Carll credits his partnership with singer, songwriter, and artist Moorer, his wife, as a force that helps both clarify what he wants and challenge self-imposed limits. “She’s a world-class artist who has a way of helping me articulate my vision,” he says. Opener “Nice Things” layers a laugh-out-loud narrative exposing humanity’s botched stewardship of Earth––and one another––over vintage country cool. In the song written with the Brothers Osborne, God comes down to check on us––and she is not impressed. “It’s social commentary, but it’s not dour,” Carll says. “I hope the song can make people sing along, laugh a bit, and maybe recognize that we can do better.” The title track is classic Carll—a front-porch singalong with a deeper message for those who want it. Self-deprecating and sweet, the song is an ode to bringing one’s whole self to a relationship––the good and the bad. “I’m at a point in my life where that rings true to me,” says Carll. “What I want, and what I think a lot of people want, is to feel like they’re getting the real thing.” “Help Me Remember” is a feat of storytelling that tackles an underrepresented topic in art: dementia from the perspective of the patient. “It’s a visual song. To tell this story, we had to put the listener right there,” Carll says. “I was thinking about how scary and sad it is for the person who is suffering from it, and how heartbreaking and frustrating it is for the friends and family going through it with them.” Among Carll’s co-writers is singer-songwriter Brandy Clark, who helped him pen and perform “In the Mean Time,” a gorgeous, honky-tonk waltz which perfectly depicts the damage couples can inflict on each other when they’re at their worst. The multidimensionality of relationships is a thread woven throughout the entire album. “When we’re our weakest or most afraid, real damage can be done to our relationships, as well as our spirits,” says Carll. “You can love somebody, everything can be as good as you could’ve imagined, but when your traumas or fears come out, all that love can disappear in an instant.” Rollicking through snarling 80s country guitar licks, “To Keep From Being Found” is an escape to a motel room with a TV on wheels, a bath, and line after delectable line. Subdued album closer “If It Was Up to Me” aches through a list of wishes that seem frivolous at first but build into a portrait of pain that’s far more complicated. Written with Moorer and Sean McConnell, it’s a gorgeous example of one of Carll’s favorite artistic devices: leading listeners to underestimate a character with whom they’ll ultimately empathize. “The way humor and sadness can work together is powerful,” he says. Honest and sometimes subversive, but never mean-spirited, Carll keeps writing sad, funny, compelling songs in which nobody’s perfect or predictable––at least not for long. And he can’t quit wishing we’ll all realize that’s the way anything worth having or being has got to go. “I hope this record helps people feel good, laugh a bit, and maybe give them something to lean on when they need it,” he says. “I hope they dance to it, too.”

While you’re sitting around the table with your friends and family this week, make your plans to come to the 16th Annual Ogden Music Festival, May 31 - June 2, 2024 (Tickets are on sale Wednesday, November 22 at 5:00 PM with special Holiday Pricing for the first 100 tickets sold). We can't wait to welcome you back home to Fort Buenaventura. As always, kids 16 and under are free to everything we do.

OFOAM is grateful for YOU!

The Slocan Ramblers (featured on the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville TN, 2020 IBMA Momentum Band of the Year Award Winner & 2019 Juno Award Nominee) are Canada’s bluegrass band to watch. Rooted in tradition, fearlessly creative and possessing a bold, dynamic sound, The Slocans have become a leading light of today’s acoustic music scene. With a reputation for energetic live shows, impeccable musicianship and an uncanny ability to convert anyone within earshot into a lifelong fan, The Slocans have been winning over audiences from Merlefest to RockyGrass and everywhere in between.

On their new album Up the Hill and Through the Fog, the all-star Canadian roots ensemble channels the past two years of loss into a surprisingly joyous collection of twelve songs intended to uplift and help make sense of the world. Bluegrass music is nothing short of catharsis for The Slocan Ramblers.

Though the past few years have brought the group accolades, that same momentum was abruptly halted by the pandemic’s brutal impact on live music. Over the next year, bandmates Adrian Gross and Darryl Poulsen both lost close family members and their bassist decided to step back to spend more time at home. They channeled these tumultuous changes into some of their most honest and direct compositions yet. Up the Hill and Through the Fog showcases the breadth of their varied influences while staying true to their roots in the rough and tumble bluegrass scene of Toronto’s no-nonsense bars and dancehalls. From Frank Evan’s classic, dusty vocals, to John Hartford-inspired lyrical musings, it’s all buttressed by impeccable musicianship, and emotionally raw songwriting from the three core members. This is roots music without pretension, art powerful enough to cut through the fog of the past two years and chart a more hopeful course forward.

Say hello to your new favorite band.

The Slocan Ramblers are:

Frank Evans: Banjo/Vocals

Adrian Gross: Mandolin

Darryl Poulsen: Guitar/Vocals

With Charles James: Bass/Vocals

Born not far from the Great Smoky Mountains, Wyatt Ellis' first recollection of hearing the mandolin was Bobby Osborne’s iconic solo on the Osborne Brothers’ bluegrass classic “Rocky Top.” Hearing the Tennessee bluegrass anthem echo throughout the early years of his childhood is what led Wyatt to set his sights on learning to play mandolin. With his schedule packed with school, Boy Scouts and team sports, it was hard to find time for music.

When he was almost 10 years old, Wyatt talked his dad into buying him a used mandolin so he could learn to play it just like Bobby. Soon, he began weekly mandolin lessons in his hometown and quickly developed a strong desire to attend local bluegrass jams. He told his non-musical parents that he wanted to play his new mandolin alongside other bluegrass pickers.

The COVID lockdown began just as he was forging those real-life musical friendships. Team sports, local lessons and bluegrass jams came to an abrupt end. At the same time, festivals and in-person recording sessions suddenly stopped, parking the most in-demand bluegrass musicians at home. Many of his favorite mandolin players started teaching or simply spending more time connecting within the community online.In the fall of 2020, Wyatt was chosen by his hero Sierra Hull, herself a former mandolin prodigy, for a Tennessee Folklife apprenticeship. Eager to improve under the watch of a true virtuoso, Wyatt describes those one-on-one tutorials as “working on exactly what I needed to work on at the time. Details. Timing. Tone. Getting all the little things right by slowing down was a really big deal in that situation. Sierra has taken bluegrass mandolin to another dimension and I was excited to start my journey with her. I’ve played my mandolin every day since then.”

Having never been a fan of watching television or playing video games, playing mandolin became Wyatt’s preferred pastime. With no close neighbors and the music world suddenly at his fingertips, his passion for the instrument grew. As word circulated in the bluegrass community about his accelerated abilities, Wyatt befriended many of the genre’s top mandolin players through camps, workshops, and individual lessons.In October 2022, Wyatt performed alongside former Bluegrass Boy Peter Rowan and Grammy winner Molly Tuttle at Rowan’s induction into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame. Wyatt was invited by his ultimate mandolin hero, Marty Stuart, to help kick off the Grand-Reopening of the Ellis Theater in Philadelphia, Mississippi. In February 2023, at 13 years old, he made his Grand Ole Opry debut appearance with bluegrass duo Dailey & Vincent. Moments after his debut appearance he was jamming backstage with acoustic icons Vince Gill and Mark O’Connor. In March 2023, Wyatt joined the genre’s newest superstar, Billy Strings, to honor Doc Watson at his 100th birthday celebration. The now fourteen-year-old was recently invited to play the iconic Merlefest event Mandolin Mania with five of his mandolin heroes. As a young musician just starting out on his musical journey, Wyatt has found that the bluegrass community is full of supporters, kind words, and encouragement. He has accrued more than 90,000 followers on combined social media before ever releasing a single.

Las Cafeteras have taken the music scene by storm with their infectious live performances and have crossed many genres and borders along the way. Their electric sound & energy has taken them around the world playing shows from Bonnaroo to the Hollywood Bowl, WOMAD New Zealand to Montreal Jazz, & beyond!

Born and raised East of the Los Angeles River, Las Cafeteras are remixing roots music as modern day troubadours.  They are a sonic explosion of Afro-Mexican rhythms, electronic beats and powerful rhymes that document stories of a community seeking to ‘build a world where many world fit.’

From Afro-Mexican to Americana, from Soul to Son Jarocho, from Roots to Rock and Hip Hop, Las Cafeteras take folk music to the future.

Las Cafeteras honor the past by using electrifying traditional instrumentation like the 8 string Jarana, 4 string Requinto, Quijada (donkey jawbone) and Tarima (a wooden platform). Las Cafeteras sing in 5 distinct languages, English, Spanish, Spanglish, Love and Justice … and they believe everyone understands at least one of those languages.

They’ve performed in the good company of Mexican icons Café Tacuba, Natalia LaFourcade, Lila Downs, Gypsy Kings, Colombian superstar Juanes, Hip Hop artist Common, Los Angeles legends Ozomatli and Los Lobos, performing with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, and many more.

OFOAM featured Las Cafeteras at our first Dia de los Muertos en Ogden celebration in 2021 and can't wait to have them at the Ogden Music Festival!

The seventh full-length from four-time Grammy Award-winner Sarah Jarosz, Polaroid Lovers is an album-long meditation on those strangely ephemeral moments that indelibly shape our lives. “What I love about a Polaroid is that it's capturing something so fleeting, but at the same time it makes that moment last forever,” says the Texas-born singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist. “It made sense as a title for a record where all the songs are snapshots of different love stories, and there's a feeling of time being expansive despite that impermanence.” Thanks to the rarefied alchemy that infuses all of Jarosz's output—her finely wrought lyricism, ravishing vocal work, virtuosic yet unfettered musicality—Polaroid Lovers performs the much-needed magic of leading us toward a heightened sense of presence, all while casting a lovely spell with her timelessly powerful songs.

Produced by Daniel Tashian at the legendary Sound Emporium, Polaroid Lovers took shape as Jarosz recorded live with musicians like guitarist Rob McNelley (Miranda Lambert, Carrie Underwood), Tom Bukovac (Tom Petty, Vince Gill) on guitar and organ, her husband bassist Jeff Picker (Nickel Creek, Ricky Skaggs), and drummer Fred Eltringham (Sheryl Crow, Lucinda Williams), carving out a viscerally potent but resplendent brand of folk-rock.

Looking back on the making of Polaroid Lovers, Jarosz notes that shaking up her process ultimately left her eager to further expand her creative horizons. “It was a big step for me to reach out to Daniel, but in the end it showed me how important it is to keep taking thoughtful chances,” she says. “This whole album reminded me that I never want to play it safe—if anything, I want there to always be that element of being a little scared, because that means I’m taking a risk. In a way that’s what’s so wonderful about art: if you’re lucky, you never reach the finish line. You just keep searching and chiseling away at the stone, and putting everything you can into making something that tells the truth but hopefully leaves space for others to find meaning too.”

Molly Tuttle — GRAMMY Award-winning singer, songwriter, musician and performer —  and her band, Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, released their highly-anticipated new album City of Gold, July 21, 2023. The GRAMMY-nominated record follows Tuttle’s acclaimed 2022 album, Crooked Tree, which won Best Bluegrass Album at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards in 2023 and also led to a Best New Artist nomination. NPR Music calls her “a female flat picker extraordinaire with agility, speed and elegance who distinctively brings American roots music into the spotlight.” Produced by Tuttle and bluegrass legend Jerry Douglas and recorded in Nashville, City of Gold, —written primarily by Tuttle and Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show—captures the electric energy of Golden Highway's live shows. Reflecting on the project, Northern California native Tuttle tells it best firsthand: “When I was a kid, we took a field trip to Coloma, CA to learn about the gold rush. I’ll never forget the dusty hills and the grizzled old miner who showed us the nugget around his neck. Just like gold fever, music has always captivated me, captured my heart, and driven me to great lengths to explore its depths. On my new album I dug deep as a songwriter and co-producer and surfaced with a record that celebrates the music of my heart, my life, the land where I grew up, and the stories I heard along the way. I made this record with my band Golden Highway after playing over 100 shows across the country last year. On the road and in the studio, we are inspired by artists such as John Hartford, Gillian Welch and Peter Rowan to name a few, whose records are like family albums to us. Just like them, on this album we chart some new territory along some old familiar ground. The songs span from breakdowns to ballads, fairytales and fiddle tunes, from Yosemite up to the Gold Country and out beyond the mountains. That visit to Coloma, site of California’s first gold strike is where I first heard about El Dorado, the city of gold. Playing music can take you to a place that is just as precious.” Tuttle moved to Nashville in 2015 and in the years since, the celebrated artist has been nominated for Best New Artist at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards, won Album of the Year at the 2023 International Folk Music Awards, Female Vocalist of the Year at the 2022 International Bluegrass Music Awards, Instrumentalist of the Year at the 2018 Americana Music Awards and Guitar Player of the Year at the IBMAs in both 2017 and 2018, the first woman to receive the honor. Tuttle has performed around the world, including shows with Sam Bush, Béla Fleck, Hiss Golden Messenger, Jason Isbell, Old Crow Medicine Show and Dwight Yoakam, as well as at major festivals including Bonnaroo, Newport Folk Festival and Pilgrimage. In celebration of the new music, the band will tour throughout the summer including dates supporting Dave Matthews (who guests on the new record), Tommy Emmanuel, Greensky Bluegrass, Charley Crockett and Marcus King 

Due to flooding at Fort Buenaventura, the 15th Ogden Music Festival will be held at a new location, “Fort BDO” at 600 N Depot Drive in Ogden, with all the same festival activities including on-site camping. 

After a long winter and some much needed snow we are so excited to kick off the summer with the Ogden Music Festival. Mother nature has other plans, and Fort Buenaventura will not be ready to host this year's festival due to record snowfall and now record flooding. The decision to relocate was made after county officials confirmed that flooding at Fort Buenaventura is not expected to subside before June. So we are moving the festival to higher ground to what we’re affectionately calling “Fort BDO”. Fort BDO will still have all of the great music, workshops, jam camp, kids zone, and camping. 

We are thrilled to have found this new spot for this year's festival, and look forward to seeing this wide open space transformed into a beautiful music venue! It has been a lot of hard work to make it happen, and the support from our community has been amazing. OFOAM wishes to express their sincerest gratitude to Ogden City, BDO, and Weber County for helping us to clear all of the obstacles and make this year's festival a possibility. Thank you to our attendees, artists, vendors, and volunteers for their patience and willingness to be flexible as we navigate these extraordinary natural conditions.

We welcome everyone to come show our amazing artist lineup this year that a little bit of water (ok, maybe a lot of water!) can’t dampen the OFOAM spirit. Come join us and experience the magic of the Ogden Music Festival. We can’t wait to welcome you to “Fort BDO”!

OFOAM and the Ogden Music Festival are delighted to accommodate everyone, within our ability, with the accessibility they need to enjoy the fun!

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