| Sierra Nevada World Music Festival | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Genre | Reggae, world music |
| Dates | June |
| Location(s) | Mendocino County Fairgrounds in Boonville, California |
| Years active | 1994–2019, 2021–2023 |
| Founders | Warren & Gretchen Smith |
| Website | Official website |
The Sierra Nevada World Music Festival is an annual music festival held every June on the weekend of (or the weekend following) the summer solstice. It is currently held at the Mendocino County Fairgrounds in Boonville, California.
The festival began in 1994 [1] in Marysville, California by organizer Warren Smith. [2] Citing problems with crime in its initial location, [3] organizers moved the festival to Angels Camp, California in 2001. [1] After five years in Calaveras County, fairgrounds management insisted on hiring its own security and billing the festival. Organizers refused, causing the county to void the contract between the two parties. [4] The festival settled in its current location (Boonville, CA), where it has operated since 2006. [5]
Despite the festival's name, its primary focus is on reggae music, [6] along with a secondary focus on world music acts. [7] The festival boasts a "valley stage" (main stage), "village stage" (secondary stage), dancehall and drum circle, [8] which can all feature music running concurrently.
Along with its many other veteran acts, the SNWMF is notable for being the first to bring Junior Byles abroad, [9] whereupon he performed a 45-minute set in for the festival in 1998. [10]
There was no festival from 2020-2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with founder Smith passing away in 2021. [11]
Festival returned in 2023, carried on by his wife Gretchen. However, disappointing ticket sales in 2024 forced a cancellation close to the start date, with would-be attendees told that the passes were good at Reggae on the River event in the Humboldt County, California in lieu of a refund. [12]
Rodney Basil Price OD, known as Bounty Killer, is a Jamaican reggae and dancehall deejay. AllMusic describes him as "one of the most aggressive dancehall stars of the '90s, a street-tough rude boy with an unrepentant flair for gun talk". He is considered one of the best dancehall lyricists of all time.
Boonville is a census-designated place (CDP) in Mendocino County, California, United States. It is located 12.5 miles (20 km) southwest of Ukiah, at an elevation of 381 feet. The population was 1,018 at the 2020 census.
Cecil Bustamente Campbell, known professionally as Prince Buster, was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and producer. The records he released in the 1960s influenced and shaped the course of Jamaican contemporary music and created a legacy of work that would be drawn upon later by reggae and ska artists.
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Allan Hope CD, better known as Mutabaruka, is a Jamaican Rastafari dub poet, musician, actor, educator, and talk-show host, who developed two of Jamaica's most popular radio programmes, The Cutting Edge and Steppin' Razor. His name comes from the Rwandan language and translates as "one who is always victorious". His themes include politics, culture, Black liberation, social oppression, discrimination, poverty, racism, sexism, and religion.
Kenneth Byles, also known as "Junior Byles", "Chubby", or "King Chubby", is a Jamaican conscious roots reggae singer.
Leval Alphonso Thompson, also known as Linval Thompson, is a Jamaican conscious roots reggae vocalist, dub musician and record producer.
High Sierra Music Festival is a multi-day music festival held in Quincy, California, United States, a mountainous area about 80 miles northwest of Reno, Nevada.
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Ainsworth Roy Rushton Shirley, better known simply as Roy Shirley, and also known as King Roy Shirley and The High Priest, was a Jamaican singer whose career spanned the ska, rocksteady and reggae eras, and whose "Hold Them" is regarded by some as the first ever rocksteady song. He was also one of the original members of Slim Smith's band, The Uniques.
The Cables are a Jamaican rocksteady/reggae vocal trio led by Keble Drummond, who recorded for Studio One in the late 1960s.
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Aisha, sometimes Sister Aisha is a roots reggae singer.
Omar "Tarrus" Riley is a Jamaican-American reggae singer and member of the Rastafari movement.
Fitz Albert Cotterell, better known as Prezident Brown, is a Jamaican reggae/dancehall vocalist
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Rebel Salute is an annual music festival held in Jamaica. It is held on January 15 of every year, the birthday of promoter Tony Rebel. It is one of Jamaica's biggest music festivals, known for its focus on roots and conscious music. Rebel began the festival in 1994 in the parish of Manchester and was long held annually in St. Elizabeth on the country's south coast until 2012. As of 2014, the festival is now a two-day event, held in the Richmond Park Estate in Saint Ann Parish.
NST & the Soul Sauce(노선택과 소울소스) is a South Korean reggae band formed in 2014. They have received critical attention for their unique blend of Jamaican genres such as reggae and dub, as well as jazz, afrobeat, funk, soul, and psychedelic, with traditional Korean music, especially pansori. Members of the band have also been part of reggae band Windy City, retro rock band Kiha and the Faces, Kingston Rudieska, and I&I Djangdan, qualifying them for "supergroup" status. They received international attention at Fuji Rock Festival for their song dedicated to late great trombonist Rico Rodriguez.
