{"id":25581,"date":"2023-11-12T00:50:16","date_gmt":"2023-11-12T00:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/garyhayescountry.com\/?p=25581"},"modified":"2023-11-12T00:50:16","modified_gmt":"2023-11-12T00:50:16","slug":"muddy-roots-music-festival-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/garyhayescountry.com\/?p=25581","title":{"rendered":"Muddy Roots Music Festival 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"Every year on labor day weekend for the last thirteen years, I have made my way down to Cookeville Tennessee for the annual Muddy Roots Music Festival<\/a>. I got to town on the Thursday before the festival to get things set up for festival coverage as usual something HAD TO break, and it was my tablet. I had to buy a new one anyways, so I bought a NICE one and now it’s taking me hours to set it up.\n\nWhich is fine because to be honest this hotel is a getaway all in itself and I have a lot of battle plans to lay out, because this year there are a LOT of vendors and people involved that I want to include in this massive undertaking that I do every year. After you spend a little time with me on this article ( which is the same format I use for other festivals as well ) I’m hoping that you feel like you were there right along with us. I don’t charge anybody for writing on my blog, It costs you 0 to log on and read my articles, and I enjoy investing my time into my blog.\n\nI personally enjoy going through every angle of a music festival from the bands to the vendors to the staff.There are quite a few times that music events that I cover contain bands on them that aren’t Country, and I hope that my little scenario I have doesn’t turn my readers off, I am just simply spending time writing about music I enjoy, and I’m into Country more than any other genre.\n\nMuddy Roots has always been such an important part of my life in so many ways, and I have witnessed more Legends of so many different genres performing at Muddy through the years.Through the years there have been so many different people involved behind the scenes of Muddy Roots that have been responsible for the proliferation of the event.\n\nI believe that if so many people haven’t contributed in their own way, and if we didn’t expose our youth to the meaning of Muddy, there is no way Muddy Roots would exist today. In the next few weeks, I am going to be delving into an extensive tour of the entire Muddy Roots experience from my perspective as a fan and a historian.\n\n\"\"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\nI rolled into town earlier on Thursday and checked into my hotel to unpack and do all the prep work involved to do the computer work for this huge event. In the last several years ( since around 2013 ) I had automatically stayed at the La Quinta Inn off Hwy 40, however this year Mr. Joshua found a new Hilton hotel being built right down the road, and we thought we would try it out.\n\nI stayed in the Hilton Home 2 Suites off Jefferson street, which is a brand new hotel that was built right before I stayed in the room. You know, at first glace the initial perceived value is quite evident, as it is meant to be in any business. But as I continued to stay there further, I found the hotel itself to be completely lacking in service overall.\n\nI am currently in contact with their corporate people, to at least complain about the issue, but I will not be staying there ever again. Trust me, if you want a hotel in the area…stick with La Quinta Inn. I been staying there since 2013, the first 3 I stayed at Comfort Inn, I cannot do that camping stuff.\n\nThis year Muddy Roots was a little different than others because I believe it was one of the largest attendances I have ever witnessed. The two tents often made their way out onto the main vendor aisle, and that’s To be expected at an outdoor festival. In order to experience growth and longevity you have to have growing pains that help you evaluate problems for future years. I can tell you for a fact that Milton and Delaney and MANY MORE worked VERY HARD this year to put on this event in such a meticulous fashion. The grounds were kept so clean this year, I wanted to give an extra special THANK YOU to all of those wonderful volunteers.\n\nI arrived at the Friday portion of the festival pretty early to get everything set up and check out the first few acts of the weekend, including King Strang<\/a>, which is the side project of Michael Sinner from the Bridge City Sinners. That band will be discussed later on in this article. For now let me talk about some ragtime roots music that began our weekend like the song “Don’t Call Me lazy” from his Sad Boy Stomp album in 2018. Although this song was performed a little more up tempo live this album was my personal favorite of his.\n\nAlso from the Sad Boy Stomp album was the next song “Cocaine”, which highlights the sort of debauchery his music explores. This is a funny thing to explain how an old recovered junkie and drunk like me enjoy music that glorifies dope? Well, “Why Can’t I” reflect on my own rowdy days of old?\n\nThe Second Coming Album generated his next song called “Why’d I Have To Fall In love Again”, and he played as few more as I moved on down vendor row, getting hugs and seeing faces I only see online or here once a year. Many of the vendors are not quite yet in full swing, so we will gather more info as we live this.\n\nRight now, let me talk about some of the bands I briefly saw while I moved around to soak in the layout of the festival, while being in awe of the overall growth of this one. I firmly believe it was the biggest attendance yet. I wanted to touch on a young man named Jessie Williams<\/a>, whom is a folk type singer from the Arizona area. I only got to hear him perform “Come From Nothing” from his 2013 album Last Day.\n\n\"\"\n\nThose fine folks over at Flail Records<\/a> had things going in full force this year with a band called Yes Ma’am<\/a>. Many of the artists like Lightnin Luke joined many other artists on their set, while also having a solo set of their own. I really didn’t get the chance to document the song names so I will include this video compliments of my buddy Scott Mithun over at Hellbilly And Outlaw Radio”<\/a>.\n\n