Jewel City Jam set for this weekend: Huntington music festival will feature 17 acts

Published 9:27 am Thursday, April 25, 2019

HUNTINGTON — Two nights of live music are scheduled this weekend, marking the fifth year of the Jewel City Jam at Harris Riverfront Park in Huntington.

The 2019 edition of the event takes place Friday and Saturday and festival organizer David Ball said 17 acts are scheduled to play.

The line-up, which includes folk, blues, old-time, swing jazz, rockabilly, and Americana to country and jamgrass, features Jerron “Blind Boy”Paxton (both nights), David Mayfield Parade, Strung Like A Horse, The String Assassins, Rob McNurlin and The Beatnik Cowboys, Laid Back Country Picker and Honey, String Therapy, Big Rock and the Candyass Mtn Boys, Of The Dell, The 1937 Flood, Nip and Tuck, The Independent State, Micah Scott, Mike Gray and Tim Lancaster.

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Headlining the festival are two nights of Blind Boy Paxton, the 29-year-old Watts, California native who The Wall Street Journal called “virtually the only music-maker of his generation — playing guitar, banjo, piano and violin, among other implements — to fully assimilate the blues idiom of the 1920s and ‘30s, the blues of Bessie Smith and Lonnie Johnson.”

Ball, a former Huntington city council member, said Jewel City Jam was launched following the closing of the Appalachian Uprising Festival.

“The members of our board of directors were all attendees of Appalachian Uprising and, when that ended, we wanted to keep that weekend open for a festival and captured those dates,” he said of the event, which originally took place around Memorial Day.

However, he said they decided to move it up earlier on the calendar, to allow students at Marshall to attend before classes let out for the summer.

“The weather looks good, so come out this weekend,” Ball said. “It’s going to be a wonderful, wonderful time on the riverfront.”

Advance tickets are $30 (two-day ticket) and are on sale at jewelciyjam.com. The ticket prices feature free camping and coolers are allowed. Tickets will be $20 per day at the gate.

Tickets are free for children 12 and under and are $10 a day for Marshall University students with an ID.