The Rhythm & Roots Festival returns to Rhode Island this weekend! The annual Labor Day Weekend festival begins Friday, August 30th, with a tremendous lineup scheduled to perform this year.
The three-day festival at Ninigret Park in Charlestown features headliners Emmylou Harris, Old Crow Medicine Show, and Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country, along with Larkin Poe, Drive-By Truckers, and the Rebirth Brass Brand, as well as more than twenty other bands on three stages. Tickets for the festival, expected to sell out this weekend, are still available here.
I spoke recently with Blake Christiana, founder of Yarn, a North Carolina-based band making their first appearance at Rhythm & Roots. “We’ve heard a lot about it, and I’m thankful we got invited this year,” said Christiana. “I love the lineup; this lineup is super unique.”
Christiana explained that Yarn hasn’t exactly followed the typical career path for an Americana band. He started the group in New York City in 2006 and later relocated to North Carolina.
“We started with no name as a Monday night residency at Kenny’s Castaways, just a bunch of musicians playing together,” he said, “I had been writing a lot, I would chart songs and bring them to the gig, whoever showed up, we’d just start playing. We got on the road pretty quick after that.”
Christiana later relocated to North Carolina where he met his wife, and has lived there since, although members of the band are still scattered around the country. This summer, Yarn is celebrating Born, Blessed, Grateful, and Alive, their first album in eight years, and considered one of their best releases yet. Christiana explained how it came together.
“I was writing a bunch of music for a live solo record I wanted to put together at the Down Home in Johnson City, Tennessee. Townes Van Zandt did a live record there once, so I was inspired by that. When I initially booked it, I was gonna play it by myself and go through my catalog, but then I decided to write a bunch of new songs.”
“I was kind of at the crossroads, as the cliché goes, because Yarn was feeling stale,” he continued. “The road wasn’t as much fun, and I was considering doing something different.”
He put the album together in the studio, “with no expectation, no goal going in, other than to play music and see what happens. It was so easy, natural, and stress-free. It felt special – you kind of know when there’s a little magic there, and that’s what it felt like, I think you can hear it when you listen to the album.”
The band’s sound is instantly likable – falling in that territory between roots, rock, jam, and country, typically labeled Americana. “For me to put a name to what kind of music we play, now it falls under the heading of Americana, but I think it would have been a rock and roll band back in the day,” he said.
“Rock and roll has become country,” continued Christiana. “It’s funny, for anyone who likes this kind of music, there’s not a whole lot of new rock. Look at Post Malone, he’s a prime example; he says he wants play rock and roll, his stuff is definitely not commercial country. It’s kind of where you got to go now.”
“It’s not all totally cheesy commercial country on the Top 40 country charts… I mean, someone like Chris Stapleton, he’s a brilliant singer-songwriter, so there’s some good stuff growing out of that scene as well.”
No doubt, these guys are road warriors, playing over 150 shows a year across the country. “At this point, I’m totally addicted,” said Christiana. “If I’m home for three days, I look at my wife, and I’m like, ‘let’s get the hell out of here.’ It’s a way of life, I don’t know if I can ever escape it.”
Yarn has the honor of opening the festival this year, playing the Rhythm Stage at 5PM on Friday, August 30. The festival grounds open at 4PM on Friday and Noon on Saturday and Sunday. Music goes till 11 each night. Click here for more information.
