For a quarter of a century, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass has offered a free space where organic community connections thrive. Fans, musicians and vendors come together in an increasingly rare fashion.
The executive director of the festival, John Caldon, can attest to this.
“I don’t think there’s anything like this in the United States,” said Caldon, highlighting the “aggressive freeness” of the festival made possible by the generosity of founder Warren Hellman and his foundation. “We don’t ask our audience for money. We don’t ask people to register to come. They just show up.”
What originally started as a one-day bluegrass festival in 2001 has grown into a staple of the San Francisco music scene.
Following an intimate Day One performance from the local duo The Singer & The Songwriter, Lisa Sorensen, the owner of the Oakland-based Cedub Recording Studio, could be found waiting at the merchandise booth just to the right of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Horseshoe Hill stage, hoping to make a connection with the local artists.
“It’s all the actual types of diversity that we love about the Bay Area,” Sorensen said with tears in her eyes. “Oh my god, like, look at [the artist’s] experience. You’re right around the corner from us in Oakland, and yet you come from this Vietnamese trauma.”
The trauma is that of Thu Tran, the guitarist who, in partnership with vocalist Rachel Garcia, comprises folk duo The Singer & The Songwriter. The two met at San Francisco State University in 2006 and have been making music together ever since.
Garcia and Tran applaud the “amazingly eclectic and super diverse” lineup put forth by Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, which attempts to push back against a music industry that tends to promote white and male voices over others.
“It’s put a lot of women artists out there that wouldn’t have had an opportunity otherwise,” said attendee Maria Conlon, who graduated from SFSU as a broadcast and electronic communication arts student in 1985.
The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass team has elevated the voices of women in the music industry and given a space for Black artists such as Jontavious Willis, a Muddy Waters-inspired blues artist from the small town of Greenville, Georgia, to reclaim the sounds of classic blues, which lost touch with their roots.
“It’s a time that we’re living in now that we can reclaim the music, tell the story as the truth,” Willis said.
While music is the main attraction of the free three-day event, the festival’s open nature provides a platform for other kinds of artists. Ben Bernthal, founder of the interactive art project Strangers’ Poems, could be found selling his work amongst festival-goers.
“I notice a change in my spirits when I come in,” Bernthal said. “I’d say at the bluegrass festival a long time ago called Happy Valley in Indiana, I definitely felt sort of othered.”
When his vision came to fruition after 25 years, Hellman’s dream continues to echo through the meadows of Golden Gate Park.
After Hellman’s death in 2011, his legacy continues to be carried on by his friends, children and grandchildren. One of those grandchildren is Olivia Wolf, who could be found performing a mix of psychedelic, Appalachian and country-rock sounds while exploring topics such as grief at the Arrow Stage on Day Two of the festival.
“He [Hellman] really wanted to bring bluegrass to the West Coast,” Wolf said. “Isn’t it amazing, too, when somebody can no longer be here for 14 years, but their energy can still exist?”
Chad Church (he/him) is a former junior college baseball player turned journalism student from the South Bay. He is currently living in San Francisco, attending San Francisco State University. He is a third-year transfer on pace to graduate in 2027 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. Outside of school, he can be found hunting for vinyl records to add to his collection.
Joe von Herrmann • Oct 7, 2025 at 5:21 am
Great job, Chad.
Chad Michael Layne Church • Oct 8, 2025 at 4:34 pm
Thank you, Joe!