Exploring the 2026 Blissfest Lineup, Part XI
Songs for the Human Spirit
Alright, Blissfest. We are getting so close. Close to summer, close to Blissfest, close to the end of this multi-week lineup write up in your inbox. Thank you for indulging us (me, Caroline) and letting me share a bit about the creative process and letting me try my hand at being an armchair-ethnomusicologist.
In 42 days, or six more Fridays, we will welcome you to the Blissfest Festival Farm!
This week, I’d love to talk about a group of artists, all from Michigan, whose music and purpose is centered around the thing that unifies all us and that is our humanity. Their songs uplift the human spirit and point towards the way we can create a version of heaven right here on earth.
May Erlewine has a song about that very thing called “Down in the Valley” from her album 2010 Golden.
“Not talkin' 'bout Heaven, up in the stars
It's time we make a Heaven right where we are
So if you wanna be free, oh, we're walkin' softly
Down in the valley”
May is one of those songwriters who you could say just keeps getting better, though many would argue her older albums are just as good as what she’s releasing now, simply a different expression of the same themes. In his interview with her, John Bommarito expresses this sentiment, and I completely agree. The production has become cleaner and the sound fuller, but she remains one of the best songwriters of our time.
She is a true interpreter of the muse and she has a way of interpreting your life even if she doesn’t even know you personally. Her words feel universal because they speak to deeply human emotions and experiences.
I first heard of May in the summer of 2006. I was working at Interlochen Arts Camp as a lifeguard when a fellow lifeguard, through a shared conversation about music and probably something about Gillian Welch, told me about the “Michigan music scene.”
At the time, I was living in North Carolina and coming up to Michigan to work at Interlochen. I grew up visiting my grandparents in Traverse City and thought Michigan was the most magical place in the world. So this mystical “Michigan Music Scene” piqued my interest. My friend took me to a nearby festival in Empire called the Dunegrass Festival. I remember seeing Breathe Owl Breathe and Steppin’ In It. I bought Seth and May’s album with the rust color cover and played it all the way back to Interlochen. It was the perfect soundtrack to a summer evening winding through the dappled, sunlit backroads of Leelanau County.
When I returned to college in North Carolina and told my friend Greta from Ann Arbor about this discovery, she quickly learned that these were all her friends. She filled me in on this hotbed of talent growing in Michigan stemming from places like The Ark, Earthwork Music, and all the Michigan festivals.
The following year we drove 10 hours from North Carolina to Ann Arbor to see Josh Ritter at The Ark, and the next day drove another three hours to Big Rapids for May’s album release of Mother Moon. Everybody seemed to know each other. May had made chocolate chip cookies for the occasion, and everyone asked us if we had a place to stay. We opted to drive back in the snow to Ann Arbor, and I thought we were crazy for doing that. Now that I call myself a Michigander, I know that a three hour drive to see a show in a snowstorm is just business as usual. It’s a thing you don’t see in many other places.
There is something different about Michigan music. I think it has something to do with how accessible it is to anyone who wants to be part of it. You can be in the audience, volunteer, see the same people every weekend at a different festival, become friends with musicians, or even become a musician yourself. There is a network.
Michiganders and those who travel to Michigan for its music are lucky to have a wide web of warm musicians to greet them. One of those is Joe Reilly. Listen to his track “True Nature” on his 2011 kids album Let’s Go Outside, and you’ll sense his tender appreciation for all creatures and his honest desire for all creatures to be able to live authentically. WIth his band the Community Gardeners, he expands on our need for connection in all phases of life. Things only get more complicated as we get older, so why not make it a little easier with some nourishing music?
Joe invites us to come together in community to meditate, sing, dance, and “put our feet in the river of goodness” as he says in one of the songs from his recently released album, Learn to Love Again recorded on the Frog Holler Farm in Brooklyn, Michigan.
That same Frog Holler Farm is home to Billy King. The family farm there is a hub in SE Michigan for music, food, gathering, and apparently, recording! Billy King is one of those artists whose name I heard for years, and did not get the chance to fully see live until last year! His full band set with Emily Slomovits on the Main Stage at Nor-East’r and again at Hollerfest helped verify all the wonderful things I had heard about this act for decades. A true Americana-style artist that can be both folky and rock n’ roll. He and Emily share harmonies like Gram and Emmylou to be sure, and the band isn’t afraid to stretch out like any festival-set would dream of. Whether it’s a tender Nanci Griffith tune or it’s Jesse Welles-style commentary on the state of life, Billy brings it all together and makes it about the here and now. It has been at least a decade since Billy has been to Blissfest. We are looking forward to bringing him back and we know he’s ready to rock!
Making their Blissfest debut is Kyle Brown & The Human Condition. With songs meant for listeners to explore the full meaning of "the human condition," the band represents their name to the fullest extent.
Touching on environmental, social, and philosophical topics, their music leans folk-rock with satisfying guitar leads and nostalgic vocals. His voice, particularly on the song “How It’s Supposed to Be,” instantly brings me back to driving around in my mom’s green Ford Aerostar van in the ’90s with the windows down with the Gin Blossoms and Dave Matthews Band on the radio.
It makes me want to sit on a lawn in the summer heat and listen to music.
Good thing I know a place. That place is Blissfest.