Third Annual FoxFire Music and Arts Festival This Weekend
The Ashland Beacon
Kathy Clayton
The Ashland riverfront will echo with music next weekend as eighteen bands take to the river front’s stage for the third annual FoxFire Music and Arts Festival, sponsored by the Paramount Arts Center.
This two-day festival takes place on September 30 and October 1, and will feature headliners Morgan Wade on Saturday and Elle King on Sunday. Tickets for a full weekend pass are available, or for Saturday or Sunday only passes. Doors open at 2 p.m. each day and performances will end at 11 p.m. In addition to featured performers, there will be visual and performing artists from all over the country present during the festival.
Saturday’s line-up includes Wade, along with Kameron Marlowe, Uncle Lucius, Kat Hasty, Kendell Marvel, Pillbox Patti, Corduroy Brown, Emmy Davis, and Justin Pruitt.
Wade burst onto the country music scene after releasing her first album in 2021 which featured the crossover hit “Wilder Days.” Since then, she has performed at numerous festivals and concerts, and has opened for Luke Bryan and Chris Stapleton. In 2023, she was nominated for New Female Artist of the Year by the Academy of Country Music Awards.
Performing Sunday are King, Larry Fleet, Tanner Ursey, JR Carrol, Nolan Taylor, Cassandra Lewis, Jayce Turley, Hunter Flynn, and Tyler Waller.
Sunday’s headliner, Elle King, is known for her hit single “Exes and Ohs,” which hit the Billboard top ten and results in two Grammy nominations in 2016. In 2016, King won Musical Event of the Year at the Country Music Association awards. She has toured with Train, Joan Jett, and Miranda Lambert, among many others.
Long-time Ashland residents will recall stories of the” Traipsin’ Woman,” from the late Jean Bell Thomas, whose Ashland roots inspired not only the FoxFire Festival, but is also said to have started the first outdoor music festival right here in Boyd County back in 1930.
“Many people don’t realize that Ashland is one of the birth places for music festivals in our country,” explained PAC Director Holly Canfield, in a statement on the Boyd County Tourism site. Canfield shared that the goal of FoxFire is to capture the independent spirit of Appalachian music and culture through both nationally known performers as well as local talent.
FoxFire is a tremendous undertaking for the PAC and its staff. Setting up at Riverfront Park for a two-day event requires an enormous amount of coordination between PAC and the city.