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Last year’s highly acclaimed, three-hour filmed broadcast, Let The Music Play On, featured a rich and diverse array of major artists filmed in some of the country’s most legendary music venues. For 2021, the HSB team embarked on another film project, appropriately titled Come What May. Select abridged performances from Come What May will be included in the global livestream over the festival weekend. Let The Music Play On and Come What May will be available exclusively on-demand via the festival’s brand new TV APP – HSBTV - launching October 1st and available to download on Apple TV+ and Roku. Users can search for “HSB TV” on the Apple App Store and Roku Channel Store to create a free account.
The Hardly Strictly live broadcast will feature shortened versions of Come What May segments throughout the weekend. Viewers will be able to enjoy these sets in their entirety on the HSBTV app after the livestream ends each day. The 12 full length episodes are comprised of material filmed in New Orleans and San Francisco in the spring of 2021; showcasing beautifully captured performances and interviews from Ani DiFranco to The Soul Rebels, Bob Mould and The Rainbow Girls, among others - and will be available alongside 2020’s lauded Let The Music Play On. Music lovers around the world can binge over 20 hours of content filmed in iconic venues and locations in Austin, Nashville, New Orleans, and San Francisco. Revisit your favorite archival memories of HSB past, sit back and enjoy - wherever you are!
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass continues to support the arts and artists through their philanthropic efforts and this week revealed plans for a total of one million dollars in new grants shared between Sweet Relief Musicians Fund, East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative’s Esther’s Orbit Room project and Tenderloin Museum’s Sounds of the Tenderloin project. This, combined with last year's contributions to the local and national music community, brings the total pandemic giving from HSB to $4.1 million dollars. Last year’s relief was focused on Bay Area venues Ashkenaz, Bottom of the Hill, El Rio, Eli’s Mile High Club, Geoffrey’s Inner Circle, La Peña, Mystic Theatre, Felton Music Hall, Red Poppy Art House, The Back Room, The Chapel, The Ivy Room, The Lost Church, The Monkey House, and The Starry Plough, as well as national and regional direct funding to the artists themselves. With this latest effort, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass seeks to recognize, appreciate and care for the people who lend their creativity, heart and hard work to the American roots music community; that includes artists, musicians, music venues and many others who are all crucial to the Bay Area music ecosystem.
"It's clear that COVID-19, and the current spread of the Delta variant, continue to deeply affect our music communities, and that new support is needed,” says Frances Hellman, one of the directors of the Hellman Foundation. “We hope that these grants will not only provide some economic relief to the artists and workers who make live music possible, but also help to lift up some of the most highly-impacted neighborhoods as we begin to recover from this historically challenging period.”
About Hardly Strictly Bluegrass
Over the last two decades, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass has grown from a one-day local attraction to a world-renowned three-day festival that attracts more than half a million people. A one-of-a-kind, annual, free music festival spanning multiple stages across the bucolic Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. The event features an array of eclectic bands each year - from roots and Americana, to funk, rock, soul and more. The festival prides itself on being able to delight concertgoers with new and unexpected acts every year alongside annual favorites such as Emmylou Harris and Steve Earle.
Honoring the legacy of founders Warren and Chris Hellman, their four children, and directors of the Hellman Foundation, oversee the Festival and are guided by the mission and values that they have created. It was the wish of Warren Hellman, and his family, to make a gift to the people of San Francisco - and the world - of a free annual music festival that features and celebrates American “roots” music, and its many outgrowths, and in doing so fosters joy, creativity, freedom, peace, collaboration, love of music, mutual respect, and spiritual community.
In 2019 the Festival hosted over 80 bands on 6 stages. In 2020 its impressive livestreamed event broadened its reach to an international audience and garnered over a million views. 2021’s global livestream partnership with Xfinity, and launch of HSB TV, available to Apple TV and Roku users around the globe, promises to expand the festival’s audience exponentially; A new era for Hardly Strictly Bluegrass and an exciting gift for roots music fans internationally.
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