We have 4 Hootenannies a year. These shows typically have 10 or so performers / bands. They stretch throughout the afternoon and into early evening. For a list of performers that have played here in the past, please see the Previous Events page.

"`Hootenanny' is to folk music what `jam session' is to jazz, namely a gathering together of all sorts of people -- celebrated performers, amateur singers and pickers, and sing-along, hand-clapping devotees. The meeting ground is simply a vigorous love for folk music.

"The Hootenanny was a necessary invention of the late 1930s: The `Hoot' was a completely spontaneous, unrestrained event, and consequently produced many of American's greatest folk artists and songs.

"Today, folk music is practically in the Big Business category and the word `Hootenanny' has even made Webster's. Accordingly, Hoots are liable to take place anywhere -- the basement, a nite club, or the Modesto after a concert -- and now on a record. Luckily for all of us folkniks, the essence of the old Hootenanny -- its immediacy, variety and incredible excitement -- still remains."  - From the liner notes of The Replacements "Hootenanny" album.

Images from the Spring Hoot