Pure Imagination Music Festival

Ziggy Marley is an eight-time Grammy winner, Emmy winner, musician, producer, activist and humanitarian who has cultivated a legendary career for close to 40 years.  The eldest son of Bob and Rita Marley, Ziggy has hewed his own path as a musical pioneer, infusing the reggae genre with funk, blues, rock and other elements through mindful songcraft.

One of the most celebrated singer/songwriters of her generation, Lucinda Williams is also a fiercely independent artist who had to fight for the creative freedom that allowed her to do her best work. The daughter of a well-respected poet, Williams brought a literacy and sense of detail to her music that was unpretentious but powerfully evocative and emotional, and a number of major artists covered her tunes while she was still establishing herself as a performer.

In the waning days of the summer of 2018, Los Angeles duo Capital Cities issued their appropriately seasonal sophomore full-length, Solarize. The sun-washed set of futuristic synth-disco positively shimmers, providing an ideal soundtrack to smooth romancing and sweaty body-moving.  Less indie-precious than their 2013 debut, Solarize smooths the digital edge of their early sound in favor of warm tones, hypnotic beats, and a focus on a full album experience as opposed to a collection of singles.

For all the trailblazing musical acts who’ve emerged from Los Angeles, very few embody the city’s wildly eclectic spirit more wholeheartedly than Los Lobos. Over the last five decades, the East L.A.-bred band has made an indelible mark on music history by exploring an enormous diversity of genres — rock-and-roll and R&B, surf music and soul, mariachi and música norteña, punk rock and country — and building a boldly unpredictable sound all their own.

Born in Montreal, Allison Russell 4-time Grammy-nominated poet, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, activist and co-founder of Our Native Daughters (with Rhiannon Giddens, Leyla McCalla and Amythyst Kiah) and Birds of Chicago (with JT Nero) — is a multi-faceted tour de force.

Nappy Roots has been a best-selling hip-hop group since 2002. They have been nominated for two GRAMMY Awards and multiple American Music Award (AMA) and Soul Train Awards. Currently, the band tours 150 days annually and owns a Nappy Roots clothing line.

Unfortunately, due to a change in her schedule Brandy Clark is no longer able to join the festival. 

Ponderosa Grove is a collaboration of award-wining singer/songwriter Candace Devine, Drew Hall, Joshua Taylor, Cosimo Bohrman, Zach Dominguez, and Gigi Gonaway. Born out of the artistic tapestry of Prescott, Arizona,  they bring a warm and inviting sound that has been compared to a contemporary Fleetwood Mac or a modern day Queen with hook driven melodies and a fierce stage presence.

Armed with one guitar – his battered-and-bruised, heavily-customized Gibson Les Paul, a k a “Old Glory” – a gritty, soul-stirring voice and an unshakable spirit, Jared James Nichols has come roaring out of Waukesha, Wisconsin (the hometown, coincidentally – or perhaps not – of the actual Les Paul) to resurrect and reaffirm the power and glory of good ol’ hot-wired, high-stakes blues-drenched rock ‘n’ roll.

Hailing from the underground, west coast, electronic, bass music scene, Dirtwire finds itself at the forefront of experimental electronic music production mixing in their wide array of world instruments with sampled beats and 808’s. Dirtwire’s live shows are a communal psychedelic journey, ranging from down home boot stomping get downs, to bass and blues electronic mashups, to ethereal cinematic beat driven soundscapes. Woven into each is the exploration of where live instruments meet computer production, and where tradition meets experimentation.

Independent artists, The Brummies, made up of vocalists and multi-instrumentalists John Davidson and Jacob Bryant, and drummer Trevor Davis, have been playing together in various incarnations since high school, growing up together outside of Birmingham, AL. The members count the Beatles, Elton John, ELO, Blitzen Trapper and My Morning Jacket among their influences, but also have an affinity for sweeping film soundtracks. Their trademark sound evokes the psych-rock vibe of the Sixties and the soft indie-folk of the Nineties, yet possesses a timeless quality all its own.

Johan Glidden is a prolific singer-songwriter and instrumentalist from Prescott, Arizona. Raised in a household full of music, Johan picked up a violin at 5 years old and has been creating ever since, conjuring everything from classical to rock, bluegrass to blues. Among other achievements, Johan was a founding member of Sugar & the Mint, the youngest band to ever win the Telluride Bluegrass Band competition (2017).