Photograph by Emily O'Donnell

The sound of strings warming up floated through the evening air. A gentle melody is formed with the hum of crickets and the murmur of the three rivers surrounding the park. The crowd stretched from the stage all the way out to the artist’s tents, filling the green space with attentive listeners. They had all come to Point State Park to see something that had not happened in over thirty years. The Pittsburgh Symphony returned to the Three Rivers Arts Festival to play a concert, free to the public.

Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s Music Director, Manfred Honeck, conducted the musicians. They opened with Leonard Bernstein’s Overture to Candide and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 followed by works by Johann Strauss Jr., Hummel, Khachaturian, Shostakovich and Dvořák.

The concert concluded with a rousing rendition of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, complete with thunderous canons which were shot off backstage to punctuate the music, smoke filling the air as the sun set on a beautiful opening weekend of the Arts Festival.

Check out our slideshow!

http://www.flickr.com//photos/culturaltrust/sets/72157626902029438/show

You may not recognize the name, but chances are you’ve heard some zydeco, especially given the interest in New Orleans since Katrina. Briefly, zydeco is a kind of Creole music known for its quick tempos; the music is usually played on the piano accordion and the vest frottoir (a piece of aluminum worn over the shoulders and across the chest that resembles a washboard). Zydeco is meant for lively gatherings, especially dances.

Buckwheat Zydeco is the most recognizable face of zydeco (this is not just because of his unforgettable appearance—something like the hair of James Brown along with large glasses and a mustache that are the height of hipster chic). When he first began playing music as a child he was attracted to r&b, much to his father’s chagrin. For a good deal of his career, Buckwheat played funk, r&b, rock—everything but zydeco. How then did he become the figurehead of the genre?

In 1976, Buckwheat began playing with Clifton Chenier’s backing band. Chenier, a friend of Buckwheat’s father, was the then king of zydeco. Soon Buckwheat moved from organ to accordion, finally embracing zydeco after so many years spent circling around the music. When a little over a decade later Chenier died, Buckwheat Zydeco moved easily into his place. A new king was crowned.

Amidst Buckwheat’s transition from backing player to bandleader, he had to overcome a stutter that had plagued him since childhood. For most of his life Buckwheat had fought the problem by speaking fast; doing this, he was able to keep his speech under his own control. Stepping into the spotlight, Buckwheat fashioned this defense mechanism into a trademark. Before long everyone recognized his music by the rapid-fire vocals, which complimented well the rollicking boogie that is zydeco.

By now Buckwheat has played at Presidential inaugurations, won Grammy Awards, and seen the genre make stabs at national rather than regional popularity. But by and large they have only been stabs. Zydeco, despite renewed interest in New Orleans and television shows like Treme, the genre lurks at the periphery. June 12, the final day of Three Rivers Arts Festival, Buckwheat Zydeco will bring zydeco to the ‘Burgh. Perhaps Pittsburgh can move to the forefront of cultural progress and champion this uniquely American creation, one full of compelling narratives and stories of odds overcome. If Buckwheat Zydeco could manage to finally reach the masses, that would be a story worth filming.

The prodigy Little Ricky Skaggs, beloved in his hometown, played his first musical gig at the age of six. He accompanied the father of bluegrass, Bill Monroe, who put his own mandolin in Skaggs’ hands. Over the next couple of years, Skaggs would play at the Grand Ole Opry and collect his first performance-derived paycheck playing on the syndicated television show of Flatt and Scruggs.

If this story were to unfold today, this would be the moment in Skaggs’ career where drugs and fame would flame Skaggs out in a series of inappropriate TwitPics and squirm-inducing late-night appearances. These were different times, and bluegrass a different sort of musical scene to come of age within. Bluegrass, unlike pop, does not have the reputation for treating its young stars like human sacrifices.

So Skaggs went on to have the sort of peerless career that meant accumulating Grammy Awards like he owned a machine designed to manufacture them, playing with living legends like Emmylou Harris, and marking the genre permanently. Years passed. Commercial country, slick and shiny like bad lunchmeat, began to swallow the market for rootsy American music entirely. Skaggs pushed back by releasing more traditional records, albums dedicated to legends like Bill Monroe. And then Skaggs decided to explore a different route.

In 2000 Skaggs appeared onstage with the jam band par excellence Phish. In 2007 he recorded an album with Bruce Hornsby, a performer who defies genre; the album concluded with a cover of Rick James’ “Super Freak.” And last year Skaggs released Mosaic, a sort of rock album equally indebted contemporary Christian music and the Beatles. The child prodigy who cut his teeth playing bluegrass with some of the genre’s biggest innovators had now put out an album that featured backward guitars. Oh, and Peter Frampton guest appearance.

Many of this year’s festival headliners demonstrate that evolution is the surest path to longevity. But not at the cost of the artist’s personality. Ricky Skaggs, along side his band Kentucky Thunder, continues to explore the limits of genre, but always with his mandolin at the ready. Before anything else, Skaggs is a genius with that instrument. You’ll not find him trading it in for a sampler and a drum machine or a saxophone or a cello or anything else. He wouldn’t betray his faith, either. It may sound counterintuitive, but principles might be what you need to last in the industry.

Saturday, June 11, 8pm, on the Dollar Bank Stage

An alumna of Rolling Stone’s annual “10 Artists to Watch” list, Brandi Carlile is that musician who reminds you that clean, elegant vocals are still a powerful thing. Few artists give the sense that even if they were to sing jumbles of nonsense their performance would remain moving. With a voice like molten gold, Carlile accomplishes just this. And to think, as a child, she sang back-up for an Elvis impersonator. One can only imagine how many times the faux-King looked over his shoulder, knowing that this little girl was upstaging him.

Brandi Carlile’s music touches a number of genres, including pop, folk, and alt-country, and it is because of her voice that she can accomplish such nimble genre-hopping without seeming personality-less. When Carlile shifts genre, sometimes within a single song, it never feels like she’s lost control of her material. The remarkable quality of her voice marks each song indelibly.

Though her upper range recalls Jeff Buckley in its power and sharpness, Carlile has none of his theatrical tendencies. At times, Buckley sounded like a cross between Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant and an opera singer. At the limits of his range he would sometimes keen like an actor in a melodramatic musical simulating mourning. Just when you think Carlile’s voice might waver or crack, it finds new strength, even as she continues to ascend the scale.

Really, there’s no better way to experience a beautiful human voice than in a live setting. Earlier in the year Carlile released the record Live at Benaroya Hall with the Seattle Symphony, a testament to this. Carlile has a reputation for impressive performances, a result of her eerie ability to make spaces seem smaller, the distance between performer and listener less, and this album offered a document of this phenomena. Her simple lyrics take on even more meaning when they seem to be directed solely at the listener. Such is the experience of Carlile live.

Even performing outdoors, as she will be on June 10 at the Three Rivers Arts Festival, expect nothing less than profundity. That lush voice will reach across the crowd to touch each audience member.

Coming off a win for “Best Group” at the 2011 Pittsburgh Hip Hop Awards, Formula 412 will perform at the Three Rivers Arts Festival on June 9. This will be the group’s third time headlining the Festival in the last four years. By now you already know Formula 412’s story—five seasoned veterans of the Pittsburgh music scene who came together to form a hip-hop group relying on live instrumentation rather than the DJ and producer driven beats synonymous with hip-hop.

Lead emcee Masai Turner rhymes over tightly repetitive riffs (in a typical hip-hop track, this would be a looped sample from another record) from guitarist Byron “Nasty” Nash while “Bigg Cliff” Foster and Dennis Garner Jr. put down bass-heavy rhythms that keep the cadence of Turner’s flow. Keyboardist Akil Esoon works either rhythm or melody depending on what the song calls for. It’s hip-hop, no question.

Recently the crew put out their second studio album, Reality Show. To make a generalization, hip-hop lyricism takes one of two forms: braggadocio that inflates the persona of the emcee, or coarse narratives that sometimes—but not always—draw from the emcee’s lived experience. With Reality Show, lyricist Masai Turner wants to strip away all the artifice from his act. “Ain’t no millionaires here, me and my homies got jobs,” he raps on the title track. This could be something of a mission statement for recession-era rap. The fact is, many of the up-and-comers or underground artists professing to be accumulating cash like Jay-Z are being less than honest even as they claim total authenticity. It’s a trend that Turner’s aware of, and rather than call people out, he’s offering a different sort of critique. By striving for more truth about he and his bandmates’ experiences, he’s throwing down a gauntlet. You can make good, affecting hip-hop without having to swell your ego.

So “Step to the Rear” was filmed on a Port Authority bus in Pittsburgh. Public transportation. No flash, just chugging riffs, big bass, loud drums, and Turner’s words working in time to the beat. It’s a sensibility. Discover a new perspective on June 9 when Formula 412 lights up the Dollar Bank Stage at the Three Rivers Arts Festival.

San Francisco, and California at large, are proven fertile ground for musicians, especially those interested in psychedelia and jamming. The Grateful Dead cemented this back in the ’70s. The brand of loyalty the Dead inspires is easygoing — these fans aren’t going to beat anyone up — which must make it easier for the bands coming in their enormous wake.

That said, the jam community is a insulated one. The jam experience — long instrumental passages enjoyed at outdoor shows amongst friends and strangers who become your friends because they obsessively hold dear the same setlists you do — is just as important as the music. If a band can prove its credibility via musicianship and appreciation for the past greats, they’ll be welcomed readily into this floating musical commune.

Tea Leaf Green is in.

It’s 2011, meaning Tea Leaf Green has been around for 13 years. They’re approaching institution status now, what with six studio albums, six live albums (perhaps more important for a jam band than the studio efforts), and two concert DVDs. When Tea Leaf Green play the Dollar Bank Stage on June 8, it will be just one day after the release of their latest studio album, Radio Tragedy.

Though not a concept album, Radio Tragedy is about the struggles of a rock band looking for “radio gold.” For a jam band, the radio smash can be an elusive object; the nature of jamming results in songs that are antithetical to heavy radio rotation. But Tea Leaf Green’s always walked that line in the studio, the line between songcraft and lengthy soloing. With Radio Tragedy they’ve achieved what might be their tightest collection of songs to date.

The five-piece unfolds rhythms worthy of a seasoned funk band but here in service of more psychedelic purposes, songs about nature and the road, quintessentially American pursuits from Walt Whitman to Bob Dylan. Tea Leaf Green understand they’re stepping into the deep river of American history. For some bands, history means all the pop music that came out within the last ten years. For Tea Leaf Green the score has always been bigger than that. It shows in their music, especially during their live shows.

The Baseball Project way is Scott McCaughey (the Minus 5, the Young Fresh Fellows), Steve Wynn (Dream Syndicate, Gutterball), Linda Pitmon (Miracle Three, Golden Smog) and Peter Buck (R.E.M.). Those bands trailing after each name is as much proof of the players’ credibility as it is proof that the Baseball Project is a supergroup. The genesis of the band comes from McCaughey and Wynn’s shared interested in America’s pastime, something the two discovered way back in 1992. Their commitments to other bands kept the project from bearing fruit, until 2007 when they found themselves with the time and the energy.

Yep Roc Records released Volume 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails in 2008. Over power chords and pop song structures, tales of legends like Jackie Robinson and Satchel Page tumbled out, track after track. Naysayers might be thinking that these songs must be little more than Sesame Street-style ditties for lecturing about the greats of the game. Nope. Perhaps the most exciting aspect of the Baseball Project is the terrific sense of humor found in each song. Their ode to Ted Williams hinges on a chorus peppered with a perfectly executed bit of exuberance that isn’t fit to print here, but it hammers home their point well. “People say it’s hard to like a man who doesn’t fail,” go the lyrics, and then the one line refrain arrives, announcing Williams’ name with that little outburst of crass enthusiasm sandwiched between the player’s first and last name.

Volume 1 received such a positive response that the Baseball Project returned to the studio for another album, mining the annals of the sport’s past for new subjects and stories. Volume 2: High and Inside came out last March and featured songs about Pete Rose, Ichiro Suzuki, Reggie Jackson, and more. The success of the first project enabled the band to bring friends into the studio. Friends meaning Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard, Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan, and the Hold Steady’s Craig Finn. Oh, to be a rock star and have friends like that.

On June 7 at the Three Rivers Arts Festival the Baseball Project will pull you into their obsession with America’s pastime. Some fans fixate on stats; the Baseball Project are smitten with the stories. They set them to power chords, bolster them with infectious choruses, and suddenly even non-followers can glimpse the beauty behind the bunts and homers.

Opening for the Baseball Project are blues-rock upstarts J. Roddy Walston & The Business. Falling into the trend of recent years that’s revived nasty and minimal garage rock, J. Roddy Walston & The Business set themselves apart by the sense of sheer joy they bring. There’s no room for posturing or weird stylistic quirks with this crew of rockers. They’re having fun onstage. You will too.

After working a number of jobs tailored for a future folk rock singer— bartender, house painter, occasional actor—McMurtry turned to music full time in 1987, bolstered by a songwriting contest win. A demo of his fell into the hands of John Mellencamp and from that point on McMurtry’s career moved forward steadily. Albums came on regular basis, his first being 1989’s Too Long in the Wasteland.

In the land of men with guitars singing about America, the artist with the sharpest lyrics will stand out most. Of course, this is far from being a rule without exception, but McMurtry offers evidence in favor of its correctness. Childish Things, released in 2005, is the go-to album for lyrical dexterity, wit, and political timeliness.

The winner for the 2006 Americana Music Association Album of the Year, Childish Things produced the single “We Can’t Make It Here,” the unfortunately still-relevant portrait of an America wracked by war and recession. Over a short 7 minutes, McMurtry nails so many of the country’s ailments: war veterans denied proper care, rampant corporate corruption, and dead-end minimum wage jobs, all with a writer’s eye for vivid details. “Now I’m stocking shirts in the Wal-Mart store,” sings McMurtry, “Just like the ones we made before, ‘cept this one came from Singapore / I guess we can’t make it here anymore.”

In 2008, he released Just Us Kids. With songs like “Cheney’s Toy,” McMurtry made clear his unwillingness to leave politics out of his work. Indeed, it’s the quality that earns him so much admiration. In 2009 McMurtry released his most recent album, Live in Europe, a collection of songs recorded during his first European tour.

James McMurtry’s fearless approach to songwriting comes to the Three Rivers Arts Festival on June 6. Given the events of weeks past, any new work he might share we eagerly anticipate. McMurtry is the rare sort of songwriter we need to keep around. Much of the music we encounter on a day-to-day basis is about escape and fantasy. McMurtry’s music is a mirror bravely reflecting those often ugly parts we live in every day, those parts we try and ignore. His music insists we can’t make that work anymore.

Opening for James McMurtry is another Texas native, the up and coming Jonny Burke. His debut release, Distance and Fortune, is a classic folk rock record, in love with the mythology of the road and the women that drifted out of the picture. McMurtry describes Burke as a “born star.”

Thirty years ago, a married couple—Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth—that played music in a band called Talking Heads flew to the Bahamas with the intention of recording some new songs. They had ideas about rhythm that, as a bassist and drummer respectively, they wanted to explore outside of that David Byrne-fronted outfit. They called themselves Tom Tom Club and what they recorded at Compass Point Studios in 1981 changed the landscape of popular music permanently.

Bright, tiny points of synth over fat and rubbery bass, the opening of Tom Tom Club’s “Genius of Love” will send you back to famous New York clubs like the Danceteria, sweaty places crowded with the androgynous bodies indicative of early ‘80s new wave.

Or, if you’re like me, the nostalgia takes you back to elementary school, where your 7-year-old self is caterwauling “I’m in heaven, with my boyfriend / my lucky boyfriend,” thanks to Mariah Carey’s “Genius of Love”-sampling “Fantasy.” Singing in that range was made possible only by my pre-pubescence, and 7-year-old me was totally oblivious to the implications the lyrics.

“Genius of Love,” along with other popular cuts from Tom Tom Club’s self-titled debut, quickly became go-to records for hip-hop producers and DJs to sample. This isn’t a coincidence; Frantz and Weymouth started the group to explore rhythm through dance music, and rhythm is crucial to the hip-hop beat.

Grandmaster Flash introduced an entirely new audience to the genius of “Genius of Love” with his 1982 banger “It’s Nasty.” Race and genre across music blurred in unparalleled ways back in the early days of new wave and hip-hop. This far removed from the moment, it’s easy to lose track of the fact that an unassuming couple played key roles in this.

However, now might be the perfect time to remember. June 4, on the second day of the festival, Tom Tom Club will play the Dollar Bank Stage. With 30 years of practice, they’re experts in the art of moving butts (to quote A Tribe Called Quest, an early hip-hop group). Dance music, with its emphasis on repetition, building and alleviating tension, is nearly a math formula, with every equation culminating in the neat solution of you moving your hips.

Tom Tom Club, now six albums deep, have come along way from those early days in the Bahamas. There they were students of drum and bass, curious about the possibilities of rhythm. By now they’re professors, eager to educate and maybe show off a little.

The Blind Boys of Alabama make a cameo appearance in the recent children’s film Hop. The magic of the movies places the Blind Boys in a recording studio where they are performing a rendition of “Higher Ground” for a new video game entitled “Extreme Blues Master.” The cartoon rabbit and improbable video game concept indicate that jokes are the order of business here, but the scene does contain a nugget of truth. With over 72 years in the biz, the Blind Boys are masters, which is precisely why they’ll kick off the 2011 festival June 3 on the Dollar Bank Stage in Point State Park.

Master, yes, but “extreme” may be the wrong word for a six piece devoted in equal measure to sublime vocal harmonies and Jesus, a group of elegantly-aged men with honeyed voices whose online presence includes a Twitter account they populate with aphorisms encouraging gentleness and optimism. That the Blind Boys have a Twitter account is amusing; that the typical message ends with the hashtag #BBWisdom is revealing.

First formed in 1939, the Blind Boys are an institution, and no institution can last that long without adapting to the changing cultural atmosphere. In the world of music this is especially true (hence the Twitter account). But the tokens of wisdom make it plain that, while the means of promotion and publicity have changed significantly since the those early days at the Alabama Institute for the Negro Blind when the group came together, the principles of the Blind Boys are unchanged, static in the best way possible.

The careful balancing act embodied by the Twitter account is the reason why this group has sang for multiple Presidents, been awarded multiple Grammys, and released enough albums that printing a discography would require a long roll of ticker tape. The Blind Boys of Alabama do blues and R&B-inflected gospel about as well as it has ever been done. Their covers of another artist’s song often becomes the definitive version, their stamp is that distinctive. For instance, arguably more people know their cover of Tom Waits’ freaky spiritual “Way Down in the Hole.”

Their most recent album, Take the High Road, is yet another example of the group’s ability to stay simultaneously fresh and classic. A meeting with rising country music star Jamey Johnson proved to be the genesis for the album, the Blind Boys first take on country, a genre the members have admired for decades but hadn’t felt ready to tackle. The result is a rich collection of songs that plumb the history of American music, delicately poised between country and gospel.

Experience the divinely inspired talent of America’s greatest gospel act, the Blind Boys of Alabama, at the 2011 Dollar Bank Three Rivers Arts Festival. As Pittsburghers know, opening night on the Dollar Bank Stage in Point State Park has seen some amazing performances. We’re confident the Blind Boys will deliver; they’ve had 72 years of practice.