Danny Clinch
A & C
Mavis Staples, NYC, 2023
Santa Fe-based nonprofit promotions outfit Lensic 360 announced today the lineup of its much-anticipated and now-annual Blossoms & Bones Ghost Ranch Music Festival slated Sept. 12-14 at the former Abiquiú home of painter Georgia O’Keeffe. And, for the fourth year running, the people who also bring you the Santa Fe Bandstand and Summer Railyard Concert Series have put together a doozy.
Australian singer-songwriter Vance Joy receives top-billing alongside the downright legendary singer Mavis Staples, but appearances from alt-country goddess Lucinda Williams and punk-adjacent songsmith Courtney Barnett ain’t’ nothing to sneeze at, nor are scheduled performances from The California Honeydrops, Dakhabrakha, Nick Mulvey, Brett Dennen, Red Light Cameras, DJ Raashan Ahmad and others.
“This is the second year with the same name and same vibe,” says Lensic 360′s Jamie Lenfestey, formerly of AMP Concerts, that company that initially handled the fest. “We planned to do it in 2020 with AMP, then the pandemic hit, so we came back in 2021, and that was called the Ghost Ranch Music Weekend, but because we were coming out of the pandemic, it was mostly solo acts, kind of quieter…the most feedback we got was that people wanted it to be dancier.”
Of course, that first year featured artists like Neko Case and Rosanne Cash, so it’s not like it didn’t rule or anything. The following years were also bangers and included acts like The Indigo Girls, Japanese Breakfast and many more.
“In the break from AMP, we took the festival idea and renamed it Blossoms & Bones,” Lenfestey continues, “and we work with the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum to identify a different painting every year—last year was ‘Ram’s Head, Blue Morning Glory’—that kind of sets the tone. This year it’s a piece called ‘Summer Days,’ and it’s this elk skull with flowers below it; we’re kind of playing off that in that we want to embrace the sense of adventure O’Keeffe had when she ventured into New Mexico and fell in love with this amazing place.”
Lenfestey also says that he and his fellow promoter, Lensic 360′s Tim Franke, operate Blossoms & Bones differently than most contemporary festivals, leading to a more exclusive and curated set of acts.
“We don’t have a lot of slots,” he says. “A lot of festivals cover a lot of ground because they’ve got four stages and 60,000 people—we have one stage and 2,000 people. But one of the things Tim and I have loved is that you’re getting exposed to different artists, that [attendees] come for one or two and leave talking about all the others.”
Early bird tickets for Lensic Performing Arts Center members go live on Tuesday, April 9, with sales for single and two-day passes ($135-$235) opening to the wider public on Sunday, April 12. Notably, festival tickets do not cover hotel or camping options, so plan accordingly.
Lenfestey, meanwhile, encourages the more serious concert-goers to consider the Thursday evening welcome event on Thursday, Sept. 12, which both finds festival artists playing in a more intimate setting, but is also meant to alleviate some of the Friday morning traffic when Blossoms & Bones officially begins.
“You can get settled in and spend all Friday on the ranch,” he says, “rather than spending that time getting in there.”
Find tickets through lensic360.org.
