The most awarded voice in bluegrass, crystalline and patient, and backed by the tightest band the genre ever produced.
BluegrassAmericana
MerleFest 2026 Lineup
Doc Watson's 'traditional plus' gathering in the North Carolina foothills: Alison Krauss, Old Crow Medicine Show and four days of bluegrass, Americana and roots.
MerleFest 2026 has already wrapped, but you can still dig through the lineup and find the acts you would have loved.
Find the acts you'll love at MerleFest
Name a few bands you love and we'll scout all 54 acts on the MerleFest bill for the ones you shouldn't miss.
About MerleFest 2026
MerleFest has run on the campus of Wilkes Community College since 1988, founded by Doc Watson in memory of his son Merle, and its 'traditional plus' formula hasn't moved: bluegrass and old-time at the core, everything roots-adjacent welcome. The 2026 edition ran April 23–26 with Alison Krauss & Union Station, Old Crow Medicine Show, Blackberry Smoke and Charles Wesley Godwin at the top.
The depth was in the picking. Instrumental royalty stacked the bill (Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Peter Rowan, Molly Tuttle, Michael Cleveland, Jake Shimabukuro) alongside North Carolina institutions like Steep Canyon Rangers, Jim Lauderdale and Rhiannon Giddens, and a young class headed by teenage mandolinist Wyatt Ellis, AJ Lee & Blue Summit and The Castellows.
Expect bluegrass, country, americana and folk across 54 acts.
At a glance
- Dates
- –Thursday to Sunday, four days
- Where
- Wilkes Community College, Wilkesboro, NC
- Lineup
- 54 acts
- Website
- Official site
MerleFest 2026 lineup: all 54 acts
Search it, filter by day, stage or genre.Browse all 54 acts
Search it, filter by day, stage or genre.
Georgia's keepers of the Southern-rock flame, with Skynyrd swagger and songwriter substance.
Southern rock
West Virginia storyteller who sings Appalachian family history in a baritone that fills a hollow.
AmericanaCountry
'Wagon Wheel' originators and old-time revivalists, a string band that plays with punk-rock urgency.
AmericanaOld-time
The ukulele's Hendrix, with four strings doing things four strings shouldn't be able to do.
Instrumental
Bedroom-folk confessionals for the anxious generation, protest music that sounds like a hug.
FolkIndie-pop
Two-time IBMA guitar player of the year, with flatpicking virtuosity fronting new-school bluegrass.
BluegrassIndieFolkAmericana
Bill Monroe's former lead singer, still carrying first-generation bluegrass into its eighth decade.
Bluegrass
Jamgrass veterans with fiddle-driven Americana that stretches out live like a freight train taking a curve.
JamBluegrass
The father of newgrass: five decades of mandolin revolution and still the most joyful player on any stage.
BluegrassNewgrass
North Carolina's Grammy-winning bluegrass institution, as at home backing Steve Martin as headlining on their own.
Bluegrass
Progressive bluegrass played by a band happy to jam a traditional tune well past its natural length, with Grammy-winning chops and festival stamina.
BluegrassNewgrass
The greatest dobro player alive, full stop, with fourteen Grammys and counting.
BluegrassAmericana
California bluegrass around a mandolinist who has been winning contests since childhood, with tight harmony and West Coast looseness.
Country
Bluegrass mainstay running since the mid-nineties on a famously stable lineup, with original songwriting and tight vocal harmony ahead of showpiece picking.
Country
Broken Compass Bluegrass
Young California band nudging traditional bluegrass somewhere newer: IBMA Momentum winners with chops to spare.
Bluegrass
Corey Harris
Blues
Dom Flemons
Folk
Three decades of groove-driven Americana with fiddle and accordion out front, and a following that books its holidays around them.
Rock
DUG
Irish-American folk duo of Lorkin O'Reilly and Jonny Pickett, joining traditional Irish folk with American old-time banjo on 'Have At It!'
FolkOld-time
Asheville five-piece pushing string-band instrumentation toward progressive folk, with tight ensemble playing and a taste for the unexpected turn.
Bluegrass
Norwegian ensemble playing American string-band music straight, with stacked close harmonies and a headcount well past the usual bluegrass five.
Country
Hogslop String Band
Nashville old-time outfit playing fiddle-driven breakdowns at full tilt, with rowdy shows that tend to turn into square dances.
Country
Flatpicking guitarist who spent decades as Doc Watson's musical partner and carries that clean, driving style on his own.
Country
Jason Scott & The High Heat
Oklahoma band pushing Red Dirt songwriting toward heartland rock, with a frontman's plainspoken storytelling carried by a loud, road-tested band.
Country
Jeff Little Trio
Appalachian piano trio led by Jeff Little, who plays fiddle tunes and old-time mountain melodies on the keys with a flatpicker's speed and drive.
Traditional folk
Grammy-winning North Carolina native and Americana's most prolific lifer, a songwriter's songwriter with dozens of albums and a long bluegrass streak alongside Ralph Stanley.
AmericanaBluegrass
Swiss-born brothers Jens and Uwe Kruger with bassist Joel Landsberg, pairing virtuoso banjo and guitar with ambitious writing like the string-quartet 'Appalachian Concerto'.
Americana
Lamont Landers
Alabama singer with a soul-schooled rasp, working the seam between blue-eyed R&B and Southern rock.
Rock
Western North Carolina singer and banjo player steeped in Appalachian tradition, as much teacher and archivist as performer.
Singer/songwriter
Leon Timbo & The Family Band
Americana
Liam St. John
Nashville slide guitarist playing a loud, distorted blues, with an audience built largely through short-form video.
Blues
Nashville singer who drifted out of mainstream country toward horn-fed soul and roots-rock, built around a live band and a gospel-sized voice.
Country
Texas songwriter and upright bassist whose vocals sit somewhere between prewar country and early jazz phrasing, with old-time craft and no costume-drama pretense.
Country
Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper
Singer/songwriter
Pete & Joan Wernick
Americana
Flatpicking phenom from the North Carolina mountains, carrying Doc Watson's tradition in the hands of someone who grew up down the road from it.
Americana
Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band
Americana
Grammy- and Pulitzer-winning banjo and fiddle scholar who traces old-time music back to its Black roots and plays it like news, not history.
Singer/songwriter
Roy Book Binder
Blues
Washington, D.C.-area band led by the Fedoryka brothers, playing fiddle-driven Celtic and Eastern European folk at a rock-band tempo.
FolkCeltic
East Tennessee band built around Mulder's mandolin and a hard-driving traditional sound, honed on the tourist-town circuit near the Smokies.
Bluegrass
Shelby Means
Folk
All-women bluegrass band built from seasoned Nashville players, with hard-driving picking and stacked harmony that leans country when it wants to.
Country
The Band Loula
Country
Three sisters from south Georgia with banjo, guitar and the kind of sibling harmony no rehearsal can manufacture.
Country
The Creekers
Country
The Jack Wharff Band
Country
Bay Area acoustic band that plays string-band instruments the way a rock group would, known for covering classic albums front to back.
AmericanaNewgrass
Texas five-piece stacking harmonies like a country Eagles, with western storytelling and every voice out front.
Americana
Flatpicking guitarist and singer best known for his duo with dobro player Rob Ickes, delivering hard-driving bluegrass runs with a country vocalist's phrasing.
Country
Trombonist, producer and co-founder of the Crusaders, whose horn lines helped bend hard bop toward soul and funk before his death in 2014.
Old-timeBluegrass
Teenage mandolin prodigy mentored by the genre's living legends, playing instrumentals with a veteran's restraint.
Bluegrass
Zoe & Cloyd
Bluegrass
The headliners
Alison Krauss & Union Station · The most awarded voice in bluegrass, crystalline and patient, and backed by the tightest band the genre ever produced.
Old Crow Medicine Show · 'Wagon Wheel' originators and old-time revivalists, a string band that plays with punk-rock urgency.
Blackberry Smoke · Georgia's keepers of the Southern-rock flame, with Skynyrd swagger and songwriter substance.
Charles Wesley Godwin · West Virginia storyteller who sings Appalachian family history in a baritone that fills a hollow.
Up-and-comers to catch early
Wyatt Ellis · The teenage mandolin prodigy the bluegrass world has already adopted.
AJ Lee & Blue Summit · California bluegrass with pop-melody instincts: the format's next favorite band.
The Castellows · Three Georgia sisters, harmonies first.
- Presley Barker · A North Carolina guitar phenom raised on Doc's records, playing Doc's festival.
- Broken Compass Bluegrass · New-school pickers keeping the jam door open.
Other acts worth planning around
Sam Bush · MerleFest royalty: newgrass's founding energy on home turf.
The Jerry Douglas Band · Dobro as a lead voice: nobody else comes close.Peter Rowan · First-generation bluegrass, firsthand.
Molly Tuttle · The flatpicking standard of her generation.
Jake Shimabukuro · Four strings, zero limits.
Rhiannon Giddens · North Carolina's genre historian: banjo scholarship as living music.
MerleFest 2026 lineup FAQ
When was MerleFest 2026?
April 23–26, 2026 (Thursday through Sunday).
Where does MerleFest take place?
On the campus of Wilkes Community College in Wilkesboro, North Carolina, in the Blue Ridge foothills.
Who headlined MerleFest 2026?
Alison Krauss & Union Station, Old Crow Medicine Show, Blackberry Smoke and Charles Wesley Godwin, with Molly Tuttle, Sam Bush and The Jerry Douglas Band among the top billing.
What does 'traditional plus' mean?
Doc Watson's phrase for MerleFest's booking philosophy: traditional bluegrass, old-time and folk at the core, plus everything roots-adjacent (southern rock, blues, Americana and beyond).
How many acts played MerleFest 2026?
54 acts across the four days.
How do I find the acts I'd have liked?
Type a few artists you love into the finder at the top of this page. It matches them against this lineup and explains each pick.
When is MerleFest 2027?
MerleFest is expected back in April 2027; the festival has not announced the 2027 dates yet. The 2026 lineup stays on this page until it does.
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