The most awarded voice in bluegrass — crystalline, patient, and backed by the tightest band the genre ever produced.
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 country, bluegrass, americana and folk across 54 acts.
MerleFest 2026 lineup: all 54 acts
Search it, filter by day, stage or genre. Save anything straight to your schedule.Browse all 54 acts →
Search it, filter by day, stage or genre. Save anything straight to your schedule.
Georgia's keepers of the Southern-rock flame — Skynyrd swagger with songwriter substance.
West Virginia storyteller — Appalachian family history sung in a baritone that fills a hollow.
'Wagon Wheel' originators and old-time revivalists — a string band that plays with punk-rock urgency.
The ukulele's Hendrix — four strings doing things four strings shouldn't be able to do.
Bedroom-folk confessionals for the anxious generation — protest music that sounds like a hug.
Two-time IBMA guitar player of the year — flatpicking virtuosity fronting new-school bluegrass.
Bill Monroe's former lead singer, still carrying first-generation bluegrass into its eighth decade.
Jamgrass veterans — fiddle-driven Americana that stretches out live like a freight train taking a curve.
The father of newgrass — five decades of mandolin revolution and still the most joyful player on any stage.
North Carolina's Grammy-winning bluegrass institution — as at home backing Steve Martin as headlining on their own.
Progressive bluegrass played by a band happy to jam a traditional tune well past its natural length — Grammy-winning chops, festival stamina.
The greatest dobro player alive, full stop — fourteen Grammys and counting.
California bluegrass around a mandolinist who has been winning contests since childhood — tight harmony, West Coast looseness.
Bluegrass mainstay running since the mid-nineties on a famously stable lineup — original songwriting and tight vocal harmony ahead of showpiece picking.
Broken Compass Bluegrass
Young California band nudging traditional bluegrass somewhere newer — IBMA Momentum winners with chops to spare.
Corey Harris
Dom Flemons
Donna the Buffalo
Three decades of groove-driven Americana with fiddle and accordion out front, and a following that books its holidays around them.
DUG
Asheville five-piece pushing string-band instrumentation toward progressive folk — tight ensemble playing with a taste for the unexpected turn.
Norwegian ensemble playing American string-band music straight, with stacked close harmonies and a headcount well past the usual bluegrass five.
Hogslop String Band
Jack Lawrence
Jason Scott & The High Heat
Jeff Little Trio
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.
Kruger Brothers
Lamont Landers
Alabama singer with a soul-schooled rasp, working the seam between blue-eyed R&B and Southern rock.
Western North Carolina singer and banjo player steeped in Appalachian tradition, as much teacher and archivist as performer.
Leon Timbo & The Family Band
Liam St. John
Nashville slide guitarist playing a loud, distorted blues, with an audience built largely through short-form video.
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.
Texas songwriter and upright bassist whose vocals sit somewhere between prewar country and early jazz phrasing — old-time craft with no costume-drama pretense.
Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper
Pete & Joan Wernick
Flatpicking phenom from the North Carolina mountains — Doc Watson's tradition in the hands of someone who grew up down the road from it.
Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band
Grammy- and Pulitzer-winning banjo and fiddle scholar — she traces old-time music back to its Black roots and plays it like news, not history.
Roy Book Binder
Scythian
East Tennessee band built around Mulder's mandolin and a hard-driving traditional sound, honed on the tourist-town circuit near the Smokies.
Shelby Means
All-women bluegrass band built from seasoned Nashville players — hard-driving picking and stacked harmony that leans country when it wants to.
The Band Loula
Three sisters from south Georgia — banjo, guitar and the kind of sibling harmony no rehearsal can manufacture.
The Creekers
The Jack Wharff Band
The Waybacks
Texas five-piece stacking harmonies like a country Eagles — western storytelling with every voice out front.
Flatpicking guitarist and singer best known for his duo with dobro player Rob Ickes — hard-driving bluegrass runs delivered with a country vocalist's phrasing.
Trombonist, producer and co-founder of the Crusaders, whose horn lines helped bend hard bop toward soul and funk before his death in 2014.
Teenage mandolin prodigy mentored by the genre's living legends — instrumentals played with a veteran's restraint.
Zoe & Cloyd
The headliners
Alison Krauss & Union Station — The most awarded voice in bluegrass — crystalline, 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 — Skynyrd swagger with songwriter substance.
Charles Wesley Godwin — West Virginia storyteller — Appalachian family history sung 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.
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