This summer, the 20^th annual City Stages brings music to the streets, while newcomer BamaJam brings it to the farm.

By Lee E. Bains, III

Photos courtesy of City Stages and BamaJam

Maybe it’s the humidity, or the hydrangeas in bloom, or even the mosquitoes’ constant buzzing that makes music sound so sweet in an Alabama summer. It was, after all, during one of them that Hank Williams wrote “Kaw-Liga” in a Lake Martin cabin, and during another that Wilson Pickett recorded “Mustang Sally” at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals. This summer, Birmingham’s City Stages (June 13th-15th), Alabama’s longest running summer music festival, and Enterprise’s BamaJam (June 5th-7th), the state’s newest, distill that song from the hot, sticky air.

A Tale of Two City Fests

Since its 1989 founding, City Stages has brought an array of world-renowned artists and underground favorites to the streets of Birmingham, from Al Green and Johnny Cash to Superchunk and the Screaming Trees. Guy McCullough, City Stages’ Marketing Director, has been with the festival for all of its 20-year history and has observed any number of changes, not all of them positive.

No secret to Birminghamians, City Stages has had its share of financial struggles, beginning in 2000 when heavy rains caused the festival to incur $879,000 in debt.

Despite recent years seeing the festival righting itself financially, McCullough—though confident that they can be overcome—has seen an increase of impediments to the festival’s success. Rising talent costs are chief among them.

BamaJam founder Ronnie Gilley isn’t scared off by those climbing costs. “We really didn’t expect to profit the first year in; we were more setting the table for the years to come,” says the Wiregrass real estate developer of Enterprise’s inaugural, three-day camping and country music festival. Despite those humble expectations, though, BamaJam sold a surprising number of tickets in the first weeks of availability. One glance at BamaJam’s line-up should provide ample explanation.

If You Book It, They Will Come

A mention of Randy Owen, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Trace Adkins only cracks the shell of BamaJam’s schedule, heavy with household names. Although the festival’s mission statement is clearly focused “to celebrate the human spirit through country music,” BamaJam’s definition of country music here is as broad as you’re likely to find it. Sharing the stage with classic hit makers like Owen and Hank Williams, Jr. and rising CMT stars like Adkins and Darryl Worley are Southern rock pioneers Skynyrd and ZZ Top, rootsy college-radio standbys Gov’t Mule and Old Crow Medicine Show, and traditionalists Ralph Stanley and Ricky Skaggs.

“It’s appealing to every age group, to high school students and retirees,” Gilley explains. “We identified some major acts we felt would have a very significant draw power in this region.” Although BamaJam’s target audience was very much Southern, folks from as far away as Wisconsin and New Jersey wound up booking RV campsites for the event.

Questions of its own drawing power have swarmed City Stages since its recent hiring of Bonnaroo veterans AC Entertainment, a Knoxville, Tennessee-based promotions company. How can an urban street festival compete with a mammoth happening like Bonnaroo? “We can’t!” laughs McCullough, though he believes City Stages can promote its reputation as the place to hear artists before they hit it big. “We had Hootie and the Blowfish the week before Cracked Rear View was released, and you could have seen John Mayer for free, before anybody knew him,” Mc- Cullough notes.

In addition to those acts, the North Carolina alt-country band Whiskeytown played a set at City Stages in 1997, years before their frontman Ryan Adams ever thought about achieving indie darling status, and OutKast tore down the proverbial house in 2002, just a few months before Baby Boomers started whistling “Hey Ya!” to everybody’s mortification.

Regardless of City Stages’ track record, though, hindsight doth not necessarily a successful festival make. And while “the next big thing” theme might warrant a half-hour drive for local residents, it seems unlikely that the prospect of seeing who might possibly turn out to be the next Ryan Adams could warrant the gas and hotel money that would be required of farther flung fans.

BamaJam organizers have clearly taken a niche approach to ensure the success of their festival, honing in on the roots and branches of the country music genre—an art form whose history is tightly enmeshed with that of Alabama. In the tradition of such festivals as New Orleans Jazz Fest and Memphis in May, BamaJam—to humbly bastardize the words of William Faulkner—has “discovered that its own little postage stamp of native soil is worth [singing] about.”

Scott Register, a member of City Stages’ Programming Committee and onsite media relations team, says that—while genre-specific festivals might bring in more folks and funds—such an approach is contrary to the Birmingham festival’s founding principles. “I remember the thing I first loved most about festivals was […] the discovery,” he says of City Stages’ diverse lineup. “It’s about finding that band that changes your life. 

On the financial successes of the Bonnaroos and BamaJams of the world, Register is quick to point out those festivals’ ticket costs. (A three-day, general admission pass to BamaJam runs you $125, while an advanced weekend pass to City Stages costs $37.50). “The goal for City Stages is to provide a well-rounded festival at a price that will allow you to take your date, your dad on Father’s Day, or your wife and three kids,” Register notes. “And not put a second mortgage on your house.”

We Care A Lot

Both McCullough and Gilley believe that their events can have a significant impact on their respective communities, long after all the stages have been dismantled and the beer bottles swept away. Gilley foresees BamaJam as stimulating economic growth in the Wiregrass and has designated a portion of its profits to rebuild Enterprise High School and provide one qualifying local family with a house.

A 501(c)(3) non-profit, City Stages has, in the past, sponsored music programs for Smithfield and West End students, offered scholarships to local high school seniors interested in professional music and also operated under a mission of revitalizing Birmingham. All that being said, McCullough concedes, “From a financial standpoint, City Stages will probably always be a closerun thing.” Chuckling, he adds, “You could say sometimes we’ve taken our non-profit status a little too seriously.”

Notable performers at Alabama’s two summer festivals

City Stages:

Diana Ross

Buddy Guy

Ben Harper

Flaming Lips

Anthony Hamilton

Jason Isbell

Carolina Chocolate Drops

BamaJam:

Randy Owen

Hank Williams, Jr.

Lynyrd Skynyrd

Ralph Stanley

Trace Adkins

Gov’t Mule

Keller Williams

For More Information

City Stages

www.citystages.org

205.251.1272

BamaJam

www.bamajamfestival.com

877.4BAMAJAM