New two-day bluegrass music festival on tap at time-honored Lexington location

Get set for a new two-day indoor music festival at a very time-honored location.

The event is called Bluegrass in the Bluegrass and the place is the Clarion Hotel Conference Center North.

If the venue name doesn’t sound familiar, it’s because it was known over 45 years ago as the Red Slipper Lounge at the Holiday Inn North, the place where Lexington/Nicholasville banjo great J.D. Crowe established a performance residency with the initial lineups of his groundbreaking New South band.

It is perhaps fitting that headlining both evenings of Bluegrass in the Bluegrass will be one of Crowe’s most acclaimed pre-New South mates, Doyle Lawson.

The current version of Lawson’s long-running Quicksilver band will top the Feb. 28 bill with a reunion of the ensemble’s original late ‘70s lineup completing the Feb. 29 schedule.

Other acts include Balsam Range, Larry Cordle and Lonesome Standard Time, Hammertowne and Charlie Woods and Deep Hollow (Feb. 28) with Sideline, Turning Ground and the Caleb Daughtery Band (Feb. 29).

Bluegrass in the Bluegrass

When: 2 p.m. Feb 28-29

Where: Clarion Hotel Conference Center North, 1950 Newtown Pike

Tickets: $45 each day, $80 both days

More information: 859-233-0512. samjambluegrass.com/bluegrass-in-the-bluegrass

This story was originally published February 25, 2020 at 3:18 PM.