Molly Tuttle, Brandy Clark and Patti Smith Rock Hardly Strictly Blue-Grass

The Annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass free music festival, held in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park through the generosity of investment banker/banjo player Warren Hellman, tends to have its musical acts comment on being in the city once called Yerba Buena. 

In 2023, Rufus Wainwright opened his set with his song "Beautiful Child" by saying it was written on acid and mushrooms on Yoko Ono's farm, gesturing to the crowd and saying, "so, it feels proper." 

Very Important Pothead Kris Kristofferson, who died just before this year's festival, dueted with Merle Haggard on his satirical song "Oakie from Muskogee" at the 2011 fest. "I think when someone's 70 years old, they ought to be able to smoke anything they want to smoke," Haggard began, bringing cheers from the crowd for the verse, "We still wear our hair grow long and shaggy / like the people in San Francisco do." Kristofferson added his own clever verse, which he sang with a wry smile: "We don't shoot that deadly marijuana / We get drunk like God wants us to do." 

Tuttle (center, in green) with her female fiddle and bass player at HSB.

This year, Molly Tuttle brought her righteous bluegrass band Golden Highway, with which she's won the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album two years running. Tuttle spoke of being raised in California and said she was offered her first pot brownie at Hardly Strictly when her mother brought her to the festival. Now a Tennessean, Tuttle rocked the crowd with her song, "Down Home Dispensary" from this year's Grammy-winning "City of Gold" CD.

Hello legislator the voters have spoken
There’s too much politickin' and not enough tokin’
It’s an economic agricultural wonder
So legalize the southland and roll us a number
Hey mister senator I’m asking you please
Put up a down home dispensary in Tennessee

Tuttle also performed the guitar solo and vocal on Tokin' Woman Grace Slick's "White Rabbit," another nod to San Francisco. The song was also performed at the fest by the three female back-up singers from the pot-friendly Dead cover band Moonalice, which includes in its lineup 84-year-old Lester Chambers, who performed the Chambers Brothers classic "Time Has Come Today." 

At another time and stage on Saturday, 85-year-old Mavis Staples belted out inspirational songs. Staples has said she didn't realize that The Band's "The Weight" was probably about a pot deal when she sang it, thinking it had a gospel connection instead. Carlene Carter, June Carter Cash's daughter by her first husband, ended her HSB set with "Wildwood Flower," a song by her grandmother and country music matriarch Maybelle Carter. Carlene revealed in the Ken Burns Country Music documentary series that Maybelle wanted to sing the Brewer & Shipley song "One Toke Over the Line," thinking it was a spiritual. (Apparently, Lawrence Welk did too.) 

Brandy Clark (center) with her all-girl power trio at HSB 2024

On Sunday I caught the set from singer/songwriter Brandy Clark, who co-wrote Kacey Musgraves's hit "Follow Your Arrow" (with its pot reference). Clark's songwriting on tunes like "Different Devil," "Come Back to Me," and "Girl Next Door" blew me away, as did her three-piece, all-girl band featuring Ellen Angelis on guitar. 

As Angelis tuned Clark's guitar for a spoken-word break, Clark told the crowd, "I can really smell the weed, so thank you." She closed with her 2013 tune, "Get High": 

You know life will let you down
Love will leave you lonely
Sometimes to only way to get by
Is to get high

The Festival wrapped up with Tokin' Woman Patti Smith performing her songs "Ghost Dance" and "Power To the People" along with "Smells Like Teen Spirit" in tribute to Kurt Cobain, who she noted died 30 years ago in 1994. "DON'T FORGET: USE YOUR VOICE!" Smith shouted to the crowd to end her set. 

The power to dream, to rule
To wrestle the world from fools
It's decreed the people rule
People have the power

Much of Hardly Strictly streamed online and will be made available at HSB-TV.