Chet Kingery Memorial Bluegrass Festival

We are excited to announce we are bringing back the festival in 2024!

Date: Friday, May 10th and Saturday, May 11th

*New Date-New Location*
Location: The Historic Chautauqua At Forest Park, Shelbyville, IL (Indoors-Rain or Shine)
Address: 325 N 9th Ave, Shelbyville, IL

Featuring:
Blue Highway
David Davis & The Warrior River Boys
Joe Mullins & The Radio Ramblers
Kings Highway
The Kody Norris Show
Host Band - Mackville

Bands - Hotel - Camping - Information Below

WELCOME TO THE CHET KINGERY MEMORIAL BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL

2024 Festival Flyer

In Memory of Chet Kingery - 1931 - 1998

The first Chet Kingery Memorial Bluegrass Festival was held on May 18, 2013 at Rockome Gardens. Its name was deemed and honored in memory of a great local bluegrass musician, Chet Kingery, who passed away in 1998. Chet Kingery played guitar with his band, Chet Kingery and the Knights of Bluegrass.

Our band, Mackville, is the host band for this festival. We are excited and proud to bring you this fantastic lineup of talent to this year's festival. Come and enjoy great music! We will be performing as well as the other bands listed below.

2024 Lineup

BLUE HIGHWAY

From their website: www.bluehighwayband.com
“In 2023, the highly-esteemed bluegrass band Blue Highway celebrates 29 years of touring, with four of the original members still intact. Its single "On the Roof of the World" was number one on the Bluegrass Today National Airplay chart for 4 weeks from July to August 2022, and was the number one song for the month of September while its follow-up “Lonesome State of Mind” was number one five times on the weekly chart and for the months of February, March and May 2023.The band has earned a collective 32 IBMA Awards, 6 SPBGMA Awards, one Dove Award, plus three Grammy nominations. Most recently, the band was nominated for IBMA's 2022, 2021 and 2020 Vocal Group of the Year and Song of the Year Awards.
Blue Highway's #1 album Original Traditional was nominated for a 2017 GRAMMY Award for Best Bluegrass Album.
Blue Highway was voted the Favorite Bluegrass Artist of All Time by the readers of Bluegrass Today in April 2016.
Tim Stafford received honors as 2001 and 2015 SPBGMA Guitar Player of the Year and 2014 and 2017 IBMA Songwriter of the Year. He co-wrote the 2008 IBMA song of the year--recorded by the band--"Through the Window of a Train."
Wayne Taylor was inducted into the Virginia Country Music Hall of Famein October 2016. Shawn Lane was nominated as 2015 IBMA Songwriter of the Year.
The band's latest album "Somewhere Far Away: Silver Anniversary" is available in our Music Store. "Both Ends of the Train" was nominated for IBMA's 2020 Song of the Year.
Blue Highway charted the Most Radio Airplay of any Bluegrass Artist in 2014, per the 2014 Bluegrass Today Radio Airplay Chart, storming national airplay charts with their heralded album The Game, which topped multiple charts, including reigning at # 1 for 7 consecutive months on the Bluegrass Unlimited Album Chart, and was named the #1 Bluegrass Album of the Yearby critic Daniel Mullins in his end of the year Top 20 Albums of 2014 list in Bluegrass Today.
As momentum continues to build for the quarter-century strong powerhouse band, Blue Highway is rolling on with a rich legacy and three powerhouse songwriters, instrumentalists and vocalists in Tim Stafford, Wayne Taylor, and Shawn Lane, whose harmonies soar over the dynamic banjo of Jason Burleson and the tasteful Dobro of Gary Hultman.”

DAVID DAVIS & THE WARRIOR RIVER BOYS

Website: www.daviddavisandwrb.com/
David Davis and the Warrior River Boys have long been recognized as modern leaders in traditional BlueGrass, but on their latest release “Didn’t He Ramble” : Songs of Charlie Poole, they throw genre boundaries aside by delving deeper into the roots of acoustic music. They have produced a masterful and exciting collection of songs originally recorded in the 1920’s by the legendary Charlie Poole and His North Carolina Ramblers, a generation before Bill Monroe is credited with founding Blue Grass music. “Our intentions was to evolve the songs, yet leave the strength and essence of the original feel as our foundation and build on that,” explains Davis.
“Didn’t He Ramble” is eagerly anticipated in Bluegrass circles, as well as more widely among fans of folk and acoustic music. Co-producer David Davis is leading the charge. He is a veteran picker appearing on numerous classic Bluegrass recordings and a recipient of countless awards in Bluegrass and Country Music.
Being that Poole and his music are the subject of such admiration, this is a musical repertoire some would find daunting to delve into with the Warrior River Boys energy, commitment and pure Bluegrass spirit. Davis’ own deep musical roots played a part in taking on this project, with his uncle Cleo having been the original Blue Grass Boy with Bill Monroe
He grew up hearing bluegrass and early country music at his father’s knee. From those early influences in rural Alabama, Davis went on to sing with his dad, everything from Monroe Brothers, the Blue Sky Boys, to Cowboy Copas, and Ernest Tubb. At the impressionable age of twelve, with his family, he first heard Bill Monroe play live and his life was destined never to be the same.
Bluegrass music has been Davis’ lifetime calling, and he brings the same intensity to interpreting Charlie Poole material as he does to the world of traditional BlueGrass.
David Davis joined Garry Thurmond and the Warrior River Boys in 1982 at the age of twenty one and by late 1984 accepted the role of bandleader. Since then, he and the band have appeared in forty- six states, all Canadian Provinces and the Bahamas.
In 2010, Davis was inducted into the Alabama Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame. In 2014, he was inducted into The National Old-Time Country Music Hall of Fame and was the recipient of the National Old-time Country Music Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Music in 2016.

JOE MULLINS & THE RADIO RAMBLERS

Website: radioramblers.com/index.html
Named Entertainers of the Year by the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) in 2019, Joe Mullins & The Radio Ramblers have consistently delivered chart-topping radio hits and energetic performances for nearly 15 years. The Radio Ramblers are seen by tens of thousands of bluegrass fans every year and since 2013 have become regular guests on the historic Grand Ole Opry. Their previous album, For The Record, for the Nashville-based label Billy Blue Records, was a Top 5 Billboard hit and remained on the charts for a record 13 months, producing multiple top 10 singles. Their latest all-Gospel album, Somewhere Beyond The Blue is receiving rave reviews with the first single, “Hear Jerusalem Calling” nominated for Gospel Recorded Performance by the IBMA. In addition to band leader duties, Joe Mullins is an award-winning radio broadcaster who can be heard daily across the globe via Real Roots Radio and is also host of the syndicated radio program Front Porch Fellowship currently on over 200 radio stations worldwide. Most recently, he produced the IBMA’s Album of the Year, Industrial Strength Bluegrass for Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. Joe Mullins & The Radio Ramblers have generated an in-demand following on the national scene, allowing them to be one of today’s most heralded torch-bearers in mainstream bluegrass and gospel music.

THE KODY NORRIS SHOW

From their website: www.thekodynorrisshow.com/#!
"Because while the reigning SPBGMA Entertainers of the Year are known for the rhinestones that shine from their lapels and the fringe that hangs from their collars seem to conjure up memories of times gone by, The Kody Norris Show are very much directing their gaze forever forward. Now, more than ever before. The talented group, made up of frontman Kody Norris, Josiah Tyree, Mary Rachel Nalley-Norris, and Charlie Lowman, finds themselves with a growing legion of fans craving the comfort that comes from their retro look, but equally craving dynamic instrumentation and thought-provoking lyrics – all of which can be heard throughout their epic new album Rhinestone Revival. “There is a whole chapter of country music that's just kind of faded away,” The Kody Norris Show’s frontman once said. “I believe The Kody Norris Show has been instrumental in bringing back some of that nostalgia and some of that classic look that country music and bluegrass music used to have.” The foundations of the electrifying four-piece band can be found within the roots of Kody Norris himself, a once inquisitive youngster from Mountain City, Tennessee who would spend hours sitting in the passenger seat of his Uncle Jack’s Chevrolet El Camino listening to the entirety of The Stanley Brothers 16 Greatest Hits tape, wondering if he would ever be able to match the sweet harmonies coming through the speakers. It was those very harmonies that Norris also would recognize wavering through the rafters of the Baptist church he attended as a kid. There was a bluegrass quartet that would play in the Free Will Baptist Church, and soon Norris became infatuated with the music that could materialize from a banjo and a guitar. So, at nine years old, he picked up the mandolin. And he never put it down. It was a similar love affair of music for Mary Rachel Nalley-Norris, who started playing classical violin in the fourth grade, but by the fifth grade, she knew it wasn’t for her. Instead, in a quest to differentiate herself from her musical counterparts in her grade school orchestra, she took up the fiddle. She began playing the festival circuit alongside the likes of the legendary Larry Sparks and the Lonesome Ramblers and soon became one of the most dynamic females on those festival stages. It was on that stage she eventually met her husband Kody, who had already gone on to play alongside the likes of Ralph Stanley, Ralph Stanley II, and Joe Isaacs throughout his already impressive career. In 2017, banjo extraordinaire Josiah Tyree signed on with The Kody Norris Show, and soon his old-time clawhammer style fit right into the bluegrass style that the band was becoming known for across the country. And when bass player Charlie Lowman joined in on the fun, armed with a giddiness and love for the music that he plays that soon became infectious, The Kody Norris Show as we now know it was complete. It was musical magic at its finest. It’s this easy-going nature that became downright illuminated on 2017’s When I Get the Money Made, which was named Bluegrass Album of the Year by the National Traditional Country Music Association. The Kody Norris Show followed it up with 2019’s All Suited Up, which debuted at #7 on the Billboard charts. Now playing over 100 dates a year across the country and around the world, The Kody Norris Show have been part of the University of Chicago Folk Festival and are part of two weekly programs on the acclaimed RFD-TV's network, The Cumberland Highlanders Show and The Bluegrass Trail. But with the release of Rhinestone Revival comes a feeling that listeners have just begun to witness The Kody Norris Show’s very own revival, as the band finds themselves sprinkling their iconic rhinestones on a few different music genres to solidify their place on the musical landscape. And the fans can’t get enough. In fact, it’s those fans that have raised The Kody Norris Show to a place in which they stand today, a place where the four-piece, multi-instrumentalist, bluegrass band are quickly becoming four of the most epic entertainers of our time. Add that to the songwriting displayed on the Kody Norris-penned “Baltimore I’m Leaving,” “Fiddler’s Rock,” “Please Tell Me Why,” and the infectious “Gotta Get My Baby Back” on Rhinestone Revival, and there is no doubt that The Kody Norris Show is as current as ever. They ain’t retro. They have something different. They have something uniquely theirs. They have something that makes them stand out. “We want people to know who we are,” Norris once said. And they will."

KINGS HIGHWAY

Hotel and Camping Information

The Shelby Inn
217-774-3991
www.theshelbyinn.com
use promo code: FANS

Camping Nearby - www.recreation.gov. Opossum Creek is the nearest campground to festival.

Primitive Tent Camping Onsite

Helpful Hints

The festival will be held inside so there is no need to worry about the elements of rain or wind. We will have some doors open depending on the weather so bring a jacket or blanket in case it might be cool.

There will be reserved seating with padded chairs. There will also be seating available if you don’t want to bring your lawn chairs but feel free to do so as there will be plenty of room to find a perfect spot.

We will have concessions available.

More helpful hints to come.

ABOUT THE CHAUTAUQUA AT FOREST PARK

The Chautauqua Auditorium was built in 1903 and is a large historic icosagonal (20 sides) wooden meeting and event hall. On January 30, 1978, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

“It is the largest building of its kind anywhere in the world. The building was constructed by a local bridge builder and designed with a unique system of structural support. Because of this, there are no interior pillars to block the view of the stage.The large stage features three female Grecian statues representing Art, Music and Drama. These statues were works from renowned Illinois artist and Shelbyville native Robert Root.
In 2009 Landmarks Illinoisdeclared it one of the 10 most endangered historic places in Illinois. The building is in need of extensive repairs which are estimated to cost $1,750,000. The city of Shelbyville which owns the auditorium has threatened to tear it down if repairs cannot be made within 2 years. The Chautauqua Auditorium Preservation Committee is working on funding for a four-phase renovation project.
In 2020, 60% of local residents voted in favor of restoring the historic auditorium instead of demolishing it. Required restoration work included structural repairs, a new roof and floor, painting and a new stage. These preservation efforts were supported by Landmarks Illinois. The Chautauqua reopened in September 2021.”
Ref: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chautauqua_Auditorium_(Shelbyville,_Illinois)