This week’s column covers two roots music fests in the western United States: Treefort Music Fest in Boise, Idaho (March 25-29, 2026); and Tucson Folk Festival in Tucson, Arizona (April 10-12, 2026).
While Treefort is much larger in scope — over 500 performances to Tucson’s 150 — both fests are held in the downtown portions of their respective towns and presented a wide array of artists, many, if not most, have never been featured in this column before.
Veteran photographers of both fests were there: Peter Dervin again covered Treefort; and, for the 15th time, C. Elliott was a contributing photographer for the Tucson fest.
Tucson Folk Festival 2026 by C. Elliott
Back for its 41st year, the grassroots Tucson Folk Festival, produced by the Tucson Kitchen Musicians Association, is Arizona's largest free fest. It's nearly all volunteer run and offers song circles, interactive workshops, and one stage dedicated to young artists. The fest should be included in every winter visitor's "Things to do while you're in Tucson" list. Here are a few of my favorite sets.
The songs of Rainer Ptacek, Tucson's well loved & respected legendary slide-guitarist who passed away in 1997, were performed by David Huckfelt and Friends, including Beth Goodfellow, Gabriel Sullivan and Ptacek's son Rudy. Jerron Paxton and Dennis Lichtman were new to me and I completely enjoyed their set of acoustic blues, ragtime, Tin Pan Alley and 1920s jazz.
