Unplugged Music Fest brings diverse sounds to Modesto

They might all be unplugged, but they certainly won’t be the same.

This year’s Modesto Unplugged Music Festival (MUMFest for short) features one of the most diverse musical lineups in the event’s four-year history. The acts performing at the weekend-long event April 10-12 will range from folk to Southern rock and bluegrass to Cajun zydeco.

Festival organizer and Modesto music promoter Aaron Rowan said he wanted the nearly 20 acts to cover a variety of musical styles and genres.

“(The festival) was always intended to be like the old joke about the weather in Texas: ‘If you don’t like it, just wait 15 minutes,’ ” he said. “We have such an array of genres this year.”

Like last year, Rowan said the festival also will celebrate the visual arts with exhibits, and continue its songwriting contest.

Most of this year’s performers hail from California, with several Central Valley bands on the bill, though the lineup includes artists from Colorado, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and South Africa. As the festival’s name suggests, performances will be largely acoustic. This year’s lineup also includes several full bands.

“It’s really been shifting more away from being more solo, duo, singer-songwriter-based and become more of an up-tempo, full-band kind of thing,” Rowan said. “This year, we’re featuring bluegrass acts as two of the headliners. There’s more world-beat music. So there’s a lot more up-tempo sound.”

The April 10 headliners include Pittsburgh-based old-time bluegrass and Americana band the Jakob’s Ferry Stragglers and Duluth, Minn.-based pop-rock singer-songwriter Mary Bue.

Then on April 11, two San Francisco acts will headline: the three-man acoustic group Steep Ravine and fusion world music and acid jazz outfit Vortex Tribe.

Finally, the festival’s closing day will showcase local and touring headliners. They will be Modesto’s veteran Cajun zydeco group the BluesBox Bayou Band and Los Angeles Southern rocker Glitter Rose. The latter has won several honors from the Hollywood-based Artists in Music Awards for emerging talent in the music industry.

In addition, the four songwriting contest finalists will perform on April 12. They are Dave Kyle from Clovis, Ginger Bones from Minneapolis, Grover Anderson from Oakland and Tonya Newsletter from San Francisco.

This story was originally published April 1, 2015 at 5:00 PM with the headline "Unplugged Music Fest brings diverse sounds to Modesto ."