Gillian Welch and David Rawlings to Close Newport Folk Festival’s Main Stage on July 27

Newport Folk Festival has announced that Gillian Welch and David Rawlings will close the main stage on the second day of the 2024 festival. This release comes as the first news regarding the festival’s 2024 presentation, set to stage at its annual Fort Adams State Park venue on July 26-28. With over 30 years of experience performing together, the headlining duo is guaranteed to astound the festival’s 10,000 attendees.

Welch and Rawlings began their recorded collaboration in 1996 with Welch’s debut album Revival, which featured guitar, bass and vocals from Rawlings and earned a nomination for Best Contemporary Folk Album at the 1997 Grammy Awards. The duo have remained figureheads of the folk revival movement since that triumphant outset, continuously challenging the genre’s norms and broadening their own horizons with a style that balances historical reverence and idiosyncratic fusions. Recently, the duo’s contribution of “When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings” to the soundtrack for the Coen brothers’ The Ballad of Buster Scruggs received an Academy Award Nomination for Best Original Song and the duo’s 2020 covers album All the Good Times (are Past & Gone) received a Grammy Award for Best Folk Album.

Last year’s Newport Folk Festival was led by Billy Strings, My Morning Jacket and Jon Batiste & Friends and featured other massive acts like Aimee Mann, Lana Del Rey, Jason Isbell and Nickel Creek among a total 54 acts across three stages.

Tickets for this year’s Newport Folk Festival are currently sold out, but interested fans can join the festival waitlist here.