Inaugural Sonoma Harvest Music Festival headliners include Avett Brothers, Head and the Heart

The producers of the annual BottleRock Napa Valley festival will present the new two-day Sonoma Harvest Music Festival in September at the B.R. Cohn Winery in Glen Ellen, formerly the site of the long-running B.R. Cohn Charity Fall Music Festival.

The new festival’s headliners will be folk-rock band The Avett Brothers on Sept. 22, and the indie folk band The Head and the Heart on Sept. 23.

Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Wednesday at sonomaharvestmusicfestival.com, with two-day passes priced at $255 for general admission, $500 for the VIP pass and $1,200 for a weekend Platinum pass. Single-day pass sales will be announced later.

The rest of the lineup features Lake Street Dive, Shovels & Rope, The Suffers and Royal Jelly Jive on Sept. 22, and Rodrigo Y Gabriela, ZZ Ward, Rayland Baxter and Con Brio on Sept. 23.

While the new festival will continue BottleRock’s emphasis on fine local food, wine and craft beer - in this case featuring all Sonoma County products - the setting will be more intimate and the music will be in the Americana and the indie vein, said Dave Graham of BottleRock Presents.

“In line with the Sonoma County lifestyle, this is the upbeat, upscale entertainment that appeals to 30-somethings coming up from the Bay Area,” Graham said. “It’s also music we really love.”

In contrast to the BottleRock extravaganza, Graham expects the new Sonoma Harvest Music Festival to attract 3,000 people a day to the B.R. Cohn Winery’s outdoor amphitheater. Last May’s fifth-anniversary, sold-out BottleRock festival in Napa starred the Foo Fighters, Maroon 5 and Tom Petty, who died last October.

Promoters reported attendance of 120,000 people over three days. Past stars have included Stevie Wonder, Snoop Dogg and Gwen Stefani.

“We definitely want to create this new festival for people who don’t like the large festivals,” Graham said in an interview.

“We see a big demand, as it relates to Bay Area folks who are already going to the Sonoma Valley and Sonoma County for great food and wine, and want to experience great music in the same place.”

Justin Dragoo and Jason Scoggins, Graham’s BottleRock Presents partners in the new venture, seconded his desire to bring the best of Sonoma County food and drink to the festival.

Culinary purveyors will include the girl & the fig, Glen Ellen Star, Zasu Kitchen + Farm, Brewsters Beer Garden & Restaurant and the Sonoma Mission Inn. In addition to B.R. Cohn wines, the festival will feature craft beer by Lagunitas, Barrel Brothers, 101 North Brewing Co. and Sonoma Springs Brewing Co.

“I think the goal is encapsulate everything that is Sonoma Valley in one location,” Dragoo said.

“That means great wine, food and beer, and then bringing world-class music into the equation.”

The result will be a fresh experience, not a revival of the old B.R. Cohn Charity Fall Music Festival, Scoggins said.

“I wouldn’t call it a reboot,” he said. “I’d call it a new start.”

The Harvest Music Festival will benefit the Sonoma County Regional Parks Foundation. BottleRock Presents stepped in to launch the new festival in response to a request from the winery’s current management, Graham explained.

“The B.R. Cohn Winery has a longstanding music heritage and live music is in our DNA,” Pat Roney, president and CEO of Santa Rosa-based Vintage Wine Estates, said in a statement. His company bought the winery in 2015.

“Our dream was to bring music back to the estate in a big way, with world-class artists performing in our beautiful natural amphitheater.”

The winery was founded in 1984 by Bruce Cohn, longtime manager of the Doobie Brothers band. Cohn launched his classic rock festival there in 1987, drawing as many as 6,000 people over two days annually for 28 years.

Name acts who played the B.R. Cohn Winery festival over the years included Graham Nash and David Crosby, Bad Company, Willie Nelson, Huey Lewis, Leon Russell, Taj Mahal, Heart, Bonnie Raitt, Grand Funk Railroad and many more.

The Press Democrat reported in 2015 that Cohn was forced by the Bank of the West to sell his Sonoma Valley winery and approximately 70 acres of vineyards to Vintage Wine Estates because his debts amounted to about $25 million.

In 2015, after selling the winery, Cohn moved the festival to downtown Sonoma and changed the name to the Sonoma Music Festival, featuring Ringo Starr, Gregg Allman and the Doobie Brothers.

A 2016 festival was announced, to star John Fogerty and the Steve Miller Band, but it was canceled due to low ticket sales.