This year’s 25th Kate Wolf Music Festival to be the last

Concert promoter Cloud Moss never planned to create an annual festival that would last a quarter of a century.

“I wanted to do a fundraiser for KRCB public radio,” he recalled. “And I had it in my mind to do something for Kate Wolf, because there really hadn’t been anything big.”

So in 1996, a decade after Northern California folk singer and songwriter Wolf died in 1986 at age 44 of leukemia, Moss founded the Kate Wolf Music Festival, originally held at the Caswell Winery near Sebastopol.

This month, from June 23 through June 26, the 25th and last Kate Wolf Music Festival will take place at Black Oak Ranch in Laytonville, where it has been held since 2001. It’s already sold out, but tickets are still at least potentially available from the exchange and resale agency Lyte at bit.ly/3tzsvJl.

The musical roster is packed with 61 acts set to perform on four stages over four days, including some legendary Americana musicians such as Taj Mahal, Charlie Musselwhite and the 90-year-old Ramblin’ Jack Elliott.

The new heirs of the “folk singer” singer-songwriter tradition will be represented, too, with Tommy Prine, son of the late John Prine, and sisters Cathy and Sarah Lee Guthrie, the daughters of Arlo Guthrie and granddaughters of Woody Guthrie.

Other performers scheduled include singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco, Canadian Music Hall of Famer Bruce Cockburn, American Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Darlene Love, roots music legends Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore with The Guilty Ones and blues star Ruthie Foster.

The event was last held in 2019, before concerns about the coronavirus pandemic forced the cancellation of the 2020 and 2021 festivals.

Last year, Moss, 68, and his partners Bob Barsotti, 68, and Danny Shearer, 70, announced that this year’s event would be the last.

“When the pandemic hit, we realized we’ve been doing this festival for decades and we’re not getting any younger,” Moss said. “The future of festivals was uncertain, and we wanted an opportunity to go out on our own terms.”

Audience response was prompt and profound, and in some cases, a bit melancholy.

“We sold out in February, four months in advance of the show, with pass prices ranging from $145 for one day to $410 for four days. We were really surprised. We cut off the ticket sales at 4,000,” Moss said.

The announcement that this Kate Wolf Music Festival will be the last prompted not only a rush for tickets but a stream of emotion.

“Some people are sad, and some are dispirited,” he added, “but it turns out that we have a bunch of people coming this year that have never been to the festival.”

The end of the festival doesn’t mean its namesake is forgotten or her legacy ended. Wolf, who settled in Sonoma County in the early 1970s and lived here for roughly a decade, is still fondly remembered locally, and her music has influenced other musicians far beyond the county lines.

“She was a trailblazer,” Moss said. “She was a precursor to women singer-songwriters like Emmylou Harris and Nanci Griffith.”

Wolf wrote close to 200 songs and recorded 60. With more than a dozen albums to her credit, she left behind significant work, including “Love Still Remains,” which later became a Grammy-nominated single for Harris.

You can reach Staff Writer Dan Taylor at dan.taylor@pressdemocrat.com or 707-521-5243. On Twitter @danarts.