Many of use heard rumblings this year. Newport was going to be “meaty” in terms of line up. A large pool of talent just breaching from that “emerging stage” and getting their chance in the limelight and boy oh boy, the folk fam have not disappointed on that front.

In just the last month favorites from 2015’s Wildwood Revival Museum stage, Country music’s saving grace and powerhouse singer-songwriter Margo Price and perhaps the most poignant songwriter in the business, John Moreland were added to the already strong and growing line up of what one might call “mid level” acts that garnered success and are on a steep incline gaining both momentum and audiences. Price and Moreland alone display that mentality of NFF that if you are brought into the festival, deliver as they did last year, you may just wind up on one of the main stages. I think this July both these two incredible artists will be the sweethearts of the festival.

And while Newport has netted some well known juggernauts already in the realm of roots songwriting with Ray Lamontagne, bluegrass royalty in Del McCoury and David Grisman, and extremely popular acts like Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, its these smaller, perhaps at this time not as well known acts, that will be cultivated and grown into those juggernauts in a few years time and be the “white whales” that get brought back in again to close out each day of the fest.

Check out the line up so far over at http://www.newportfolk.org/lineup/ and if you feel like taking my word for it check out my suggestions below for each day so far…

Friday: My wife walked down the aisle to one of his tunes and our first dance was to another one, I cannot miss Ray Lamotagne on Friday…plus some of the tracks from his latest record have a killer bluesy rock feel to them with an infectious groove. Aoife O’Donovan just blew the crowd away at the Sinclair earlier this month and word on the street is she will be touring with the same trio…so good. Brett Dennen will added some reggae-folk flavor to the summer days, St. Paul and the Broken Bones may just be my most anticipated act of the entire weekend, and of all the bands I hadn’t yet heard but listened to because of this rolling line-up, Radical Face was the most surprising and impressive to me.

Saturday: John Moreland, Rayland Baxter, Margo Price…three of Nashville’s finest and even if this was the extent of Saturday’s line up it would be well worth the price of admission. But, you get bluegrass legends Del McCoury and David Grisman duo-ing it up and another fantastic duo in The Cactus Blossoms who are making huge waves so far this year and touring relentlessly.

Sunday: Middle Brother is back…if you are a fan of Newport, you are happy. 3 folks from 3 great acts come together, nuff said. Julien Baker’s Tiny Desk Concert blew me away and left me feeling all the feels, will be interesting to see where she pops up around the fort for the weekend…a spooky unannounced set in the Museum please? And Glen Hansard basically just embodies everything that is great about a songwriter, can’t wait to catch his set.