San Francisco’s legendary festival Hardly Strictly Bluegrass returns for 2011 with an all-star line-up featuring Robert Plant, Thurston Moore, Bright Eyes, Broken Social Scene, DeVotchKa, Emmylou Harris and Elbow.  San Francisco’s Golden Gate park will be awash with golden tones for three days from Sept. 30 to Oct. 2.

Of course, the best part of the festival is its price.  The three day festival featuring just shy of a hundred artists is totally free.  Thank you San Francisco.

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass got its start in 2001, when it was still called Strictly Bluegrass.  It certainly was strictly bluegrass.  The original festival included performances from Hazel Dickens, Alison Krauss and Emmylou Harris. 

From its beginning the festival has been the love child of San Francisco venture capitalist and bluegrass enthusiast Warren Hellman who funds the event out of his own pocket.

By 2004 the festival had grown to include artist from many genres and changed its name to the fitting Hardly Strictly Bluegrass.

This year’s event promises to be one of the festival’s greatest.  In addition to the artist’s already mentioned, there are a number of folk, bluegrass, jazz, blues and roots music artists scheduled to play, from banjo pioneer Earl Scruggs to Gospel legends The Blind Boys of Alabama.  A number of influential indie artists are scheduled, including the massively influential alt-country group The Jayhawks and Bob Mould of Hüsker Dü, both of who hail from the fertile indie rock soil of Minneapolis.

Other Hardly Strictly Bluegrass events include a healthy potluck; over 50 food and drink stands, including some of San Francisco’s finest local establishments; and a benefit concert for the Richard de Lone Special Housing Project, which will take place at the beautiful Great American Music Hall.

On a somber note, 2011’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass is dedicated to bluegrass great Hazel Dickens, who died in April.  Until her death Dickens played every Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival.