Leftover Salmon gave a chunk of their main stage set at the first Ionia Freak Fair to Dolly Parton, with Lindsay Lou out front. The jamgrass band brought her up about 35 minutes into an hour-long slot on the Friday of the two-day festival in Ionia, Michigan, and she sang "9 To 5" with them.
Guitarist Vince Herman introduced it plainly. "We lost one of the best of us ever," he told the crowd, adding a line about the giving, loving soul she was. Lou answered with a remark about leading with love before starting the song.
Parton died on August 25 in Nashville at 80 after a brief illness with cancer. She wrote "9 To 5" for the 1980 film she starred in with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, and the song went to number one on both the Billboard Hot 100 and the Hot Country Songs chart and won her two Grammy Awards. It has been the single most-played song of the tribute wave since.
The festival is Billy Strings' own, held near his hometown, and Leftover Salmon played immediately before his headline set on the Friday. The first day's main stage also carried sets from Lou herself and from Full Cord.
The crossovers did not stop there. Lou joined Strings during both sets of his headline performance, and Leftover Salmon came back late in his second set, with Herman, Drew Emmitt, Andy Thorn, Jay Starling and Alwyn Robinson all contributing to "Gild The Lily" and "Down In The Hollow".
Strings added a Parton tribute of his own earlier in that second set, bringing Lou and Mark Lavengood up for Tom Paxton's "The Last Thing On My Mind". Parton recorded that song with Porter Wagoner for their 1967 collaborative album Just Between You And Me, which is a deeper cut than most of the week's tributes reached for.
Livestream replays of the festival, including the Leftover Salmon set, went out to nugs subscribers. Strings' own headline performance is covered separately: he played his new album in full on the same night.
Herman had already been part of one Parton tribute that week, sitting in with Greensky Bluegrass in Grand Rapids for a first-ever My Tennessee Mountain Home the night before the festival opened. The wider country response to her death has been running for a fortnight.
The facts
- Lindsay Lou fronted Leftover Salmon on 9 To 5 at the inaugural Ionia Freak Fair
- The tribute came about 35 minutes into an hour-long main stage set
- 9 To 5 topped both the Hot 100 and Hot Country Songs and won two Grammy Awards
- Leftover Salmon played immediately before Billy Strings' headline set
- Strings later covered Tom Paxton's The Last Thing On My Mind for Parton
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