Hunting & Picking The Best Country Out Of The 32nd Annual Master Musicians Festival

[Originally published for Saving Country Music]

[Photos: Jason W. Ashcraft]

Neighborly. 

If I had to describe the 32nd annual Master Musicians Festival with only one word, that’d be it. Because that’s exactly what it felt like, and looked like. A family friendly event that’s not yet been exploited by the big corporate machines. Likely due to the careful curation by its founders, Somerset based entrepreneurs Julie Harris and Tiffany Finley. Who operate Somerset’s largest annual gathering under a non-profit organization, a small army of neighborly volunteers who all chip in. 

Yet, when these neighbors decide to throw their annual live music festival – not only do they keep it affordable so everyone can attend – they’re still able to attract some of the recording industry’s brightest minds in both songwriting and showmanship. Every year festival organizers herald a Master, a term which they lovingly designate to one of the Festival’s performers, while also making sure they give a special focus to Kentucky artists. 

2025’s Masters was the legendary country, blues and southern rock band from the hills and farms of Edmonton, The Kentucky Headhunters, whom I recently profiled their more than 50 year career in June [click to read].

Over the years, artists and performers from all genres of music have crossed the stages of this quaint Kentucky music festival. Yet, given the geographic region it’s held in – the foothills of Appalachia and the Cumberland River Valley – country, folk, Americana, and Bluegrass are the styles of music which typically reign supreme here. 

So that’s what I was after at this year’s event. Here’s a recap of the best performances I saw at this year’s festival. 

Jamey Johnson 

[Jamey Johnson at Master Musicians Festival | Photo: Jason W. Ashcraft]

There is just no sufficient way to describe how authentically stellar Jamey Johnson is. Not only as a songwriter and recording artist, but as a human being. He writes straight from his heart, and can often time deliver a song-induced gut check that can hit like bricks. Songs which make you stop to ponder your own self, asking “am I doing things the right way?” “Do I show enough gratitude to our Veterans?” “Do I understand history correctly?” If you can somehow get through one of his live musical sermons without being tear-jerked at least once – most likely from a stirring performance of “In Color” – then it may be questionable if you even have a soul worth saving. 

[Jamey Johnson at Master Musicians Festival | Photo: Jason W. Ashcraft]

A staunch country traditionalist, Jamey’s performance at Master Musicians Festival was exactly what Somerset had been waiting for. For decades. That’s how long organizers had waited for his tour schedule to open up to make his appearance possible. As attendees of the Master Musicians Festival learned this weekend, Jamey is the leading country recording artist from the modern era who is keeping traditional country music’s backbone standing straight and tall. Front and center. Almost all by himself. Just like you should expect any Marine to do. No matter what they do. Till the day they die. SemperFi, Jamey Johnson. SemperFi. 

[Jamey Johnson at Master Musicians Festival | Photo: Jason W. Ashcraft]

The Kentucky Headhunters 

[The Kentucky Headhunters | Photo: Jason W. Ashcraft]

Look, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen The Kentucky Headhunters perform live, but one thing I can say without a doubt is that they can pretty much fit into any type of crowd, or any festival event you place them in. They’ll win that crowd over with their signature high energy clash of southern rock, blues, and country. With a dash of added psychedelia thrown in to keep just a few hippies stirring about in their crowds.

[The Kentucky Headhunters | Photo: Jason W. Ashcraft]

Heralded by festival organizers as this year’s Masters, the Kentucky Headhunters were in prime form on a Saturday night in their home state. With rousing performances of all their signature hit songs like “Dumas Walker,” “Oh, Lonesome Me,” and covers of “Spirit In The Sky” and “House Of The Rising Sun,” the Headhunters’ age never once showed.

[Richard Young & Jamey Johnson | Photo: Jason W. Ashcraft]

Even good ole’ Jamey Johnson made his first stage appearance of the night at mid-set to assist on vocal duties for a joint performance of Bill Monroe’s “Walk Softly On This Heart Of Mine,” a song that the Kentucky Headhunters have pretty much owned since they released it on their landmark debut album in 1989. Not surprisingly, they owned that crowd, too. Saw it with my own eyes. Again. 

Cody Lee Meece

[Cody Lee Meece | Photo: Jason W. Ashcraft]

I am going to say this right now. This young Telecaster slingin’ outlaw country bluester from East Kentucky is the real damn deal. While he’s still paying his dues, if you ask me, some of his dues are being paid back. The hard-livin’ troubadour admits that his backstory includes stories of drug use, homelessness and presumably lives the life that he sings of, which he terms as “Raunchy Tonk.” While somewhat emitting Waylon’esque vibes both aesthetically and sonically, seemingly without really setting out to do that, he opened his set with “Cocaine & Wine” from his third album, No Excuses released in 2023. It was all uphill from that point.

[Cody Lee Meece | Photo: Jason W. Ashcraft]

Post performance I sat down with Meece to get his young perspective on what the state of country music is right now in 2025. I asked him if it was feast or famine, and here’s what he said: 

“The state of country music is in a few different states I think. Mostly it’s a mess. I see some artists in the Americana genre get labeled true country artists when, in reality, they fall short of what I consider true country music. They’re great at what they do, though. People are hungry for country heroes, they just don’t seem to be making those folks anymore, or they’re not getting discovered. I’m no purist in general, but I do believe in calling things what they truly are. That being said, thanks to folks like Jamey Johnson, true country music heroes still exist that keep the truth alive.” 

[Cody Lee Meece | Photo: Jason W. Ashcraft]

Be prepared to hear this name more in the future, I anticipate. So long as he can continue to toe the line with his love of substances, living the hard road life, and paying his dues, while also trying to earn his own outlaw stripes to write songs about.

The Creekers 

[The Creekers | Photo: Jason W. Ashcraft]

Now, admittedly, I’d never even heard of The Creekers prior to arriving at the festival. However, I was tipped off by a trusted source that I needed to get on over to that second, much smaller stage, to check them out. They were just firing up after Cody Lee Meece’s crowd had already bolted over yonder.

Now, every time music festivals decide to have multiple stages, there is always at least one artist on one of these smaller stages who makes an uncontested case for why they should have never been placed there in the first place. Ladies and gentlemen, The Creekers were that band. What seemed like half the festival’s total population would suddenly descend into a little ravine where that stage sat. And all of the sudden, the bartenders were selling more beer as an impromptu happy hillbilly jam session commenced before them. In front of the stage, a bunch of porch-stompers had gathered as The Creekers began to fire up their mini hillbilly orchestra. Even though they had no porch to stomp on. 

[The Creekers’ Anna Blanton | Photo: Jason W. Ashcraft]

Of course, The Creekers’ lovely young redhead fiddle player Anna Blanton decided she was going to be the one to steal the show. Just like any decent fiddle player attempts to do at every performance. Blanton’s masterful ownership of her fiddle directly channeled into the audience, as she rode the shoulders of a friend, taking her performance offstage and into the crowd as they closed out their set, leaving the audience yelling for just one more song.   

The post Hunting & Picking The Best Country Out Of The 32nd Annual Master Musicians Festival appeared first on JWA Media.