THROUGH THE LENS: Willie Nelson’s Texas Luck Reunion & Australia’s Blue Mountains Music Festival

There is simply too much going on in the roots music world. This week, the column goes from Texas to Australia. In the former, Willie Nelson’s Luck Reunion (Spicewood, Texas, March 13, 2025) showed the world how to put on a one-day festival, with some surprise guests. The latter, Blue Mountains Music Festival (March 14-16, 2025, Katoomba, Australia) demonstrated roots music is universal.

With a newly renovated and restored Chapel Stage, Luck has become so big that fans enter a lottery to see who gets in every year. This year, one-time pop star Jessica Simpson was one of the surprise guests. Now doing country, Simpson gave credence to the adage: if your last record bombs you go back to your roots, if your career is on the rocks you go back to someone else’s roots. Quite a few publications noticeably, and nauseatingly, swooned over her appearance. Justin St. Clair was there for the column, and was sparred the Simpson experience, thankfully, but did catch some excellent shots. 

And thousands of miles away, our Australian correspondent Steve Ford again covered Blue Mountains Festival with his usual gusto and inquisitive nature. The Brother Brothers’ who were scheduled to perform cancelled, along with the rest of their tour, when David Moss nearly drowned after passing out in the ocean. While the duo praised the Australian health care system, the brothers, now back in the US, have started a Go Fund Me campaign to offset current and future expenses related to the incident. 

The 13th Annual Luck Reunion, by Justin St. Clair 

I’ve been fortunate to shoot every Luck Reunion since the festival’s founding, and the 2025 version was an all-time classic. Here are a few my favorite moments from a day of memorable music.

Willi Carlisle hit the Revival Tent like a man possessed. He lamented that neither square dance caller nor auctioneer were viable career choices in the twenty-first century, then spent the next hour proving himself wrong. He sang an acapella antiwar ballad, rattled cowbones, sawed his fiddle, picked the banjo, covered Richard Thompson on the squeezebox, preached, hollered, and raved like a carnival barker–it was one of the best folk sets I’ve seen in ages.

There were several great song-swaps scattered throughout the day. One of my favorite moments came during a Steve Earle-curated song pull featuring Parker Twomey, Emily Nenni, and Tommy Prine. After fine songs from all three youngsters, Earle took a turn, and reminded everyone why Steve Earle is Steve Earle. He knocked the Chapel audience dead, and when the applause had finally ended, turned with a wicked grin to Parker Twomey and growled: “Tag, kid.”

While time may have hampered Taj Mahal’s mobility, his 82 years haven’t dampened his energy. The living legend delivered an absolutely infectious set.

Jesse Welles is about as close to “Instagram famous” as any folkie is likely ever to be, so I was curious to see how his online persona would translate to the off-screen world. I shouldn’t have doubted him. He ambled into the Chapel, and with no acknowledgement of the audience save for the occasional wry grin, used his rapid-fire, incisive lyrics to offer a withering appraisal of American culture. Highlight of the day.

The 28th Blue Mountains Music Festival, by Steve Ford 

Katoomba, the home of the Blue Mountains Music Festival, is less than two hours from central Sydney by road, but in another world. The town has a slow-paced, yesteryear feel, complete with deep sandstone gorges on the edges of town. 

The festival precinct takes in the town’s grade school and an adjacent war veterans’ club, with additional stages at nearby pubs. The main stage (The Big Top) is in a large tent at the school, with excellent sound and lighting. All performance spaces are seated.

Billed as “folk, blues, roots” it’s essentially a folk fest, but art defies categorization and many of the artists don’t fit a neat box. Ireland’s Síomha (pronounced ‘shee-va’) describes her music as “cosmic, folk-informed, jazz-tinged, post-pop,” which is an apt description.  Another Irish artist, the prodigiously talented 18-year-old Muireann Bradley, is squarely in the blues lane.

Ruthie Foster, the cover of this year’s festival program and was, indeed, the standout artist, playing two packed shows with the excellent Scottie Miller on keyboards.

Veteran Australian jazz vocalist Vince Jones played two shows to a jazz-savvy audience in the Big Top. Jones was in fine form, supported by a top flight quartet.

Vika and Linda, who played a retrospective set drawn from their four decades as mainstays of Australian rock, drew the largest crowd of  the fest.

Kris Mizzi, replacing The Brother Brothers, was the surprise hit. He made the most of his time on the big stage, holding the audience spellbound. As did John Muq who similarly entranced with just his voice and guitar with sounds from his native country of Uganda with his current home of Austin, Texas.

Canadians on the main stage included The East Pointers, on their first Australian run since the passing of bandmate Koady Chaisson, and likable veterans Old Man Luedecke and David Francey.

Scotland’s Dean Owens has been the most popular UK act in the Americana UK Readers Poll for four years running. I can see why. He immediately put me in mind of Calexico, which should have been unexpected as he recorded his excellent 2023 album, Sinner’s Shrine, with two of the band’s members.

Radical Son (Kamilaroi and Tongan musician David Leha) was superb, his version of Frank Yamma’s “She Cried” was an unforgettable highlight of the festival.

As always, my takeaway was a deep sense of community – artists, fans, staff and volunteers coming together for a life-affirming common purpose. Amen to that.

Click on any photo to view the gallery as a full-size slideshow.