The quirk per capita in Safety Harbor is off the charts. The seaside Florida town — situated just off the Courtney Campbell Causeway in between Tampa and Clearwater — sits on 5.1 square miles of land, but its approximately 17,000 citizens pack a whole lot of personality.
This weekend, all of the beautiful oddity gets to sing its song as part of the Safety Harbor Songfest, where almost two dozen acts will take over two stages for 18 hours of music spread across two days and nights. The songwriters will perform on the waterfront and at the local marina, and all proceeds go toward the Safety Harbor Art and Music Center (SHAMc).
Situated just half a mile away in Safety Harbor’s mini downtown district, the venue has utilized a $50,000 Pepsi Refresh grant, donations and additional city monies to transform the old Rigsby House into a temple of mirrored tile and seemingly infinite trinkets all dedicated to SHAMc’s nonprofit mission of promoting knowledge of and education in the fine, visual and performing arts. The center is the life’s dream of longtime Safety Harbor residents Todd and Kiaralinda Ramquist, who are on the SHAMc board of directors along with Heather Richardson.
Read: Neighborhood Issue — Safety Harbor's Todd Ramquist, Kiaralinda & SHAMc
“Everything is going pretty smooth,” Todd Ramquist told CL, sounding at ease on the Monday before the festival. He says most of the artists are coming in early to hang for the weekend, and Ramquist is still riding high on the two handfuls of mostly sold-out shows SHAMc has put on since cutting the ribbon on the new spot over Thanksgiving weekend. The center’s first artist in residence — Ezra Huleatt from New York indie-pop outfit Black Taxi — completed his stint swimmingly, and Ramquist has about 270 volunteers ready to help SHAMc pull off the Songfest without any complications.
“They usually don’t get to see any of the music,” Ramquist admits, “and that’s why we started the volunteer and after-parties.”
He’s talking about the kickoff shindig at Crooked Thumb Brewery on Friday, a party at SHAMc on Saturday and the Sunday soiree at Whistle Stop Bar & Grill. All are welcome (but you’ll definitely need a Songfest wristband on Saturday); it’s a total people-power gesture from Ramquist, who’s been supporting a community that gives the energy back in spades (volunteers were a humongous part in SHAMc’s construction). The populist vibe is reflected in Songfest’s 2017 headliner, too.
Xavier Amin Dphrepaulezz — aka Fantastic Negrito — is the son of a Somali-Caribbean immigrant who was raised in a orthodox Muslim household in Massachusetts. A move to Oakland — at the time one of America’s most vibrant black communities — introduced him to funk and soul. He was teaching himself instruments and recording music before he could legally drink and barely escaped gang violence before signing an Interscope Records deal that would eventually become his creative death certificate (gangsta rap was the music industry moneymaker back then). A 1999 car crash put Fantastic Negrito in a coma and rendered his playing hand useless.
Read: Fantastic Negrito among 2017 Grammy winners headed for Tampa Bay
His return to Oakland, combined with physical therapy and urban farming, eventually led him to the blues. Fantastic Negrito put out a self-titled full length in 2014 and won NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts contest in 2015. In February, his 2016 LP The Last Days of Oakland took home a Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues Album. It's a 42-minute masterpiece that bucks the category’s normal formula in favor of a gospel- and rock-tinged statement on the complex issues facing Oakland and nearly every other rapidly gentrifying urban community in America.
“He doesn’t even have a rider,” Ramquist said of Fantastic Negrito, adding that — despite winning a Grammy — he’s just happy to be playing music. It’s just another idiosyncrasy to add to the already unconventional, yet perfectly peculiar story surrounding the festival, and it’s one that feels perfectly at home at Safety Harbor. Read more about CL’s must-see Safety Harbor Songfest acts below, and listen to a playlist on cltampa.com/music.
Rising Appalachia The New Orleans sibling duo are attempting to take any glitz and glam out of the industry thanks to their “slow music” movement (think sustainable touring practices like responsible food sourcing and reducing single-use waste), but there is nothing slow about their ascent in the folk world, where a message of social and global justice is ringing loud for a growing legion of fans attracted to Leah and Chloe Smith’s multi-instrumental approach that utilizes the didgeridoo, spoons, kalimbas, banjos, fiddles and more. (Waterfront Stage, Sun. April 2, 3:45 p.m.)
The Wood Brothers Bassist Chris Wood went electric for the first time on The Wood Brothers’ 2015 LP, Paradise, but it was probably the only choice the Medeski Martin & Wood member had, considering the fact that the roots outfit recorded the LP at Easy Eye studio in Nashville (ran by the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach). The result is an evolution of the group’s already genre-bending style of funk- and jazz-infused blues and rock. (Waterfront Stage, Sat. April 1, 7:30 p.m.)
Daphne Willis It’ll be interesting to see how Willis’s polished pop sound (“Done With Being Done”) will mesh with some of her folky-jazz-influenced offerings (“One By One”) and the festival lineup at large. (Marina Stage, Sun. April 2, 3:30 p.m.)
Magic Giant Songfest’s potential to cross over into an all-encompassing music festival serving most every age and taste is epitomized in the booking of this L.A. folk-pop collective that provides an air of authenticity to a Top 40 sound paying tribute to Mumford & Sons and the Lumineers. (Waterfront Stage, Sun. April 2, 5:30 p.m.)
Listen to a playlist featuring acts playing at Safety Harbor Songfest 2017 below. More information on ths festival is available via local.cltampa.com.
This article appears in Mar 30 – Apr 6, 2017.