Ten Things about the Best Fest in the West

1. The Sierra Nevada World Music Festival is returning to Boonville this weekend of June 16-18 after five years off. It will be a tribute to the festival’s late founder and leader Warren Smith. Therefore it’s gotta be good, and it will be.

2. Warren and his crew at his production company and record label Epiphany Arts started the festival in 1994, holding it in the Sierra foothill town of Marysville on the marshy banks of a slow river. Warren had been a stockbroker in the early 1970s but like many other young music fans was hooked on the Jamaican sound of classic roots reggae. So hooked in fact that he began producing shows in San Francisco by some foundational reggae artists such as Dennis Brown and Toots and the Maytals, and founded his reggae label to issue a few classic albums as well. After helping present a rock festival he decided to stick to his musical strength and love - real reggae music, with healthy doses of great sounds from around the world added each year. Warren often traveled the world looking for new artists to present in the USA for the first time, such as from Korea, New Zealand, Africa and more. 

3. SNWMF was held in Marysville for seven years, until hassles by local thugs and opportunists with no real support from local authorities forced a move further into the foothills to Angel’s Camp for five years, where similar problems developed and resulted in a fortuitous move to Mendocino County fairgrounds in Boonville in 2006. Here the local community was more welcoming, after some initial wariness, and after the first year was dauntingly roasting hot and the next bedeviled by the smoke from hundreds of fires ignited by lightning strikes all over the county. The hosts at the fairgrounds and the festival producers got along well from the start. The festival weekend soon became the biggest of the year for local businesses. Law enforcement representatives, after a couple years, noted that the SNWMF crowd was overwhelmingly friendly, nonviolent, colorful and respectful. Problems such as they might be were minor and smoothed out. And thus the fest thrived for the next dozen years through 2018.

4. Warren’s health declined after the 2018 festival, which was its 25th anniversary event. The details of his latter days need not be related here, but it was a challenging, painful time for him and his family. The 2019 festival had to be cancelled, and then COVID hit too. Warren died in 2021, a huge loss to his family and extended network of friends around the world and really, to thousands of those who loved the festival. When the pandemic eased last year there was thought given to bringing the festival back but it is a massive undertaking and it was just too soon. This year it was deemed time to return.

5. Many music fans have long called SNWMF their favorite such event, “the best fest in the west,” if not anywhere. A loyal cadre attend every year, hooked from their first visit. There are many reasons for this, the music of course being the main draw. Warren knew his stuff. And he loved the sound of classic reggae, with great singing and messages. Added to that, he was widely trusted as a fair and ethical producer - not always common in the music festival business. Thus renowned artists far and wide were eager to perform at SNWMF. Those who were otherwise reluctant to travel far to play would do so for Warren. There have been many such examples, this year being the living legend Burning Spear, who will close out the weekend. Perhaps the most explicit on this count was the uncompromising foundational dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, a London resident who gathered his superb band from all over Europe and the USA to come out of retirement and play one more time at SNWMF in 2015, saying “We’re only back to play as Warren asked me too, I wouldn’t be doing this for anybody else.” 

6. Beyond that trust and respect, the list of the best reggae and other international artists and many others who have played the festival, some repeatedly, is too long to go into here. The posters from most of the years are on the SNWMF.com site and tell the story. Many early reggae, ska, and rocksteady figures, otherwise seemingly forgotten or at least retired, willingly or otherwise, were found by Warren, paired with great backing bands, and presented in rare performances (OK I’ll name one, as many others would - Junior Byles in his only such appearance at SNWMF in 1997 - a landmark event). Likewise some of the biggest African stars have graced SNWMF stages, where reggae fans were exposed to their music for the first time.

7. Beyond the music, SNWMF presents a friendly, family-welcoming setting. Children 12 and under are free with adults. A kids’ zone with fun and games and drumming and dance is very popular. There’s a popular parade. and drink vendors are vetted and line the walkway between the two stages. Clothing and other product booths line the main stage green. A dancehall barn fires up at night, for some diehards the biggest draw of all. The main feeling is of celebration and fun, or what many call the great vibes. “We don’t mess with the vibe, it just happens,” Warren once said. People who have met at SNWMF have even later chosen to be married there, which says a lot.

8. Putting on the festival is a bigger task than many would guess. A cadre of staff and volunteers starts to assemble months beforehand. Booking the artists is a big challenge, always has been, but ever more so as legal hurdles such as visas tighten up, costs escalate, beloved artists age and retire, and so on. Very professional stage, sound, and lighting teams, the best in the bunch, make sure things sound and look good and run on time - not so common! - ending by curfew (midnight Friday and Saturday, 10pm Sunday). This year the CEO is Gretchen Franz Smith, who was always integral in working with her husband Warren but now leads the tight-knit team. The daunting task of booking a roster of musicians worthy of the SNWMF name has been fulfilled, as one young fan already put it, as “the best roots reggae lineup I’ve ever seen!”

9. “SNWMF 2023 is for Warren,” says Gretchen Smith. "We are following the path he left and remain dedicated to nurturing what he created, as the greatest tribute to him.”

10. I’ll close on a personal note. Warren was my good friend for many years, and Gretchen still is. They are people I’ve always respected immensely. I was surprised and honored a decade ago when they asked if I would take the position of head or festival MC, as I started attending from the festival’s beginning as a journalist and hadn’t done much of that onstage - and scheduling, a real jigsaw puzzle - work before. But I found it fun and sometimes exhilarating. Aware that nobody has paid to see me up there, I strive to be brief and hopefully even entertaining bringing acts on and offstage, while learning from my fellow main MC the great Junor Francis. This weekend, after five years off and especially without Warren around for the first time, I’ve been surprised to be feeling a bit of anticipatory stage anxiety for the first time. I expect I’ll have some mixed emotions up there. Probably many of us will. But we can fairly well promise that once again SNWMF will be a joy and “the best fest in the West” - or anywhere. We’ll do our best, Warren, and make you proud. Thank you.

(Steve Heilig is a longtime master of ceremonies and roving minister performing wedding ceremonies at SNWMF, and a veteran writer for the AVA.)