Sponsorships sought for Crown Street Music Festival

The 2011 annual Crown Street Music Festival promises to be bigger and better with popular Indianapolis-based singer Jennie DeVoe joining an already impressively talented music lineup.

Despite talk of possibly moving the eighth annual music festival to another venue, like Robe-Ann Park, the event will be staged right where it has always been -- on property east of Ridpath School (at 605 Crown St.) on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, Sept. 4.

Festival organizers are looking for sponsors this year, offering a banner on the stage during the 1-7:30 p.m. show as well as recognition in the program for the event in return.

Minimum sponsorship is $250. To become a sponsor, persons may contact Bill Richards (653-5760) or Charles Miles (653-9503).

Spectator tickets are $10 in advance (or $12 at the gate). Senior citizen and student tickets are $5, while children 10 and under will be admitted free.

Tickets can be purchased in advance from Bright Futures in Greencastle or from Miles (653-9503).

All proceeds will go to support tutoring and other community programs in Putnam County.

While Jennie DeVoe will the day's headliner, playing the final 6-7:30 p.m. slot, the rest of the musical lineup is also well known locally.

Blues man Tad Robinson of Greencastle will sing at 5 p.m. Robinson also is credited with getting DeVoe to join the show, according to fellow organizer Bill Richards.

The day will begin with Hauskatz, the Steve Michael-Bill Hamm-Carol Hamm group at 1 p.m. Also on the bill will be DePauw Professor Randy Salman, Blues Side Up with Steve St. Pierre and Convergence.

The DeVoe-Robinson connection came about when they appeared together at an outdoor festival in Chicago, Richards said, and ended up performing two or three numbers together.

Robinson, Richards praised, has "been one of the really strong axles in developing music programs locally."

He said Robinson has often stressed how important it would be for the event to reach out for a more regional name performer to give the festival more identity. He suggested three or four artists, Richards said, but stressed that Jennie DeVoe would "be a great jump."

A blues, soul and R&B singer, DeVoe is one of the Midwest's most highly respected and well-known independent singer songwriters. She's performed all over the country, including at Lillith Fair, and she's opened for greats like Bonnie Raitt, Joe Cocker, Lucinda Williams, Ray Charles and more.

She's been voted "Best Of" honors by NUVO readers for the last 10 years -- the past two years crowned "Best Local Musician." In 2010, The Indianapolis Star named her one of the "Entertainers of the Decade."

Her songs have been added to rotation on Triple-A and college radio stations across the country, and been licensed to several TV shows (including "Dawson's Creek" and "Joan of Arcadia"). Recently, some of DeVoe's original songs were used in ads for jeweler Reis-Nichols.

DeVoe's song, "How I Feel," was the first-place winner of Billboard Magazine's World Song Contest (Best Pop Song, 2004).

She prefers the indie music scene, and Indianapolis is home for her. She says, "There is a good audience in Indianapolis and my family lives nearby. My husband's business is here, my life. My friends are here. I have to leave more often, but I think of it as a mini vacation."