This September, the Church Health Center will celebrate the 10th year of a little festival that has become one of the nonprofit’s biggest annual fundraisers and one of the city’s most-loved celebrations of music. After a decade of innovation and growth, it should come as no surprise that organizers are once again injecting new life into the three-day event for 2016.
The festival will kick off Friday evening, Sept. 2 at the Hi-Tone with an all-star revue-style celebration of music recorded in Memphis. Graham Winchester will lead the charge, co-curating (along with event founder J.D. Reager) a night similar to his recent successes paying homage to David Bowie and Prince with a cast of the city’s finest musicians. The evening will feature multiple acts covering hits and rarities that were cut in studios like Sun, Stax, Ardent, Easley, Royal and American.
Saturday night Sept. 3, the party moves to Otherlands Coffee, where The Dead Soldiers will play a rare acoustic set to headline an evening that will spotlight folk, acoustic and singer-songwriter styles. Finally, the weekend will close on Sunday, Sept. 4 – as has become tradition – at The Levitt Shell, with a line-up of Memphis favorites: roots/soul chanteuse Amy LaVere, garage rockers Jack Oblivian & The Sheiks and indie-Americana trio Star & Micey.
In 2015, Rock for Love raised $50,000 for the Church Health Center and across its lifetime has put more than $250,000 in the coffers to support affordable healthcare for the working uninsured.
"It's hard to believe that what started as a one-off benefit concert for the Church Health Center nearly 10 years ago has grown to become one of the highly anticipated summer music festivals it has become in recent years,” says Church Health Center Communications Manager and Rock For Love co-founder Jeff Hulett. “To say RFL has overachieved in its first 10 years would be an understatement. The hook of the show remains the same: folks that have been served by Church Health in some way, shape or form, or know someone who has, come together through music and give back to the organization that provided care for them when they had nowhere else to turn."
Rock for Love celebrates a landmark anniversary this year, and in some ways toasts the end of an era as Church Health prepares for its move to Crosstown, just around the corner in 2017. To learn more about this year’s event and access a playlist featuring more than 80 Rock for Love alumni bands, visit RockForLove.org.
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