It was a picture-perfect weather weekend for the Chet Kingery Memorial Bluegrass Festival, which was held Friday night and Saturday in Shelbyville’s Chautauqua Auditorium at Forest Park.
The Festival has been held in various communities since around 2008 when a group of bluegrass bands got together and asked Chet’s wife if they could hold a festival in his name, since he passed away in the late 90’s and was heavily involved in bluegrass music.
The bell rang precisely at 11am Saturday to begin the second day of the Festival. It was the same way Chautauqua meetings would be called in the Park in the early 1900's when the Auditorium was built.
In a live broadcast on WMKR Genuine Country 94-point-3 Saturday morning, Chet’s son Ron told us his mom was thrilled.
City of Shelbyville Parks and Public Property Commissioner Mark Shanks told WMKR listeners that the Auditorium had fallen into disrepair, but the city along with many in the community raised and spent over a million dollars to restore the Chautauqua Auditorium which re-opened 2 years ago.
Shanks added the restored Auditorium will attract more and more events and performances to bring more people to Shelbyville.
The 2-day Festival attracted major bluegrass acts like Blue Highway, David Davis and the Warrior River Boys, Joe Mullins and the Radio Ramblers, the Kings Highway Band, the Kody Norris Show, and the host band which was Mackville.
WMKR interviewed several band members during its live broadcast from the festival Saturday morning. They’re linked below.
Kings Highway band members Mark Hargis and Mike Fulkerson:
Elijah Doty:
Ron Kingery, son of Chet Kingery in whose name the festival is named after:
Kody Norris (in 2 segments):
David Davis: