If you close your eyes and listen closely (maybe with a favorite bluegrass tune playing in your head), you may be able to hear the mandolins, banjos and fiddles warming up all around the state — and country! — for the 40th Annual Backbone Bluegrass Festival, coming up July 23-25 at Backbone State Park (Iowa’s oldest state park) in Strawberry Point.
Originally organized in 1981 as the Strawberry Point, Iowa Bluegrass Festival by music enthusiast Linzy Martin as a way to raise money to get the lake dredged at Backbone State Park, it took off and is now, 40 years later, stronger than ever.