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Buttermilk Jamboree cancels music fest for second year in a row due to COVID
John Sinkevics
For the second year in a row, Circle Pines Center south of Grand Rapids has canceled Buttermilk Jamboree due to the COVID pandemic.
Organizers of the June music festival – which combines national touring acts with a robust lineup of Michigan artists and family programming at a picturesque site in Barry Township’s community of Delton – had high hopes for a 2021 return of the three-day event until conditions deteriorated.
“We met in March and things seemed so good, so we were going to have a small Buttermilk, but things have really taken a shockingly bad turn for the worse,” said Sasha Ospina, center director, referring to Michigan’s upswing in COVID cases.
Simeon Marie
The pandemic has hit full-time performing musicians especially hard. There are very few places to perform and in-person audiences are sparse, at best.
WGLT queried some central Illinois musicians to understand how they have adapted.
“As a folk singer I complain a lot. I’m going to do a lot less complaining, I know that,” chuckled Cody Diekhoff, a native of Delavan who now lives in Bloomington-Normal. He plays and records as Chicago Farmer and had just returned home from touring on his new album Flyover Country when the pandemic began. Plans to head back out … ended.
“I can’t wait to get back at it and have all those hardships again,” said Diekhoff. “I’d do just about anything to have them back right now to be honest.”