This weekend’s 15th annual festival in South Walton County features Elvis Costello, Jeff Tweedy, Steve Earle and a pair of New Orleans acts
By Keith Spera / Nola.com
The Florida Panhandle’s scenic Emerald Coast is not just about beaches anymore.
The stretch of south Walton County between Miramar Beach and Rosemary Beach, a popular summertime getaway for New Orleanians, is home to an ever-growing list of boutique music festivals.
The combination of sound and sand is not necessarily new. Since 2010, the Hangout Music Festival has attracted tens of thousands of fans to Gulf Shores, Alabama, in May.
But a slate of smaller festivals further east in Florida, including this weekend’s 15th annual 30A Songwriters Festival, puts a more curated spin on the festival experience.
The 2024 30A Songwriters Festival, which opens Friday and runs through Monday, presents more than 175 artists at 30 venues near the coast. Many of those venues are along Scenic Highway 30A, the two-lane ribbon of a road that traces the beach from Blue Mountain Beach through Grayton Beach, Seaside and Alys Beach to Rosemary Beach.
Headliners this year include Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, Elvis Costello & the Imposters — who will continue onto New Orleans for a Tuesday gig at the Orpheum Theater — Rosanne Cash, Grace Potter, Matthew Sweet, Steve Earle, Rodney Crowell, KT Tunstall, John Oates and many more.
New Orleans singer-songwriter Joy Clark, who will release her first album on Ani DiFranco’s Righteous Babe Records this year, and Mississippi-born, New Orleans-based country trio Chapel Hart are slated to perform multiple times throughout the weekend.
The sprawling 30A Songwriters Festival unites traditional and nontraditional venues in resorts, restaurants and clubs along several miles of South Walton’s coast to form one of the most prestigious showcases of songwriting anywhere in the country. Those venues include Central Square Records in Seaside, AJ’s in Grayton Beach, the Rosemary Beach Town Hall and the main, outdoor stage at Miramar Beach’s Grand Boulevard Town Center.