Evant Bluegrass Singer Kennedy Berry Wins People's Choice at Glen Rose Festival

Kennedy Berry, a bluegrass singer from Evant in Coryell County, walked away from the Oakdale Park Spring Bluegrass Festival in Glen Rose on March 19 as the People's Choice winner, earning a spot most musicians in the genre can only dream about: opening for Rhonda Vincent.

Berry will open for the bluegrass star at this year's fall festival, scheduled for Sept. 25-27. Vincent is no minor booking. In media, Vincent has been dubbed the "Queen of Bluegrass", and she and her band, The Rage, have won one Grammy, nineteen IBMA Awards and eighty-nine SPBGMA Awards.

The stage on which Berry won the People's Choice honor carries its own historic weight. A 1982 Texas Senate Resolution declared that "the Oakdale Park Bluegrass Festivals have made Glen Rose the Bluegrass Capital of Texas," and Oakdale's Bluegrass Jamboree, which began in 1972, remains the only bluegrass festival from that era that still survives, according to a 2004 article in the Journal of Texas Music History.

For Berry, the win represents a significant leap for a musician from Evant, a town of fewer than 400 residents tucked in the hills of western Coryell County, well away from the bluegrass circuits centered in major Texas cities. The People's Choice designation is crowd-driven, meaning festival attendees themselves voted Berry the standout performer of the spring event.

The fall festival Sept. 25-27 at Oakdale Park will give Berry a first look at a headliner-level audience. Vincent is an in-demand guest vocalist who has appeared on recordings by Dolly Parton, Alan Jackson, Tanya Tucker, and Faith Hill, among others. Performing ahead of an act of that stature on a stage that has hosted legends of the genre since 1972 marks a rare opportunity for any regional artist, let alone one from Coryell County.