Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion “26: High Jinx on High Street

Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion “26 returned to the Tennessee/Virginia border for a weekend of elite music and mild curiosities Sep. 11-13, 2026. The road ends downtown at State Street, where those “in the know” found themselves in a flurry of loose-fitting fun. Welcome to the blind spot. This is the Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion “26: High Jinx on High Street.

Straight from the Eagle’s Nest comes Wranglers correspondents, HighMay HighJinx and Greasetrapp, crisscrossing the globe in search of funky music and the world’s best grouper sandwich. For the second year the Wrangler elite found their way to State Street with an eye for talent and adventure. Be careful what you wish for, you might get it.

Friday: War & Treaty at Paste Studios recording and we’re off like a herd of turtles. Paste was now called Bluegrass Situation. There was Birmingham’s best, St Paul & the Broken Bones. Greasetrapp hadn’t seen Los Lobos since 1996 at Further Fest in Atlanta. After their show she made it back to camp, only to realize she’d left her tent open. Once it got zipped up, the mosquitoes that were grouped at the top were now sealed in with her for the foreseeable future. All night they dive bombed her and slid deep enough into her ears making her bash herself into a bruised pulp.

When is a cougar no longer a cougar? When she becomes a deaf leopard.

Greasetrapp had met his match once and for all. This was more solid, non-stop music than she could consume. She’d sang until her voice turned rotten and she knew she had barn hair. Somewhere in the night she had to pee and couldn’t find the tent door.

The gravity of Bristol was hitting HighMay like a Rick Flair chip to the solar plexus. He was back in action and why not, in any other time in history he would have been branded deranged and living his days comfortably in a sanitarium.

Saturday: HighMay insisted that Sierra Ferrell had stared straight into his soul. Likely it was Wook from Big Daddy Love. Who can tell for sure?

They caught the Jon Stickley Trio and The Del McCoury Band before retiring to margaritas for the remainder of the night.

She got lost with a dead phone and her only recollection was that the hotel began with the letter B. She managed to find a dumpster at the Hyatt that felt safe enough to relax behind in seclusion. No longer had she laid down on the concrete, did she come to the realization of sliding in the shallows of a used grease pit and was covered on the backside with the dank salve.

Shrimphead had just returned from Ometepe where he worked cattle on a plantain farm near the beach. On weekends they played Grateful Dead and drank rum punch.

The television warned that flashing lights and strobing patterns might affect photosensitive viewers. Greasetrapp assumed a television worked because of flashing lights and strobing patterns. She had to pull it together before the Larry Keel & Jon Stickley Duo. Easier said than done.

Sometime between Marty Stuart and Old Crow Medicine Show Shrimphead returned to his hammock under the stage. He was wearing his stagehand camouflage and was able to walk unimpeded, anywhere he wanted. He had unfinished/poke and stick tattoos on his neck and hands and was missing some important teeth. He had a felony conviction and one master’s degree, which was par for the course.

Greasetrapp and HIgh May were on the hunt for the Mason Via show and why not, that guy had stayed busy lately and was “trending” to be sure. They were traveling together downtown and had formed a category five disturbance wherever they went. They were also picking up loose stragglers every bar they left and their crowd continued to grow through assimilation.

Find your way back to Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion again next year September 10-12, 2027. Same bat time, same bat channel.

Keep up with the Wranglers as we head south to Live Oak, Florida for Suwannee Roots Reunion and Hulaween. Then, we look to maintain a cruising altitude in the eye wall of the Florida winter season with Love Burn. Stay the course. Something funky this way comes. Welcome to the fourth quarter and it’s all about conditioning.

All photographs by HighMay Highjinx.