Country Legends Festival returns in 2024, at Lions Park in West Liberty, OH
West Liberty, OH (Aug. 31,2024) – For the fifth straight year, Country Legends Festival and Labor Day weekend in West Liberty, OH run synonymous to each other for fun and music as summertime winds down and comes to a close.
Since its inception in 2020, co-founders Matt Hull and Jeremy Levan have created an event that appeases to all. A main stage for those who love the country artists of yesteryear, and a smaller stage off to the side introducing local and regional talents with today’s newer country sounds. The music festival is located on the east side of Lions Park and is held in conjunction with the town’s Labor Day fall festival on Saturday of the holiday weekend.
The gates open and the day begins with a pre-party of music on the CLFest Hometown Saloon Stage by Kenny Chaffin, and joined on stage by fellow guitarist, Brian Paul Williams. The Marysville native has recently began performing live with his first appearance on stage in 2022. Here he performs covers by the likes of Alan Jackson “A Lot About Livin’ (And A Little ‘Bout Love)”, Tracy Byrd “Watermelon Crawl” and the late Toby Keith “Courtesy Of The Red, White And Blue”.
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Continuing on with the pre-party on the CLFest Hometown Saloon Stage is Leah Crose. Crose is originally from Springfield, OH before moving to Nashville, TN seven years ago to further pursue her musical journey. The singer/songwriter sets off with Dolly Parton’s hit “Jolene” before adding her original version of the continued story of “Jolene part 2.” Keeping it country, Leah covers Loretta Lynn’s “You Ain’t Woman Enough” before showing off her rock side with a cover of Train’s “Drops Of Jupiter.”
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Over on the main stage to get the show started, Matt Hull and Jeremy LeVan take a minute to introduce themselves and welcome everyone to the 2024 Country Legends Festival. Afterwards, Matt calls out 10 local military veterans for acknowledgment before Holli Eaton of West Liberty performs the National Anthem.
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A few moments later, BlackHawk, the first of four national touring artists takes the main stage to get the festival underway. The band is a three-part harmony made up by Henry Paul (lead vocals, mandolin and acoustic guitar), Dave Robbins (background vocals and keyboards), Randy Threet (bass guitar and high harmony) and joined by Jeff Aulich (lead guitar), Jimmy Dormire (electric guitar) and Mike Bailey (drums). This year BlackHawk is celebrating 30 years together with the release of their debut album BlackHawk.
Their set at CLF consists of hit songs like “Goodbye Says It All,” “Every Once In A While,” “Almost A Memory Now” and “I’m Not Strong Enough To Say No.” Added to the set and sang by Robbins are two songs he co-wrote for the band Restless Heart, “Big Dreams In A Small Town” and “The Bluest Eyes In Texas.” BlackHawk ends their set with the crowd singing and dancing to their signature single “Postmarked Birmingham.”
Back to the Saloon Stage during the main stage change over, Andi Jo Taylor entertains the crowd with a short set. The 20-year-old singer/songwriter/actress from Toledo starts out with singing and dancing to backing tracks for covers like Lainey Wilson “Heart Like A Truck” before grabbing her guitar for some of her originals “Country Back” and “Homegrown Star.”
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Up on the main stage, Chris Cagle rowdies up the crowd with “Let There Be Cowgirls” to start his portion of the show. At the end, he speaks to the crowd, “seriously…all of you that come out to support all of the country artists, young and old…you are the employer of The American Dream. We so appreciate you. You come out to support us even when you wear a Morgan Wallen shirt to the show. Seriously, you make it a beautiful place.” Cagle then jumps into “What A Beautiful Day.”
Wanting to write a song about his family, he penned “The Love Between A Woman And A Man” before admitting that the next song “Miss Me Baby” is about a girl. “I hate her…she broke my heart and well, I got a hit song.”
Calling out to all the first responders and military, he thanks them for their service and our freedom. The crowd applauds with approval, “please don’t give up on the people of our nation…one day, we will have a president that has our back.” He performs “Got My Country On” before the crowd gets excited with “Wal-Mart Parking Lot,” “I Breathe In, I Breathe Out,” and his crowd popular hit “Chicks Dig It.”
Adding some classic outlaw country to the festival, Rick George of Dayton, OH does just that with a few songs by two of the most famous outlaws of country, Waylon Jennings and Merle Haggard. Standing atop the Saloon Stage with just an acoustic guitar, George fires up the crowd with his debut single “Drinking And Dreaming,” his own version of Waylon’s classic hit song. He also includes the covers of “Lukebach, Texas,” “Workin’ Man Blues,” “Mama Tried” and “Fightin’ Side Of Me.”
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Returning to the main stage, country super-group Diamond Rio is up next to perform for the festival guests. The band originally formed in 1982 as the Grizzly River Boys, entertainers inside Opryland USA amusement park in Nashville. In 1991, they changed their name to Diamond Rio and set out for fame and fortune. As Diamond Rio, they have become four-time Group Of The Year by the Country Music Association (CMA), two-time Top Vocal Group by the Academy of Country Music (ACM) and Grammy winner. Today’s line-up includes Marty Roe (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), Dana Williams (bass guitar, baritone vocals), Jimmy Olander (lead guitar, banjo), Dan Truman (keyboard), Carson McKee (fiddle, backing vocals) and Micah Schweinsberg (drums).
They take the stage with their 1998 single “Unbelievable” before jumping into their first medley of hits including, “Norma Jean Riley,” “Nowhere Bound,” “That’s What I Get For Loving You,” “Imagine That” and “Mirror, Mirror.”
As Marty welcomes the fans, Dana speaks up that “there’s country music fans here and how fitting, that we are playing on the edge of a corn field.”
With the accumulation of thirty-six singles, the band does a couple of medleys to help get as many songs in as they can in the allotted show time. The hits medley adds “You’re Gone,” “In A Week Or Two,” “Mama Don’t Forget To Pray For Me,” “Walkin’ Away” and “Love A Little Stronger.”
With a recent gospel album released, the band shows how they harmonize with “In God We Still Trust” before playing one of their most requested songs by military families, “I Believe.”
For those that weren’t already up and cheering on the band, they quickly raise to their feet when Williams shouts out “O-H” and announces that he was born and raised down the road in Huber Heights, OH. He mentions the corn again as it looks like Field Of Dreams. He goes on by introducing Carson and that she is the only female in Diamond Rio. He tells of a new instrumental video called “The Kick” that they perform that allows Carson and Jimmy to show off with the fiddle and banjo with an up-tempo swing. The jam leads into a rock medley of hits “Layla” (Eric Clapton), “Walk This Way” (Aerosmith), “Carry On Wayward Son” (Kansas) and “Born To Be Wild” (Steppenwolf).
Diamond Rio ends their performance on the Country Legends Festival main stage after performing “Meet In The Middle,” “How Your Love Makes Me Feel” and “Bubba Hyde.”
**Note** No photos of Diamond Rio can be posted at this time due to management not replying to photo usage per photo agreement.
As Diamond Rio exits off the stage, co-promoter Matt Hull appears on the main stage holding up an autographed guitar signed by all the artists playing on this year’s main stage. Just as they have done the past four years, the festival selects a family or individual who has endured hard times due to usually medical complications. They auction off this guitar to the highest bidder with all the monies going to the chosen recipient. This year’s selected individual is Caleb Bostick and family. Caleb is a 28-year-old with five children and has been diagnosed with Testicular Cancer. Through a series of operations to cleanse his body of the disease, it has caused a hardship for Caleb, his children and fiancé. Each year at the Country Legends Festival, the crowd takes it up a notch and raises more money than the years previous. This year’s winning bid was a record breaking $20,000 to help Caleb with the mounting medical bills and help assist his family. At the conclusion of the auction, Hull humors the crowd as he strums a few chords and sings a few bars, as promised if the bid hit the 20-thousand-dollar amount.
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For the final time of the evening, action takes place on the CLFest Homegrown Saloon Stage with music provided by Lodi native, Erin Stoll. The singer/songwriter from northeast Ohio is joined on stage by Caleb Storie on acoustic guitar. Erin delivers a modern country sound with a mixture of soul and blues in her original tunes “Unfinished,” “Camo Girls,” “Country Girls (Do It Better)” and “Spread My Wings.”
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With only one act remaining for the 2024 Country Legends Festival, the crowd shows their anticipation for this year’s headliner, Tracy Lawrence, as they all rise up from their seats when he and his band enters the stage. While the back video screens show the American Flag waving freely, Lawrence begins his show with his 2019 hit, “Made In America” and continues on with “If The Good Die Young” and “Find Out Who Your Friends Are.” Some of those friends include the guys he rides up and down the highway with. They are his band: Joe Caverlee (fiddle, backing vocals), Travis Newman (lead guitar), Scott Joyce (piano), Sam Field (steel guitar), Derek Parnell (acoustic guitar), Kevin Von Der Horne (bass guitar) and Lejoe Young (drums).
Having a career that spans 30+ years, 18 studio albums, 18 #1 singles and so many other top ten hits, there are too many favorites to squeeze into one show. Tracy has had to place some of his earliest tunes into a medley of hits in order to perform even more. The medley includes: “Is That A Tear,” “I See It Now,” “Sticks And Stones,” “Alibis” and “Texas Tornado.”
Still dropping new music after all these years, Tracy plays “A Cowboy Would” from the EP, before the song he wrote in the 90’s about his father, “Lessons Learned.”
Taking a moment to reflect back on 2020 when the COVID pandemic swept the globe, many lives were lost and families were broken. The world of country music lost four iconic artists that people didn’t talk a whole lot about when they left this earth. Tracy feels a bit obligated to honor those four artists by paying tribute to them by singing a song of theirs. Those four artists include: Kenny Rogers “The Gambler,” Charley Pride “Kiss An Angel Good Morning,” Joe Diffie “John Deere Green” and Charlie Daniels “The Devil Goes Down To Georgia.” During the latter, Tracy is joined by Caverlee and his hell raising fire hot fiddle while the crowd stands and cheers.
Tracy keeps the crowd engulfed with two of his biggest hits, “Time Marches On” and “Paint Me A Birmingham” before exiting off the stage for a short break. With the crowd applauding and cheering for more, Lawrence and band return for an encore. The evening comes to an end with Tracy singing “Chicken Wire” and “Better Man, Better Off.”
Now that the day long festival is over, we can all look back and realize what a great day Saturday was. The weather was spotty at times, but we all stayed dry as it didn’t rain as it was projected. The food was tasty, the beer was cold, the crowd had fun and the entertainment was awesome. For the country music fan that loves older country music, to the country music fan that likes more of a newer face, newer sounding country…this event is for you. The 90’s country artists and sound is making a comeback, and music fans of all ages are embracing it. There is nowhere else in the country that supports it better than the Country Legends Festival in West Liberty, OH.
To Jeremy LeVan, Matt Hull and all your staff…thank you for your dedication and commitment for such a top-notch event. Your friendships and hospitality are second to none and we always look forward to our next meetings. We are already excited and can’t wait to see and hear what lies ahead for Country Legends Festival 2025.
Words by: Leslie Reasoner
Photos by: John Reasoner
Country Legends Festival
Tracy Lawrence
Diamond Rio
Chris Cagle
BlackHawk
Erin Stoll
Rick George
Andi Jo Taylor
Leah Crose
Kenny Chaffin