RiverBeat Music Festival: These are 5 under-the-radar acts you won't want to miss

While the inaugural RiverBeat Music Festival isn’t short on big headlining stars, genre legends and musical veterans of note, the festival will also be presenting a range of rising stars, underground favorites and local up-and-comers across all three days of the event.

"A big part of what we do is to have people coming out of the events we put on having discovered something new," said festival producer Jeff Bransford of Forward Momentum, which is behind the new music fest.

RiverBeat is set for Friday-Sunday, May 3-5, at Tom Lee Park in Downtown Memphis and will feature 56 performances across five stages.

Here are five acts and sets you won’t want to miss.

Kenny Brown

4:45 p.m. Friday, Bud Light Stage

Mississippi guitarist/singer Kenny Brown continues to carry on the great tradition of Hill Country Blues. The 70 year-old Brown — who’s worked closely with the genre’s masters from R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough and on down — remains one of the great inheritors of the North Mississippi blues style, and has recently played on records by The Black Keys and Hank Williams Jr., among others. A perennial performer at the old Beale Street Music Festival, Brown will bring his always mesmerizing sound to RiverBeat's Bud Light Stage as part of Friday’s opening performances.

Lawrence Matthews

3 p.m. Saturday, Bud Light Stage

Multi-disciplinary artist Lawrence Matthews is no stranger to Memphis audiences, having recorded and performed for years under his Don Lifted moniker, conjuring a compelling brand of ambient rap music. Since retiring that handle in 2022, Matthews has continued create and perform under his real name, offering up a further refinement of his powerful musical vision — a mingling of hip-hop, soul, rock and Southern gothic elements. His much-anticipated album, "Between Mortal Reach & Posthumous Grip," is due this summer. One of the more compelling figures making music in the Bluff City, Matthews will play RiverBeat on Saturday afternoon.

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Talibah Safiya

3:45 p.m. Saturday, Stringbend Stage

Soul singer Talibah Safiya has quickly become one of Memphis' most buzzed about talents. An artist-in-residence at the Rudi E. Scheidt School of Music at the University of Memphis, Safiya released her live debut, “Love Spells Live,” in 2023, and followed up with a new studio EP “Black Magic” in February. That record samples and re-channels work from Hill Country Blues artists Ranie Burnette, Junior Kimbrough, R.L. Burnside and Jessie Mae Hemphill, creating what Safiaya calls a record of "Southern sound as it has traveled through time." Safiya is working on new music which is expected later this summer. In the meantime, she’ll be taking the Stringbend Stage on Saturday afternoon for what looks to be one RiverBeat's more intriguing performances.

S.G. Goodman

3 p.m. Sunday, Bud Light Stage

Kentucky-born singer-songwriter S.G. Goodman has become one of the most acclaimed indie/Americana artists over the last few years. A former member of the band The Savage Radley, she launched her solo career with 2020’s exquisite “Old Time Feeling” and followed up with one of 2022’s most buzzed about albums, “Teeth Marks.” The winner of the 2023 Americana Music Award for Emerging Artist of the Year, Goodman will kick things off on the final day of RiverBeat with an early set at the Bud Light Stage.

Salo Pallini

6:30 p.m. Sunday, Beale Street Landing Stage

A unique literary musical project, Memphis group Salo Pallini was born out of an idea to create a sonic accompaniment to author Kurt Vonnegut's 1958 comic sci-fi novel “The Sirens of Titan.” Led by bassist Landon Moore, Salo Pallini features some of the city’s top players — including guitarist John Whittemore, drummer Danny Banks and keyboardist Pat Fusco — and released its album “Sirens of Titan: A Preemptive Scoring" in early 2023. The band's fascinating sound, which they describe as "progressive Latin space country," has only been a heard a few times on stage locally, so their Sunday evening set at RiverBeat will be a rare opportunity to experience the group live.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Best RiverBeat Music Festival acts you shouldn't miss | Times, dates