New York State Food Festival 2023 feat. Robert Randolph & The Family Band

The New York State Food Festival features the popular Empire State Plaza Farmer’s Market with dozens of food trucks and vendors. Entertainment at the New York State Food Festival will feature a headlining performance by Robert Randolph & The Family Band. With additional performance by Flavour.

August 16 | 11:00 am – 9:00 pm | FREE
Food, beverages, and a full line-up of activities & entertainment

A virtuoso on the pedal steel guitar, Robert Randolph jumped from spiritual to secular music and found an audience among blues fans, roots rock aficionados, and jam band followers with his fiery, passionate instrumental work and heartfelt music.

While Randolph cut his teeth playing in services at the House of God Church in his native New Jersey, where the pedal steel is a key part of the church’s musical program, his talents were discovered by fans outside the church, and he made his recording debut with a live album recorded with his backing group the Family Band, 2001’s “Live at the Wetlands, that mixed gospel and full-bodied rock and blues.

Randolph’s first studio set, 2003’s “Unclassified,” broadened the scope of his repertoire with flashes of funk and Caribbean sounds. His subsequent albums with the Family Band, such as 2010’s “When We Walk This Road” (produced by T-Bone Burnett) and 2013’s “Lickety Split,” were steeped in passion and energy that came from Randolph and his band’s instrumental skills and heartfelt fusion of multiple genres.