Soon enough Sunday will roll through the Ramapo Mountains and with it the Highlands Bluegrass Festival at Harmony Hall. Pull up a chair and for a bit of twanging banjo and fiddle whine — a perfect way to welcome in the harvest season. Slated for the first Sunday of September, this year’s festival will feature a favorite on the New York busk circuit, the Ebony Hillbillies, a black string band proficient in rootsy Americana that incorporates bits of jazz and other flavors all mixed together into an old-timey twang. Harlem born Henrique Prince, who plays fiddle and sings, said that playing on the streets of NYC, such as popular subway stops and parks, keeps the band connected to the music and audience.

Ebony Hillbillies busking old time bluegrass music — the group will co-headline the Highlands Bluegrass Festival in Sloatsburg on Sunday, September 7.

“It’s a stage where we can work on songs and just get the message out,” said Prince in a release about the Ebony Hillbillies musical adventure. “When you play on the streets, you bring the theater, the temple and the church with you. You create that atmosphere. It’s a gift you bring to the people and a service as well and the payback is immediate.”

The Hillbillies will co-headline this year’s Highlands Bluegrass Festival with banjo player Jeff Scroggins, a former National Bluegrass Banjo champion who has a home base in Colorado. Be on the Great Lawn of Harmony Hall Sunday, September 7, from 1 to 6 p.m. in Sloatsburg, NY.

The Highlands Bluegrass Festival draws a crowd from across Rockland and the Hudson Valley as music lovers gather on the expansive Great Lawn at Harmony Hall, chairs and blankets colorfully spread out, to take part in an all-day music festival that will include select craft and food vendors.

The Highlands Bluegrass Festival  is co-sponsored by the Town of Ramapo and The Friends of Harmony Hall and helps raise funds and awareness for the renovation of the Jacob Sloat House in Sloatsburg, NY.

The Ebony Hillbillies, with washboard percussion, banjo and mountain dulcimer, led by Prince’s fiddle, should provide an afternoon of hand-clapping and foot-stomping down home music. Not to mention, Jeff Scroggins banjo picking and jams. And there will be plenty of other musical treats.

Get your lawn blanket and chairs ready.

The Highlands Bluegrass Festival takes place Sunday, September 7, from 1 to 6 p.m. and will feature Sue Cunningham and band and the Ebony Hillbillies. The event is free and takes places on outdoors on the Great Lawn at Harmony Hall in Sloatsburg, NY. For information, call Harmony Hall at 845-712-5220.

Updated to reflect the Highlands Bluegrass Festival line up.