Hozier, pictured above, is one of the many musicians coming to Beale Street Music Festival this May. (Courtesy Hozier.com)
Beale Street Music Festival released its 2015 lineup today, announcing one of its best sets in recent years. In January, the fest was named one of the Top 21 Music Festivals of 2015 by Fuze network – and that was before they knew Ed Sheeran, Hozier and long-time favorite Lenny Kravitz were on the way.
This year’s festival, May 1-3, marks the 39th since the event’s inception in the spring of 1976. The festival prides itself on covering a broad range of musical proclivities and does so – reaching from Of Mice and Men’s metalcore to one of the most noted banjo players today, Béla Fleck. As even those unfamiliar with the event might have guessed, the multiple stages are spread across 25 acres just off Beale Street.Though the festival sports an intimidating record of artists like Bob Dylan, Fall Out Boy, Sheryl Crow, B. B. King, 30 Seconds to Mars and Jerry Lee Lewis, this year’s show isn’t fazed.
The blue eyed, Ronald Weasley-esque Ed Sheeran has been crooning his way into the hearts of teenage girls – and the rest of us – for some time now. His long list of accomplishments starts with the UK Festival Award for Best Breakthrough Act in 2011 to the 2015 People’s Choice Award for Favorite Male Artist.
Though on first sight some eager Hunger Games fans may squeal “Cinna!,” Lenny Kravitz is far better known for the music career stretching all the way back to 1989 (the year the love/hate sensation – TSwift herself – was born) with his first album, “Let Love Rule.” Kravitz won the Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance in 2000, 2001 and 2002. Since, the rocker-turned-movie star has featured in films like “The Hunger Games” trilogy and Lee Daniel’s “The Butler.” Kravitz most recently starred beside Katy Perry in the Superbowl XLIX halftime show. In case you missed him, he was after the football-field-sized chess scene and the giant metallic tiger but before the introduction of Left Shark.
It’s been up in the air for some time now whether Hozier would attend the fest – since the music festival’s Facebook account used his photo on a Grammy poll Jan. 16 in what many fans saw through as a hint for the lineup. Though this artist’s career hasn’t been as long as the previous mentions, the maned musician is easily one of the most popular headliners coming to the stage. If everything goes perfectly, he might even rock a man-bun on Beale Street.
Other headlining bands include Teen Choice Award royalty Paramore, Creedence Clearwater Revival’s John Fogerty and the folky, banjo-plucking Avett Brothers. Five Finger Death Punch, Cage the Elephant, Awolnation, LeCrae and Spindoctors also deserve honorable mentions. The rest of the artists, nearly 60 in total, range from pop to punk to rock to modern and – of course, the famed Mississippi blues.
Three day and single day passes are available through Ticketmaster on the  the Memphis in May website.
Full lineup:
Lenny Kravitz
 Ed Sheeran
The Avett Brothers
Paramore
Hozier
 John Fogerty
Five Finger Death Punch
Wilco
Pixies
The Flaming Lips
Cage The Elephant
Ryan Adams
Rise Against
Band Of Horses
St. Vincent
Slash
Awolnation
Breaking Benjamin
Bleachers
Wale
Flogging Molly
Lindsey Stirling
G-Eazy
Jenny Lewis
George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic
 Kaiser Chiefs
 Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band
Of Mice And Men
Bela Fleck & Abigail Washburn
Lecrae
Spin Doctors
Myslovitz
Big Head Todd & The Monsters
In This Moment
Shovels And Rope
Scott Weiland & The Wildabouts
Soul Asylum
Robert Randolph & The Family Band
Betty Lavette
Diarrhea Planet
Savoy Brown
Elle King
Ana Popovic
Alejandro Escovedo
Star & Micey
Tinsley Ellis
The Vespers
Dead Soldiers
Lurrie Bell
Indigenous
Will Tucker
Matthew Curry
Prosevere
Preston Shannon
Kenny Brown
Ira Walker
Ghost Town Blues Band
Copeland
Kelley Hunt
