By > Elise Mendelsohn > University of Maryland

In many ways, Tim Walther has the dream job. While he is not in a band, he gets to work closely with some of the biggest names in the music industry, including The Grateful Dead and The Flaming Lips.  He’s the owner and creator of the company Walther-Productions where he is able to unite his love for grassroots campaigns and music in one seamless career effort.

The company is most recognized for its biggest project: the annual All Good Music Festival, held in Masontown, West Virginia. Richie Mendelsohn, a University of Virginia student who attended the festival in 2007, describes All Good as “superb and spontaneous – a collection of kindred souls united for the sole purpose of getting funky all weekend!”

Walther first found his love for music many years ago: “It pretty much all started with my friend waking me up on a Saturday morning and saying ‘Hey, you want to come and check out The Dead?’ I wasn’t really into it at the time, but I figured I’d go for fun and it was an eye opening and enlightening experience.” He then followed The Grateful Dead around for about a dozen shows, igniting his interest in the jam-band scene.

Walther attended James Madison University where he majored in Hotel and Restaurant Management.  After graduating, he worked in corporate restaurant positions until his late 20’s, at which point he started to feel as if it was time for a change.  “I decided to just try and work within my passion.  I figured, do what you love, and the money will follow.”  From there, he slowly worked to organize different concerts in the Maryland and Virginia area.  The success of these concerts grew until the first official All Good festival, held in Brandywine, Maryland in 1997.

Now, thousands of music-lovers flock from across the country to form a large, yet intimate, community in the heart of the Shenandoah Mountains to attend the annual All Good Music Festival.  Traditionally, the time between May and August is known as festival season, and for many, All Good serves as the highlight of the summer.

The festival is hosted annually on a private property affectionately titled, Marvin’s Mountaintop.  Once used for coal mining, the peak of the mountaintop was leveled off, leaving a grassy valley elevated over 1,700 feet above sea level.  The festival is four days long, and tickets run for about $130.  Not bad, considering the price includes three nights of camping in the heart of West Virginia. 

What separates All Good from other festivals is that only one band plays at a time and while the festival has been held at many different sites and featured hundreds of different artists, Walther has always kept this factor constant.  He believes that “when fans come to these mega festivals, they spend 20 minutes at one stage and then run to the next and end up chasing music all day; it’s hard to get into the groove and build energy like that.  So we build it slowly in one location, and by Sunday everyone is having a great time in this really family-style atmosphere, and everyone’s all brothers and sisters.  That’s what I look forward to every year, that energy.” This is one of the reasons Walther believes college students get so much out of the festival and explains, “I want students to see the festival as not only a vacation, but a cultural experience.  I want it to be a time for them to really interact with their friends and to get away from the somewhat crazy and tense world that we live in.”

The large amount of political activism featured at All Good is another factor that makes the festival unique.  Several advocacy groups will be in attendance this year, including Headcount, a popular non-partisan grass roots organization that registered over 100,000 voters during the 2008 election season.

So, what can you expect from this year’s festival? Consistent with past years, the lineup is jam-packed with big name artists and diverse musical tastes.  Headliners include Ben Harper, Bob Weir, Robert Randolph, and Keller Williams. Check out the full lineup at www.allgoodfestival.com