Rob DeRosa: The Man Behind The Music At Meriden Daffodil Fest

Few individuals drill down into Connecticut’s musical landscape with the laser-focus of Rob DeRosa.

Over the years, DeRosa has operated record labels (Thin Man Music) and managed bands (the Manchurians). If you live near Middletown, you can hear him every Thursday evening at 5:05 p.m. over the airwaves of Wesleyan’s WESU 88.1 FM, where he hosts Homegrown, an 85-minute showcase for Connecticut music, with tons of on-air performances and interviews.

And for the past 17 years, DeRosa has programmed the Meriden Daffodil Festival, perhaps the state’s best and longest-running celebration of local music, which returns this weekend, April 25 and 26, to Hubbard Park.

“I had about 80 submissions this year,” DeRosa said. “Some years that number has been as high as 150.”

There’s a synergy that emerges between all of DeRosa’s activities: Hosting a weekly show requires knowing who’s playing what, at any given time, across disparate scenes in Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport, Danbury, Waterbury and New London. That constant state of awareness informs booking decisions for the festival.

“I get so many records in anyway because of my radio show,” DeRosa said. “It gives me a great opportunity to audition bands through their music, when they send it.”

As soon as one festival ends, DeRosa starts planning the next one, focusing primarily on new album releases. Lines West (Welcome Stage, Saturday, 2 p.m.), a Bridgeport quartet, put out a new collection called “Stop, Look and Listen” in 2014, which caught DeRosa’s ear: “It was a really good record, so I asked them to do a set.”

Same with Ponybird (Welcome Stage, Sunday, 12:30 p.m.): “[Jennifer Dauphinais] requested to play for many years, and when she put out this new record, it was obvious that her time was now.”

A band called Gigglejuice (Welcome Stage, Sunday, 11:15 a.m.) requested a slot every year for nearly a decade. “This year they put out a great new record,” DeRosa said, “so as soon as I heard that new record I called and said, ‘You can count on a slot at the Daffodil Festival.'”

DeRosa’s presence in Connecticut music circles has led to fruitful working relationships with like-minded boosters. In 2012, Connecticut Music Awards organizer Chip McCabe invited DeRosa to hand out the Best New Band award; DeRosa decided on the spot to give the winner a Daffodil Festival set.

“Most Connecticut bands are dying to play the Daffodil Festival, so it got quite a rise out of the crowd and the bands appearing,” DeRosa said. That snap decision turned into a tradition; both Branchwater (2014 Best New Band) and 1974 (Best Overall Band) will play Bandshell Stage sets this year, on Saturday (6 p.m.) and Sunday (1:45 p.m.) respectively.

In 2015, DeRosa had two stages to program, instead of the usual three (there’s no music in the Food Tent this year), which translates into 12 fewer band slots. But scaling back also translated into a higher percentage of Daffodil Festival debuts; most perennial acts were Food Tent bands like River City Slim and the Zydeco Hogs, who won’t return this year.

“Some people in the Food Tent were saying it was too loud, so we’re giving them an opportunity to see how completely empty it sounds with no sound whatsoever,” DeRosa added. “I think it’s going to be a real wake-up call. You need music in there. It’s an experiment.”

Among the 23 acts performing this year, DeRosa is excited about back-to-back sets by blues-rock trio the Balkun Brothers (Bandshell, Sunday, 3 p.m.) and the Funky Dawgs Brass Band (4:15 p.m.) and the pre-fireworks headlining set by Gary Burr and Georgia Middleman (Welcome Stage, Saturday, 7 p.m.), legendary Nashville songwriters with Meriden roots who’ve written hits for Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Garth Brooks, LeAnn Rimes, Kenny Chesney and many others.

“[Gary Burr] is one of the top five most-covered writers of all-time,” DeRosa said. “It’s kind of a homecoming thing… They perform all the songs they’ve written for other people, and everyone goes, ‘Whoa, they wrote that?!'”