The 22nd annual Rocky Mountain Folks Festival has some familiar names on lineup for 2012, as announced this morning by Planet Bluegrass.

Lyle Lovett & His Band, Amos Lee and Randy Newman lead the pack — and they’ll all be a treat to see at the relatively intimate Planet Bluegrass ranch in Lyons Aug. 17-19.

But perhaps the most exciting name so far is Dawes, the L.A. indie-folk outfit that turned many heads last year at nationwide festivals and at Red Rocks Amphithatre opening for Alison Krauss and Union Station.

Three-day passes, $125, are on sale now through bluegrass.com. While the festival itself is not likely to sell out for a few more months, fewer than two dozen spaces remain for the instructional “Song School” (Aug. 12-16). The preliminary Song School faculty includes Mary Gauthier, Darrell Scott and Peter Himmelman, according to the release.

Initial Folks Festival lineup:

Lyle Lovett & His Band
Amos Lee
Randy Newman
Kasey Chambers
Dawes
Darrell Scott
Peter Himmelman
Elephant Revival
Caleb Hawley

Revisit our coverage of the 2011 Folks Festival.

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John Hendrickson is the managing editor of Reverb and a multimedia journalist for The Denver Post. Follow his rants on music and more on Twitter.