By DAVID GARBE For The Beacon News

Sixty-some years ago, when Ed Weiss was a boy, a relative gave him a battered ukulele. But Weiss never learned to play it until this weekend, when he dug out the pint-sized instrument to bring with him to the Fox Valley Folk Music and Storytelling Festival.

Along with his wife and about 20 other newbies on borrowed ukuleles, the Batavia man participated in a festival workshop on Monday devoted to the miniature guitar.


During the Fox Valley Folk Music and Storytelling Festival in Geneva over the weekend, musicians would frequently gather for jam sessions before and after their performances.



They strummed and plucked under the guidance of Lil' Rev, a Milwaukee-based folk musician.

"If you endeavor to play the ukulele, you should know that you are spreading joy throughout the world," Lil' Rev told his pupils. "You walk into a room with one of these and everybody smiles."

In just a few minutes, he had all of them ready to accompany him to the Louisiana folk classic "Iko Iko:" "Oh my grandma and your grandma, were sitting by the fire ... "

The cheerful sound of two dozen ukuleles spilled out of the Island Park Pavilion, drifting across the bustling lawns to the nearest tent, where a group of traditional Irish musicians were jamming on flutes and fiddles and drums.

Past that tent was another impromptu jam session, this one on a rip-roaring bluegrass bent. Twenty yards beyond, up on the main stage, the Mark Dvorak Trio was entertaining a crowd of hundreds. At the other end of the park, there were two more workshops in progress -- one on the guitar and another on songwriting -- not to mention a talk on politics by folk music superstar Peggy Seeger.

And of course, that was just the schedule for the 2 p.m. hour.

With eight simultaneous stages and more than 40 musicians and storytellers performing over the course of two days, the festival presents folk music fans with some agonizing dilemmas: Do you listen to the acts on the main stage? Or learn how to do a traditional English country dance? Or join a jam session?

The festival has always used a multi-stage format, said director Juel Ulven, which was particularly unusual when he founded the event in the 1970s. Now in its 33rd year, the Fox Valley Folk Music & Storytelling Festival has become the biggest of its kind in Illinois, drawing thousands of people from across the Midwest every Labor Day weekend.

The breadth of musical styles and traditions offered at the festival, along with the parallel scheduling, means that even casual visitors are likely to find something of interest at any given moment.

"I'm more of a jazz fan, actually," said Sandwich resident Diane Norman, shooting a sly glance over her shoulder to make sure no one would be offended. Still, she said, she has been coming to the folk festival every year for more than a decade, and counts it among her favorite musical events of the year.

"It's great seeing the people play and enjoying what they're doing," she said. And as a guitarist herself, "a lot of us who play like to watch these really good musicians to see what they're doing."

For those who are already fans of traditional art forms, the festival is a way to celebrate and preserve music and stories passed down through the generations.

"It's not music that was marketed. It's music that people loved and cared about. That's why this stuff survives," said Ulven.

One of the great strengths of traditional music, many performers said, was that it is designed to be participatory. Listeners don't just sit, they dance and sing along.

Back at the pavilion, Lil' Rev was winding down his crash course in the Ukulele.

"It's empowering to let people make music on their own, instead of just being consumers of music," he said. "(Traditional music) is real. It tells the stories of people's lives, their struggles and their joys and their sorrows." ...