What was your Favorite Folk Fest?

Subject: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: Jayto
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 12:43 PM

What has been your favorite Folk Festival you have ever attended?

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: The Sandman
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 01:01 PM

whitby, 1976.

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: Midchuck
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 01:15 PM

Old Songs before they put in the camping restrictions and half ruined it.
About '99 thur '02 or so.

Peter.

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: C. Ham
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 01:20 PM

All time = various Mariposas of the 1970s

Last decade = Champlain Valley 2000-2001

This year = Ottawa

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: john f weldon
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 01:29 PM

Newport 65 when Bob Dylan... ...ah you all know the story...
Why? Because the journey was an adventure, and when I tell some people about it they think it was the most important event of my life.

This soundless video of the trip comes from a super-8 camera.

newport journey 65

As to the best for musical reasons, that would be a tough choice. Maybe Champlain Valley 86, when I discovered that there were a lot more talented musicians around than I had suspected.

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: GUEST,Greycap
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 01:43 PM

Any 70s Cambridge at Cherry Hinton hall

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 02:23 PM

Newport '65 for me, too.

I've told this story here before, but I know you, Jayto, haven't seen it yet, and it bears repeating.

I was not yet quite 18 years old at the time, had just graduated from high school, and made the trip from New Jersey to Rhode Island with one of my buddies and a couple of his friends.

During the early stages of the Saturday night main-stage concert, I got on line at a beer booth, bought two cup (which was the per-customer limit), and immediately proceeded back to the end of the line to buy two more for the rest of my party, starting to drink from my own papercup, of course.

A couple of local police were observing, and while they had apparently conceded that it would be impossible to completely clamp down on underage drinking, they would keep a sharp eye out for repeat offenders lining up for repeat purchases without returning to their seats to enjoy the music. I fit the profile exactly, and was hauled off to the local jail for the night. No formal charges, no crimial record ~ the couple-dozen or so of us rounded up on Saturday evening were released around sunrise, early Sunday morning.

So, that's how and why I just missed the historic performance by Bob Dylan with Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper, and the rhythm section of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. I'll never be able to give eyewitness testimony as to whether or not Pete Seeger really tried to cut the cable with an ax ~ I wasn't there, I was just a few miles away in a jail cell.

I had been in attendance at the Butterfield Band's afternoon "workshop" appearance, and observed Dylan and Kooper looking on from the side, looking very weird and out-of-place with their electricly frizzy hair, dark sunglasses, tight pants, highheeled boots and brightly colored shirts. (The rest of us, performers and fans alike, tended toward a much grungier and more casual style.)

I figured something had to be up. As you may or may not know, Dylan had already "gone electric" as a recording artist, even if he had not begun doing live shows with any kind of backing band ~ "Like A Rolling Stone" had already been recorded and released, and was a current radio hit at the time, blaring from car radios even in the festival parking area. People should not have been shocked and surprised by that "historic moment" later that evening, but apparently, many were. I'm sure that there were many folk-purist types who never deliberately listened to top-40 radio, but it would have been difficult NOT to at least overhear the ubiquitous airplay of Dylan's first great rock anthem during that summer of 1965.

That was my first experience of a jail cell, by the way, but not the last. In subsequent years, I would become more-or-less "radical" and would participate in various acts of civil disobedience. While my first arrest had absolutely no idealistic or polical motivation, it was, to an extent, "countercultural," and I suppose it served me as an introduction to some things that happended in later years.

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: Beer
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 02:33 PM

The 30th Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival which took place in 2006.
Beer (adrien)

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 02:44 PM

Miskin

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: john f weldon
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 02:47 PM

PoppaGator, that's a sad tale. We stayed out of the slammer, so i can report that tales of booing etc are grossly exaggerated.   From where I was sitting, the audience was enjoying both acoustic & electric sets.

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 02:50 PM

Great Hudson River Revival - I believe it was 1978.   It was the first "big" festival that the Clearwater produced on the banks of the Hudson.   I remember meeting Steve Goodman and doing a quick interview. Arlo Guthrie was there and a surprise guest - Elizabeth Cotton. I think it was the first time I saw Pete Seeger.

A couple of years later, I will always remember the "final" performance from the original Weavers with special guests including Holly Near.   I also remember Emmy Lou Harris performed - and I can still fondly recall that she was wearing what had to be the tighest jeans I've ever seen. Ahh memories!!

The early Hudson River Revivals were amazing experiences for me. I remember seeing Martin, Bogan & Armstrong and being blown away! The early revivals seemed to carry on the spirit of Newport (the original) and mixed in quite a bit of traditional music from musicians who were practitioners and not entertainers. It really helped solidify my love affair with folk music.

Sadly, the time they are a changin and recent Revivals have not lived up to my expectations.   The festival has been replaced in my heart by Old Songs, which is beyond a shadow of a doubt my favorite festival.

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: Fidjit
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 03:00 PM

Cambridge 72. Steeleye at their best. Etc.

The last Miskin. Where I sang my voice away.

White Horse 2008.

Chas

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: cptsnapper
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 03:08 PM

Norwich in the 70s

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: Jock O' Dreams
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 03:08 PM

Miskin, by a mile!

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: john f weldon
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 03:09 PM

I think this counts. In 1968, the American Government used the Expo 67 American Pavillion in Montreal as an all-summer long folk fest. Bill Munroe & company. Elizabeth Cotten. Roosevelt Sykes. ...and... ...a long, long list of great performers.

Does anyone else remember this, or was I hallucinating?

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: C. Ham
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 03:15 PM

John,

I do believe it was in 1971, not 1968. If I recall correctly, it was called the Smithsonian Folklife Festival.

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: Hawker
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 03:23 PM

Miskin

Bude this year.... but then I am biased.
Cheers Lucy

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: GUEST,Guest: elmore
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 03:49 PM

Fox Hollow 1966. Changed my life.

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: C. Ham
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 03:52 PM

I went to Fox Hollow a couple of times in the 1970s. What I remember most was that it rained constantly both times I was there.

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: john f weldon
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 04:08 PM

C.Ham.. ..for those years, I'll trust your memory over my own. Still, I think there were events in several years, which I may be mixing together.
I also saw Pete Seeger and the Hudson Valley guys, and Joan Baez, and I'm pretty sure that was 68 or 69, but maybe at another location on the Expo site.

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: C. Ham
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 04:11 PM

There may have been events in other years, but I distinctly remember attending often over the summer of '71.

I think I remember seeing Joan Baez at Expo '67.

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 04:12 PM

Any Brandywine Mountain Convention when it didn't flood.

Ditto Morris Brothers Festivals.

All Clifftops.

Russ (Permanent GUEST)

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: muppitz
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 04:15 PM

Cleethorpes the year I went skinny dipping at 6am, 1997, nearly froze to death but it was lots of fun!
The rest of it was a complete blast as I recall, I think that years festival was the same one I saw Jez Lowe for the first time too, all in all a good time!

muppitz
x

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 04:21 PM

Whitby in the days of the fringe events run by Roy Acko and the Taffy Thomas spectaculars.

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 06:06 PM

Nearly ALL of them over the last forty years !

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 06:21 PM

Cambridge '75 for me. Or was it '76 ?

Anyway, the mighty David Bromberg made it his own as I remember, both on the main stage with his band, and also in the guitar workshop along with Dick Fegy. In that same workshop I also recall Isaac Guillory (first time I had seen him but I know he was an old hand at Cambridge), Paul Geremiah, Stefan grossman and Ton Van Bergeyk (sp ?)

There were some English performers as well, I believe ...

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 06:31 PM

Hands down, the Eisteddfod in Massachusetts in the many years it was run by my friend Howard Glasser. Howard's warmth, generosity and modest set the tone for the festival, year after year. I think I performed there in six different years. Not only was the music wonderful, but ballads and song were unusually respected there. Not that there weren't instrumentalists, too, but Howard was more of a song man, and the line-up of performers reflected that. The performers mostly did music from the British Isles. I was one the token Americans...

Second place would go to the North Country Folk Festival in Ironwood, Michigan. It was a folk festival with authentic folks. Ironwood is on the upper penninsula of Michigan and there are many different European ethnic groups that settled there. The Firday night dance featured traditional music and dance from seven or eight different countries, with the dancers and musicians in traditional costumes. In the whole weekend that I was there, I not only didn't recognize what I was eating, but I couldn't even pronounce it. It was all traditional food cooked my local residents. They had someone making a canoe, and a group of lumberjacks built a log cabin from the groun up, in three days. Talk about traditions!

Jerry

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: Mark Ross
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 06:33 PM

Philadelphia '76, where I got to play with Merle Travis(a just-the-2- of-us session backstage as well as a workshop)Steve Goodman, Jethro Burns, Steve Goodman, a late night blues jam with Gatemouth Brown and Carl Martin, Winnie Winston, Pat Chamberlain, Saul Broudy, and somewhere in there Brownie McGhee showing me progressions in his room at 2AM, with a bottle of Dewars on hand for lubricating the strings and the mouth.

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: Bill D
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 06:36 PM

The first year at Winfield, when Doc Watson played with Norman Blake & Dan Crary...well, the 2nd year, also, when Doc met Merle Travis, and played with Norman Blake, Dan Crary & Tony Rice.......and a little kid named Jimmy Gyles won the flat pick contest BOTH years.

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 07:02 PM

Over the years I've had four favourites. Maldon (NW of Melbourne) and Numeralla (S of Canberra) were excellent weekend festivals in the years I was able to go to them (I was there at the beginning of both but now live too far away); they both encouraged a lack of separation between performers and audiences but each had its own character.

Nariel (at Nariel Creek, in Victoria and near the upper Murray) has always been a favourite; the locals have maintained good relationships between their traditions and those of the visitors. A great, but low-key, event.

The National (peripatetic around major cities in Oz until 1992, when it became sedentary in Canberra) still engages actively participatory relationships between audiences and performers and has the full range from the super stars to the eight-year-old buskers.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: GUEST,Jim
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 07:35 PM

My first Folk Festival, the 1961 Mariposa F.F. held in Orillia, Ont. was great. The first time I got to meet a bunch of fellow folkies.

The 1965 Mariposa Festival in Maple Leaf Stadium in Toronto was probably my favourite. I got to meet John Hurt before I even knew who he was. After talking to him for a few minutes amnd discovering that he knew Rev. Davis personally, I ran to my brother and our buddy and told them that I'd met a personal friend of Gary Davis. Imagine my surprise when I saw him perform later that day.

My current favourite is the Shelter Valley Folk Festival near Grafton, Ontario. Well run and always a good time.

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: Rabbi-Sol
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 07:36 PM

For me it will always be the Sea Music Festival at Mystic, Connectict. Every year it seems to get better and better. Although it is a low budget affair no other festival can match the comradarie and close knit relationships that have developed there over the past 30 plus years.

                                                    SOL

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: john f weldon
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 08:11 PM

It's not the particular festival, or the headliners. It's the odd moments.

Watching a Texas fiddler teach tunes to a Massachusetts banjo-player, and then start to jam like old friends.

Or the old-time session that started under a tree and became a long-lasting old-timey=mass-choir of fiddles & banjoes that kept on going for hours...

Or those groups that form for a year, or a few months, and create a unique sound; but they won't last long, or even make a CD, but... ..if you were there... ...give you a thrilling experience that not everyone can share...

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: Barry Finn
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 08:27 PM

My first MUSIC (not folk) festival & the most memorable was Woodstock. 6 of us late teens & early 20 somethings went.

I don't remember the years but the last 3 of the late 60's Newport festivals (anyone remember the yr of the last of those?)

I with Jerry on the Eisteddfod's at South Eastern Mass Un. For me during the mid 70's to sometime in the 80's. That's were I had my 1st heavy doses of non American trad folk music, what a long lasting love affair.

I'm also with you Sol, Mystic is my yearly favorite. I've been going since, I think the start & missed only a few.

Barry

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 08:32 PM

"My first MUSIC (not folk) festival & the most memorable was Woodstock. "

I thought you looked familiar!

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 08:57 PM

Hey, I was at Woodstock, too...

Jerry

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: C. Ham
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 09:00 PM

I saw the movie.

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: topical tom
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 11:47 PM

I have been to many but for sheer talent I would choose Newport Folk Festival 1984.True, the performers were almost solely American.The line-up included Arlo Guthrie, Tom Paxton,Taj Mahal,Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Mimi Farina, Doc and Merle Watson,and Bela Fleck and the Newgrass Revival.
For venue, I would say Champlain Valley, though Newport harbour with all it's boats was hard to beat.For a smaller festival,Apple Hollow in Franklin, Quebec certainly,in my opinion,deserves honourable mention.

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: Barry Finn
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 01:31 AM

Oh ya, I think it was the last Fox Hollow, I was on my way home. I sailed from Hawaii to San Deigo, hitch-hiked up to Vancover, lost my heart for a 2nd time & bought a car in Seattle & drove straight to Fox Hollow, stayed up singing till the sun rose with my friend Mark. Must've been around 1980. When I finally got home I had a dime in my pocket.

Barry

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: GUEST,woodsie
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 03:51 AM

Without a doubt KNOCKHOLT in kent every June and September - pur magic with an intimate crowd of nutters!

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: GUEST,Marymac90
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 09:12 AM

Fox Hollow 75 to 77--intimate and magical!

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: open mike
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 09:59 AM

WAS? why past tense?
i am about to attend for the 30th time (or so)
www.strawberrymusic.com festival..
happens twice each year
near yoseimite nat'l park in the high sierra.
Laurel
i camp at dung beetle camp

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 11:12 AM

Now that Miskin is no mre, Knockers is my fave too but it is really more of a folk ale than a folk fest...

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: john f weldon
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 11:34 AM

TTom - well Apple Hollow is the friendliest & folksiest. It just needs to grow a wee bit. Which, one imagines, it will!

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 01:13 PM

"Here!" "Yo!"

Count me in as one more Woodstock attendee.

I was there for just about 24 hours, sunrise Saturday through sunrise Sunday.

I had not planned to attend; I was living at my parents' house in New Jersey after failing to graduate from college (as expected) in June '69, working 40 hours Mon-Fri at a factory job and saving up to return to school for one lousy three-credit course.

The newspapers, of course, were full of stories about the massive crowds, the NY Throughway being closed, etc. Shortly after getting home from work Friday evening, I got a phone call from a friend who was living with his folks, in circumstances not unlike my own, out on Long Island ~ "Wanna go to Woodstock?"

My initial reaction, of course, was "No way." How could we expect to get within miles of the place?

He explained that an old friend of his knew the back roads of the Catskills like a native, having summered there with his family all his life, and had volunteered to navigate if given a ride. This guy lived on Staten Island.

Some of you may know your Metropolitan New York geography, but I'm sure that many others do not. Suffice it to say that it took quite a while, on a Friday evening, for my buddy to leave suburban Long Island in his vintage 1947 Pontiac sedan, drive the Belt Parkway around Queens and Brooklyn to the Verrazano Bridge, find his friend's home somewhere on Staten Island, continue west across the Ooterbridge Crossing into central New Jersey, and finally pull into our driveway in Plainfield around midnight.

We took the Parkway only about as far as the NJ-NY state line and then moved over to two-lane back roads. It was dark, I had no idea where we were and how quickly we were making progress, and I eventually fell asleep in that old Pontiac's big comfy back seat. I awoke as we were pulling up to park at the side of a road, just as the sun was coming up.

"This is about as close as we're gonna get," said our guide (a fellow I had never met before, would never see again, and whose name I can't remember). We got out to walk and, in no more than 15 minutes, we came to the top of a hill and could see the stage down at the bottom. Yes!

Woodstock was, of course, famously wet and muddy, but the day we were there was the driest. The effects of the previous days of heavy rain were evident, of course; the footing was slippery and in places the mud was pretty deep. It started to rain ~ just a bit ~ about the time the music was supposed to start, which delayed things for a while.

If I remember correctly (lol), the music finally got underway sometime during the afternoon. I'm just about positive that Canned Heat was the first act to appear after the rain had pretty-much stopped, but the skies were still pretty gloomy. Santana was playing when the sun finally broke through. One act followed another for the rest of the afternoon and evening, all the way through until sunrise Sunday.

Bands I know we witnessed after dark included, in no particular order, the Who, Sly & Family Stone, CSN&Y ("we've never played in public before"), Jefferson Airplane, and last but not least, closing the proceedings as the sun was coming up with his famous rendition of the National Anthem, Jimi Hendrix.

When the music stopped that early Sunday morning (with an announcement that there'd be a long break before starting the "next day's" schedule), we stood up, walked to the car, and returned to our respective homes. We followed (I assume) the same back-road route that got us there, and didn't encounter any traffic, roadblocks, or hindrances of any kind. All three of us were up and at 'em
and at our respective jobs that Monday morning.

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 01:41 PM

Staithes last three years.
But then not been to Saddleworth,cambridge,whitby,Scarbro et al .....
Maybe when we retire?

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: Cats
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 01:57 PM

Woodstock... I was in the wrong country and got thrown out of the cinema for being too young to see it. Did you all realise that you are x rated?

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 03:15 PM

During my 24 hours at Woodstock ~ early in the day, before the music began ~ I was skinnydipping in a waterfall when a bunch of Japanese-looking fellows with film cameras and microphones showed up and persisted in shooting for several minutes.

Perhaps I'm part of some nudie film somewhere, but if so, I never saw or heard about it. I know for a fact that no footage including me is in the Woodstock movie.

Well, I suppose it's the world's loss. I was not nearly so flabby then as I am now, and probably looked reasonably human even without clothes on.

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: growler
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 03:45 PM

I ,sadly, don't get time to go to many,but Rochester Sweeps is always enjoyable

Subject: RE: What was your Favorite Folk Fest?
From: Mrs Scarecrow
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 03:51 PM

Miskin