Folk Fest Press Conference, April 14, World Cafe Live

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Folk Fest Press Conference, April 14, World Cafe Live

POSTED: Thursday, April 17, 2008, 7:51 PM

Filed Under: Music

The Baird Sisters

Folk Fest the next generation?

Gene Shay, known as the King of Bad Jokes for his MC set change diversions at the Philadelphia Folk Festival and a smooth talker on XPN radio, sometimes surprises with a dab of self-deprecating humor. At Monday’s Folk Festival press conference Folk Song Society prez Lisa Schwartz gave him a glowing intro which he proceeded to downplay. Rather than brag about his having MC’d every edition of the festival he helped found, 47 this August, God willing, Shay said “I’m shooting for 50, ” then mused that he’d seen Libba Cotton (composer of every fingerpicker’s early project, “Freight Train”) insist on playing when she had to be carried on stage in a chair. “I have images of them doing that for me!” he joked. Truthfully Shay looks spry. It’s the festival, on the other hand, that had many have worried, after several years of torrential rains keeping the crowd numbers low. It’s a gigantic undertaking, as Andy Braunfeld, longtime member of the festival management team has often said, for the weekend it occurs in Upper Salford township, the event is suddenly, if temporarily, one of the larger, municipalities in Montgomery County. There needs to be a big crowd to pay the bills for all those city services. For years that crowd was a dependable core who would show up for the camping, sharing homemade food and music, no matter who was booked. That core still exists, witness the advance weekend ticket sales that were available, albeit at a significant discount, only until the press conference.

Shay mused about “people my age” — meaning the original festival supporters — not wanting to bake on a hillside or, has been the case several recent festivals, slide in serious mud. “They want to sit on the porch and rock, ” segueing neatly into the introduction of the men who are charged with attracting a younger audience, artistic directors Rich Kardon and Jesse Lundy.

Lundy was given credit for shaping this year’s lineup. He is several decades younger than Shay, but they have a world of music in common. Cutting to the chase, the ostensible reason for the press conference was to announce the talent. Here are some of the old faves that Gene Shay has played on his weekly radio show for years and frequently intro’d at the festival: Janis Ian, Tom Paxton and Judy Collins. Beausoleil always brings joy to Cajun music lovers.

Fair enough. There will be comfortingly familiar faces on the stage. But Lundy is tasked with persuading the young urban audience to leave downtown for the wilds of Montco. Kimya Dawson, tasting mainstream success thanks to the Juno soundtrack is one of his picks. Hometown artists the Baird Sisters closed the press conference with pleasantly mountainy harmony and old time banjo. One of the Bairds is also part of the Espers whose online mp3s promise to please anyone who enjoyed Fairport Convention when they rocked the hillside (if you’ve seen the famous conga line shot, that was the band which got the whole crowd locked onto one another, like a dragon dance dress rehearsal). The Espers will also “curate” a 90 minute or so block of afternoon stage time. The artist/curator concept is new this year, allowing the musicians to dream up the musical summit meetings of workshops, rather than having the bookers arrange the potential hybrids.

Hoots and Hellmouth’s bouncing presence should persuade their loyalists to finally take the plunge and pitch a tent for the weekend. Equally high energy, the Lee Boys bring the singing and shouting of sacred steel guitar. More local innovators, Tin Bird Choir, are not as high voltage, but the pulse remains strong. Will this be the year when the festival experiences a sea change, or will the audience shift be more gradual? Almost 50 years ago, when the first Philadelphia Folk Festival was dreamed up, music festivals were relatively rare. Now there are so many that it would be a career in itself to get to all of them in this region alone. To keep a big undertaking like the Folk Festival afloat will be no mean trick, but clearly those in charge are devoted to keeping the event going with creativity and chutzpah. For example, Steve Earle will be on the Saturday afternoon stage along with this wife Alison Moorer. What is not clear is if his latest collaborator — rumored to be a scratchin’ DJ will also be part of the show.

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Featuring everything from event roundups to concert reviews and sex talk, City Paper's Critical Mass is a space for off-the-wall coverage of Philly's A&E scene.

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