Smithsonian Folkways – AcousticMusicScene.com

Philadelphia Folk Festival is Back, Aug. 16-18

Michael Kornfeld — Fri, 09 Aug 2024 02:27:37 +0000

The Philadelphia Folk Festival returns to the historic Old Pool Farm in Upper Salford Township, near bucolic Schwenksville, Pennsylvania, August 16-18, following a hiatus in 2023. Thousands of music lovers are expected to converge on the farm, located some 45 minutes from Philadelphia, for the 61st edition of the family-friendly event that is produced and presented by the Philadelphia Folksong Society, a nonprofit arts organization.

The festival will feature more than 50 musical artists and acts performing daily from 11 a.m. to midnight on Friday and Saturday and from 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. on Sunday. Seven stages –including the shady, family-oriented Dulcimer Grove — will offer a diverse array of international, regional and hyper-local performers, daytime workshops, in-the-round sets featuring several artists/acts, and more. As in years past, many artisans will display and sell their crafts, while a wide array of food and beverages will be available for purchase.

This year’s festival headliners are, Gangstagrass (a group whose innovative sound is a fusion of bluegrass and hip hop) John Oates (formerly of the popular Philadelphia-based pop-soul duo Hall & Oates), and virtuosic banjo player Tony Trischka’s EarlJam – A Tribute to Earl Scruggs (in which the acclaimed bluegrass artist and backing band trace the musical story of the American bluegrass legend known for popularizing a three-finger banjo picking style).

Among the other notable artists slated to perform during the festival are Adam Ezra Group, Calvin Arsenia, Cajun band Beausoleil avec Michael Doucet, Craig Bickhardt with Aislann Bickhardt, Johnathan Byrd, Ellis Paul, The Faux Paws, Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer, Dom Flemons, John Flynn, John Gallagher, Jr., The Great Groove Band, Alice Howe & Freebo, Jess Klein, A.J. Lee & Blue Summit, Crys Matthews, Pete Muller and the Kindred Souls, Aaron Nathans & Michael G. Ronstadt, Celtic roots ensemble RUNA, The Secret Sisters, Shanna in a Dress, Alexis P. Suter Band, Stephen Wade, Nigel Wearne, and Windborne. A number of talented Canadian artists are on the bill – including Angelique Francis Band, Cassie & Maggie, J.P. Cormier, Dave Gunning, Miss Emily, and Genevieve Racette.

Dom Flemons, The American Songster makes a return appearance at this year’s Philadelphia Folk Festival. (Photo: Vania Kinard)

“Having played the festival as a soloist and as a founding member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops [a Grammy Award-winning African –American string band], I always look forward to making it back to Philly for another wonderful festival,” said Dom Flemons. Known as The American Songster, Flemons is a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, Smithsonian Folkways recording artist, music scholar, and historian. Flemons –- whose musical repertoire includes country, blues, folk, bluegrass, and Americana – told AcousticMusicScene.com: “It’s great to be able to bridge the gap between the earlier 1960s folk revival and the folk revival of the 21stt century. To have taken the stage where so many of my heroes have played is a great honor. I think of musicians like Taj Mahal, Elizabeth Cotton, Happy Traum [who died last month], Mississippi John Hurt, and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, to name a few.”

John Flynn, a Delaware-based singer-songwriter and social justice activist & troubadour, has been a frequent performer at the festival and closes it out this year on the Main Stage. “When people ask me how I’m doing I often say ‘better than I deserve.’ They always think I’m joking but I’m really not,” he told AcousticMusicScene.com. “I am so grateful for the chances I’ve been given in this life and that’s kind of how I feel about the Philadelphia Folk Festival. These folks have supported my music from the very beginning, and it’s a real honor to be getting a chance to appear with so many wonderful artists on the final night of this year’s fest.”

Artists Affiliated with Music Artists Cooperative (MAC) and Xtreme Folk Scene Also Slated to Perform

The Philadelphia Folk Festival also will feature performances by members of the Philadelphia Folksong Society’s Musical Artists Cooperative (MAC) and from The Xtreme Folk Scene, a Philadelphia-based music community dedicated to supporting dynamic and innovative folk music that pushes the boundaries of tradition and celebrates the fusion of various genres.

The Musical Artists Cooperative (MAC) is an initiative designed to support professional musicians who perform regularly in the local area, with many touring nationally as well. Slated to perform on the Lobby Stage on Friday, Aug, 16, between 1-5:30 p.m. are Last Chance, CubiZm, Jefferson Berry & the UAC, Bethlehem and Sad Patrick, Jersey Corn Pickers, Kicking Down Doors, The Hoppin Boxcars, and Meghan Cary. On Saturday morning, Aug. 17, Mara Levine and Gathering Time will perform on the Craft Stage from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m., and on Sunday morning, Aug. 18, The Honey Badgers and The Edgehill Rounders play the Tank Stage from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. Other MAC-affiliated artists set to perform during the festival include Emily Drinker, Aaron Nathans, David C. Perry, Jackson Pines, and Two of a Kind.

Folksinger Mara Levine will perform with folk-rock harmony trio Gathering time during the festival. (Photo: Manny Krevat)

Mara Levine, a folksinger known for her beautiful interpretations of traditional and contemporary folk songs, said that she was “thrilled and so grateful” to be performing at the festival with her musical partners in the Long Island-based folk-rock harmony trio Gathering Time. As vice chair of MAC this year, she has also been working with other chairs – including Rob Lincoln, Jefferson Berry and Rusty Crowell & Jan Alba – “to build our strictly volunteer-run organization of about 50 mostly local acts. ”Levine, who has been home in New Jersey helping to care for her elderly parents since the start of the pandemic, noted that “It’s been a very rewarding way to be engaged in our community, helping to promote and also foster the development of our artists, while working remotely and supporting the Philadelphia Folksong Society” of which she has been an active member for more than 20 years.

The Xtreme Folk Showcase, entitled “Anger, Hope, and Outrage,” will feature performances by Sug Daniels, Anarkkhipov, Persistent Resonators, A Day Without Love, and Matt Pless on the Tank Stage on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Xtreme Folk Scene also presents Xfest, an annual music festival featuring some of the edgiest folk artists in the greater Philadelphia area.

There’s also a festival within the festival for those who opt to camp onsite and enjoy some late-night musical revelry. The 40-acre campground – chock-a-block with tents – is home to a unique late-night scene, with singing by campfires and jamming into the early morning hours, as well as a Thursday night Camp Stage kickoff performance for campers only.

Fun activities and performances for families abound at Dulcimer Grove. (Photo: Michael Kornfeld)

Both day and full-festival passes are available for purchase. Discounted tickets are available for youth (ages 12-17) and children (ages 5-11), while all festival tickets without camping for Wee Folk (children up to age 4) are free. Ticket prices rise to gate pricing on August 15.

For more information about the Philadelphia Folk Festival – including stage schedules — and to order tickets, visit folkfest.org.

AcousticMusicScene.com Hosts Midnight Hoot at 2024 SERFA Conference

Michael Kornfeld — Sat, 04 May 2024 13:15:36 +0000

More than 300 people will converge on Black Mountain, North Carolina, May 9-12, 2024 for the annual Southeast Regional Folk Alliance (SERFA) Conference. An extended weekend of contemporary and traditional folk music, networking and learning opportunities, the conference will be keynoted by Rachael Sage and features 16 juried official showcases, along with a number of late-night private showcases hosted by AcousticMusicScene.com and others.

Nurture the Future is this year’s conference theme. “It was something we felt needed to be communicated as our world is changing every second of the day,” says Jill Kettles, SERFA’s board president. “We aim to uphold the past, mold the present, and project it for future generations; this is not just important but vital.”

The official showcases take place Friday and Saturday evenings, with each artist/act performing a 15-minute set. Unplugged private showcases follow from 10:40 p.m. to 2 a.m. Also on the agenda are daytime panel discussions and workshops, a Wisdom of the Elders session, a few thematic song circles, open mics, mentoring sessions, an awards presentation, an exhibit hall, communal meals, and plenty of other opportunities to learn, share and network –- including during built-in afternoon breaks in the programming. Informal jams and song circles also are apt to break out in the lobby and outside (weather permitting).

Rachael Sage, Award-Winning, Prolific Singer-Songwriter and Boutique Label Owner to Deliver Keynote Address

Rachael Sage will be the keynote speaker during the 2024 SERFA Conference.

Keynoting this year’s conference is internationally touring New York-based folk-pop artist Rachael Sage. A John Lennon Song Contest grand-prize winner, Rachael Sage is a prolific songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, poet, visual artist, former ballet dancer, and founder of MPress Records. In addition to releasing more than 20 self-produced albums and EPs on her boutique label, Sage has executive produced releases by Grammy-nominated and Billboard-charting artists such as Melissa Ferrick, Seth Glier, and K’s Choice. Her latest album, Another Side, is being released this month. It features guest vocalists Crys Matthews, Amy Speace and Sage’s labelmate Grace Pettis. A self-described “cancer thriver,” Sage is an activist and philanthropist who supports a variety of worthwhile causes.

Daytime Programming Includes Workshops, Song Circles, Think Tanks, and Mentoring Sessions

Like the past two, the 2024 SERFA Conference takes place at the YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly in Black Mountain, North Carolina.

An array of workshops and panel discussions will include “Add Teacher to Your Musician Resume,” “Banjo Fever: Banjos and Banjo Styles for Folk Music,” “Building and Sustaining a Successful Concert Series,” “Can’t Stop, Wont/t Stop: Hip Hop is Folk Music,” Connecting the Dots: Building a Stronger Profile,” “Engaging Your Fans: It’s Not All In-Person Anymore,” “The Heart of the Matter: Creating Emotional Impact in Songwriting,” “LGBTQ+ Voices in Americana: Perspectives, Representation, and Impact,” “MAD (Making A Difference) with Music,” “Song Keepers,” “Utilize Your PRO to Make Money Performing Your Original Music,” “We’re All Ears” (during which a panel comprised of folk DJs and other music industry veterans will offer snap evaluations of submitted songs after listening to the first minute or so of each one); “Writing for Film, Television, and Games,” “Yoga for Performing Musicians,” and “Your Voice is an Instrument: Vocals for Stage and Studio.”

Besides the workshops and panel discussions, there will be moderated, interactive “think tanks” on House Concerts and Small Venues and Hey, What’s Your Problem, one-on-one mentoring sessions, several thematic song circles, several thematic song circles, and a Wisdom of the Elders session during the daytime hours.

Wisdom of the Elders and SERFA Awards are Among Conference Highlights

The Wisdom of the Elders conversational panel session provides a structured opportunity for conference attendees to learn from and about veteran leaders in the folk community and for the elders to talk among themselves as well. Participants this year are Scott Berwick, Wayne Erbsen and Taylor Pie.

Berwick has long been active in American Federation of Musicians (AFM) Local 1000 (the traveling musicians union), has been attending SERFA conferences for the past decade, and has also been involved with the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, the Hudson Valley Folk Guild, and the Ashokan Center, as well as an informal, weekly song circle near his home in upstate New York.

Erbsen has been engaged in traditional American music for more than 50 years as a musician, recording artist (with nearly 20 albums to his credit), professor at Warren Wilson College and the University of North Carolina at Asheville, author and publisher (who has written and published 40 books), and a public radio DJ.

A Tennessee-based traveling folk minstrel and Americana artist, Taylor Pie (Susan Taylor) helped form the Pozo Seco Singers with Don Williams in the early 1960s and has been a solo singer-songwriter and musician since the folk group disbanded. Many notable artists have covered her songs, while Pie was inducted into the Old-Time Country Music Hall of Fame in 2015. Along with her friend Kathryn Harrison, she launched PuffBunny Records in 2007 to share her music and that of other artists she admires. Taylor Pie, who now handles A &R for the label, also stars in Nobody Famous, an award-winning music documentary that was screened during the 2022 SERFA conference.

Art Menius moderates Wisdom of the Elders and receives an award during the SERFA conference. (Photo: Neale Eckstein)

Art Menius moderates the Wisdom of the Elders session. A radio promoter and a veteran folk DJ, he also is among this year’s SERFA Awards honorees — along with Dom Flemons, the nonprofit organization Junior Appalachian Musicians, Inc., and Menius’ fellow folk DJ Taylor Caffery.

Menius, who currently hosts “The Revolution Starts Now” on Hillsborough, NC-based WHUP, has hosted radio shows on four stations since 2007. The first executive director of the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA), from 1985-1990, Menius also served as Folk Alliance International’s initial board president in 1990 and manager from 1991-1996, prior to serving as associate director of MerleFest for a decade and then as executive director of Appalshop in Whitesburg, Kentucky and The ArtsCenter in Carrboro, NC. He’s also produced concerts, festivals and conferences and worked as a fundraiser, marketing director, emcee, stage manager, and writer.

Dom Flemons, an Arizona native and Chicago area-based musician who has earned the moniker “The American Songster” since his repertoire covers more than 100 years of American roots music, records for Smithsonian Folkways. He is a songwriter, multi-instrumentalist (banjo, guitar, harmonica, jug, percussion, quills, fife, and rhythm bones), music scholar, actor, slam poet, record collector, and the creator, host and producer of American Songster Radio Show on WSM in Nashville, Tennessee. Earlier this year, he was named the grand-prize winner as well as first place honors for Best Folk/Americana Roots Album (for American Wildfire) in the International Acoustic Music Awards. In 2020, he received the prestigious United States Artists Fellowship Award in the Traditional Arts category. Two years later, he received a degree as Doctor of Humane Letters from his alma mater Northern Arizona University and was the commencement speaker at the graduation ceremony or the Class of 2022. Flemons was a founding member of Carolina Chocolate Drops, a Grammy Award-winning African-American old-time string band.

Junior Appalachian Musicians, Inc. (jamkids.org) is the nonprofit parent organization for more than 50 afterschool programs for children ages six and up. JAM provides communities with the requisite tools and support to teach children to play and dance to traditional old time and bluegrass music. Its program model introduces music through small group instruction on instruments common to the Appalachian region and provides youth with opportunities to learn traditional music with their peers from local teaching artists and to perform in their communities and regionally.

Taylor Caffery, the longtime host of “Hootenanny Power” on WRKF in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is the recipient of this year’s Kari Estrin Founding President’s Award. His weekly radio show incorporates musical styles and cultural influences from Caffery’s five decades on radio that began when he hosted his first show while in the U.S. Navy and continued with his college radio station KCSL. To that musical gumbo, he mixes in new discoveries from Folk Alliance International and SERFA conferences.

Dozens of Artists to be Featured in Official and Guerilla Showcases

Slated to present official showcases on Friday evening, May 10 are (in order of appearance) Sue Horowitz, Chris Haddox, Ron Fetner, A Tale of Two, Dustin Gaspard, Nicholas Edward Williams, Helene Cronin, and Admiral Radio. Saturday’s official showcase lineup features Jess Klein, Wes Collins, Bett Padgett, Cast Iron Bluegrass, Ruth and Max Bloomquist, Stone & Snow, Couldn’t Be Happiers, and Ordinary Elephant.

Here’s a link to a Spotify playlist that features one song from each of the official showcase artists.

Following the official showcases on Friday and Saturday, as well as an open mic on Thursday, late-night guerilla showcases will take place in various meeting rooms for several hours. AcousticMusicScene.com, which has had a presence at SERFA conferences since 2011, will host a couple of late-night song swaps and a midnight hoot (featuring more than two-dozen artists/acts – each performing one song) on Thursday, May 9, overnight. The AcousticMusicScene.com Midnight Hoot is a pre-arranged round-robin song swap that is intended to provide concert and festival presenters, folk DJs and others with an opportunity to get a small sampling of the music of a lot of artists in a short period of time on the conference’s opening night. It also enables artists to enjoy and each other’s company and music before the conference really gets into full swing on Friday.

Here’s the AcousticMusicScene.com Showcase schedule:

10:40 Brooklyn in the House: Carolann Solebello and Pat Wictor

11:00 Long Island Sound: Hank Stone and Jim Whiteman

11:30 Midnight Hoot, Part 1 (one song each):

Antonio Andrade, Max & Ruth Bloomquist, Dan & Faith, Katie Dahl, Annie Stokes

12:00 Midnight Hoot, Part 2 (one song each, not necessarily in this order)

Taylor Pie, The Farmer & The Crow, Amy Speace, Annie & Rod Capps, Marc Douglas Berardo, Karyn Oliver, Lindsay Whiteman, Miles & Mafale, Rachael Sage, Emma Frances, Nicholas Edward Williams, Noah Zacharin

1:00 Midnight Hoot, Part 3 (one song each, not necessarily in this order)

Jon Shain & FJ Ventre, Erin Ash Sullivan, Robert Bidney, Rob Lytle, Jim Patton & Sherry Brokus, Meg Braun, Alice Hasen, Brian Ashley Jones & Melanie Jean, Couldn’t Be Happiers, Reckless Saints, Siena Christie

AcousticMusicScene’s Michael Kornfeld is shown here with Taylor Pie, who will be part of a Wisdom of the Elders session and also hosts a late-night showcase during the 2024 SERFA Conference.

Editor’s Note: I have been an active participant in SERFA conferences since 2011. Besides hosting a couple of song swaps and an AcousticMusicScene.com Midnight Hoot at this one, I will be assisting PuffBunny Records (Taylor Pie’s label, for which I handle public relations) with its showcase. As a mentor, I will offer insights and counsel on various aspects of PR, social media and strategic communications. From 2014-2023, I served on the board of directors of Folk Alliance International and am a past president and former board member of Northeast Regional Folk Alliance.

Annual FAI Folk Radio Charts for 2022

Michael Kornfeld — Fri, 17 Feb 2023 19:30:14 +0000

Pharis & Jason Romero, a British Columbia-based folk duo, had the top album (Tell ‘Em You Were Gold on Smithsonian Folkways) and most-played song (“Souvenir”) on folk radio during 2022, while John McCutcheon, a revered Georgia-based folksinger-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, was the year’s most-played artist. So say charts compiled by Folk Alliance International based on radio playlists submitted to FOLKDJ-L, an electronic discussion group for DJs and others interested in folk-based music on the radio.

The 2022 Top Albums, Songs and Artists charts are based on 163,802 airplays reported on 5501 playlists submitted by 151 different folk DJs. The number of reported spins is shown below in parentheses.

Folk Alliance International (folk.org) is a nonprofit organization that aims to serve, strengthen, and engage the global folk music community through preservation, presentation and promotion.

Top Albums of 2022

Pharis & Jason Romero’s Tell ‘Em You Were Gold topped the FAI Folk Radio albums chart for 2022 and features the year’s most-played song, “Souvenir.”

1. Tell ‘Em You Were Gold by Pharis and Jason Romero (491)
2. The Light at the End of the Line by Janis Ian (438)
3. Songs From the River Wind by Eliza Gilkyson (406)
4. Last Days of Summer by Lucy Kaplansky (349)
5. DobroSinger by Abbie Gardner (346)
6. Leap! by John McCutcheon (329)
7. There’s a Bright Side Somewhere by Happy Traum (308)
8. Gravity, Wings, and Heavy Things by Chuck Brodsky (298)
9. Second-Hand by James Keelaghan (297)
10. What Are They Doing in Heaven Today? by Kathy Kallick & Friends /
Dodi Kallick (296)
11. Dark Enough to See the Stars by Mary Gauthier (292)
12. Backroads by Johnsmith (290)
13. Endless Grace by Deidre McCalla (288)
14. All New by Tom Paxton, Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer (284)
15. Crooked Tree by Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway (281)
15. The Coming of the Years by Joe Jencks (281)
17. Time Out Session #2 by The Accidentals (253)
18. Folk Hero by House of Hamill (249)
19. Still by David LaMotte (248)
20. Love Is the Only Thing by Peter Mulvey and SistaStrings (247)
21. Narrow Line by Mama’s Broke (242)
22. Tucson by Amy Speace (240)
23. Hold Our Ground by Tom Chapin (234)
24. Long Haul by John Wort Hannam (231)
25. All Is Quiet by Susan Cattaneo (220)
26. Small Towns by Stillhouse Junkies (218)
27. Lilygild by Hilary Hawke (214)
28. All Those Days of Drinking Dust by Tiffany Williams (213)
29. 12th of June by Lyle Lovett (204)
30. Raise the Roof by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss (196)
30. Apple and Setser by Apple and Setser (196)
32. I Can Face the Truth by Dana Cooper (195)
33. Of Hard Times and Harmony by Windborne (193)
33. Age of Apathy by Aoife O’Donovan (193)
33. 20 Printemps by Le Vent Du Nord (193)
36. Dirt Does Dylan by Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (190)
37. The Way the River Goes by Dan Weber (186)
38. Bullet in the Cabin Wall by Cheryl Cawood (185)
38. Hurricane Clarice by Allison De Groot and Tatiana Hargreaves (185)
40. Flare by Pat Wictor (178)
41. Strings, Wings and Curious Things by Sue Horowitz (176)
42. Songs From the Beginning by Greg Greenway (175)
43. The New Faith by Jake Blount (168)
44. Lost Love Songs by The Pine Hearts (166)
45. Southern Currency by Jefferson Ross (160)
46. Renewal by Billy Strings (159)
46. Hell on Church Street by Punch Brothers (159)
48. 8-String Sketches by Mike Mullins (158)
49. A Beautiful Time by Willie Nelson (156)
50. Horizon Line by Dan Navarro (155)
50. The Ties That Bind Us by Adler and Hearne (155)

Top Songs of 2022

[Here’s a link to view the official music video for Pharis & Jason Romero’s “Souvenir.”]

1. “Souvenir” by Pharis and Jason Romero (108)
2. “I’m Still Standing” by Janis Ian (98)
3. “The Welcome Song” by Jan Aldridge Clark (84)
4. “Half the People” by Chuck Brodsky (77)
5. “Born in the City” by Abbie Gardner (76)
6. “Last Days of Summer” by Lucy Kaplansky (74)
6. “Better Times Will Come” by Janis Ian (74)
6. “12th of June” by Lyle Lovett (74)
6. “Woody Guthrie’s Dream” by Tom Chapin (74)
10. “Eastern Standard Time” by The Accidentals (71)
11. “I Give You the Morning” by Buffalo Rose and Tom Paxton (68)
11. “Shoulder to the Wheel” by Deidre McCalla (68)
11. “If You Fall” by Amy Speace (68)
14. “It Takes Two Wings” by Chuck Brodsky (66)
15. “The Ride” by John McCutcheon (65)
16. “Ukrainian Now” by John McCutcheon (64)
17. “Cannot Change It All” by Pharis and Jason Romero (63)
17. “At the Foot of the Mountain” by Eliza Gilkyson (63)
17. “Put My Little Shoes Away” by Kathy Kallick (63)
20. “Walk On” by James Keelaghan (61)
21. “This Land Is Your Land” by Woody Guthrie (60)
22. “Crooked Tree” by Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway (59)
22. “All Those Days of Drinking Dust” by Tiffany Williams (59)
24. “Down the Mountain” by Abbie Gardner (58)
25. “Music for a Found Harmonium” by Patrick Street (57)
25. “Amsterdam” by Mary Gauthier (57)
25. “Dark Enough to See the Stars” by Mary Gauthier (57)

Top Artists of 2022

Folksinger-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist John McCutcheon was the most-played artist on folk radio during 2022. (Photo: Irene Young)

1. John McCutcheon (934)
2. Bob Dylan (633)
3. Eliza Gilkyson (606)
4. Pharis and Jason Romero (591)
5. Janis Ian (514)
6. Lucy Kaplansky (500)
7. Joe Jencks (426)
8. Chuck Brodsky (410)
9. Abbie Gardner (405)
10. Pete Seeger (400)
11. Mary Gauthier (393)
12. Johnsmith (390)
13. James Keelaghan (376)
14. John Prine (374)
15. Willie Nelson (365)
16. Joni Mitchell (358)
17. Nanci Griffith (355)
18. Happy Traum (335)
19. Tom Paxton, Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer (333)
20. Deidre McCalla (312)
21. Tom Chapin (305)
22. Amy Speace (302)
23. The Accidentals (301)
24. Carrie Newcomer (290)
25. Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway (286)
26. Windborne (277)
27. Billy Strings (275)
27. Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (275)
27. Cheryl Wheeler (275)
30. Lyle Lovett (265)
31. David LaMotte (260)
32. Cosy Sheridan (259)
33. House of Hamill (256)
34. Dar Williams (252)
34. Joan Baez (252)
34. Jake Blount (252)
37. John Wort Hannam (251)
38. Mama’s Broke (250)
39. Peter Mulvey and SistaStrings (248)
40. Sam Bush (244)

AcousticMusicScene.com Hosts Song Swaps During SERFA Conference, May 12-15

Michael Kornfeld — Fri, 06 May 2022 14:56:11 +0000

More than 200 people will converge on Black Mountain, North Carolina, May 12-15, 2022 for the annual Southeast Regional Folk Alliance (SERFA) Conference. An extended weekend of contemporary and traditional folk music, networking and learning opportunities, the conference will be keynoted by Thomm Jutz and features 16 juried official showcases, along with a number of late-night guerrilla showcases hosted by AcousticMusicScene.com and others.

The official showcases take place Friday and Saturday evenings from 7:15-10:15 p.m., with each artist/act performing a 15-minute set. Unplugged guerrilla showcases follow from 10:40 p.m. to 2 a.m. Also on the agenda are daytime panel discussions and workshops, a Wisdom of the Elders session, a couple of film screenings and Q & A sessions, several thematic song circles, an open mic, peer group and one-on-one mentoring sessions, an awards presentation, an exhibit hall, communal meals, and plenty of other opportunities to learn, share and network –- including during built-in afternoon breaks in the programming.

SERFA is a regional affiliate of Folk Alliance International (folk.org), a nonprofit organization that aims to serve, strengthen and engage the global folk music community through preservation, presentation and promotion. Formed in 2002, SERFA (serfa.org) exists to promote, develop and celebrate the diverse heritage of roots and indigenous music, dance, storytelling and related arts in the southeastern United States. SERFA has produced an annual conference since 2008. Its conference’s move to Black Mountain this year marks a return of sorts. Prior to the event’s move to Chattanooga, Tennessee in 2019, it had taken place for eight consecutive years at the Montreat Conference Center, a few miles down the road and also nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina. The COVID-19 pandemic prompted SERFA– like other FAI regional affiliates – to pivot to an online event last year, SERFA in Session: A Virtual Gathering.

Acclaimed Songwriter Thomm Jutz to Deliver Keynote Address

Named Songwriter of the Year in 2021 by the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) Thomm Jutz (pronounced “Yootz”) has written a number of bluegrass hits and his songs have been recorded by Balsam Range, Nanci Griffith, John Prine, and The SteelDrivers, among others. A native of Germany who has called Nashville home for many years, Jutz toured with such artists as Griffith, Mary Gauthier, David Olney, and Kim Richey; built a recording studio and produced albums for other artists – including Country Music Hall of Famers Bill Anderson and Mac Wiseman. He received a Grammy nomination for Best Bluegrass Album in 2020 for To Live in Two Worlds, Volume 1 and is featured in the Country Music Hall of Fame’s American Currents exhibit, which is slated to extend from 2022-2023.

Afternoon Programming Includes Workshops, Film Screenings, Song Circles, Wisdom of the Elders, and More

Nearly 20 workshops and panel discussions will delve into such topics as African-American contributions to Southern Appalachian music and dance, basics of piedmont picking, creating in community: the Jack Hardy Songwriters Exchange method, expanding our folk community, free-range folklore: an introduction to the Music Maker method, getting the gig and being invited back, the magic of collaboration, media coverage and strategy, music off the radar: making money and making a difference, simple measures for drastic guitar playing improvement, social media & fan engagement, songwriter residencies, and trends in folk radio and radio promotion.

Besides the workshops and panel discussions, there will be screenings of two recent music documentaries – The Mountain Minor and Nobody Famous – followed by Q & A sessions, as well as a Wisdom of the Elders session, several thematic song circles (songs of joy, struggle, place, and the environment), and one-on-one mentoring sessions during the afternoons.

The Mountain Minor is an award-winning narrative feature film that provides an authentic and respectful glimpse of Appalachian culture, music and history; of the joys and challenges experienced by the folks who have kept traditional mountain music alive. Loosely based on a true story, the film follows five generations of a family from their roots in eastern Kentucky in 1932 to a stage in Cincinnati, Ohio today as told by a man who yearns to return to his Kentucky home after migrating with his family to southwest Ohio during the Great Depression. Written-and directed by Dale Farmer (himself an old-time musician) and produced by Susan Pepper, a Cincinnati native now based in North Carolina, the film notably features traditional Appalachian musicians in acting roles. Among them are The Tillers, Smithsonian Folkways artist Elizabeth LaPrelle, banjoist and fiddler Dan Gellert, and Pepper herself. Following a series of festival screenings, The Mountain Minor had a limited theatrical run in late 2019-early 2020 due to the pandemic. It has aired on some public television stations and is available for home viewing.

Named Best Documentary in the 2021 New Jersey Film Festival and Best Music Documentary in the Seattle Film Festival earlier this year, Nobody Famous is set against the backdrop of the socially and politically volatile 1960s and traces the quick rise and ready fall of the folk-pop trio Pozo Seco Singers as folk music’s zeitgeist gives way to the heavy rhythm of rock & roll. Nobody Famous features Taylor Pie (Susan Taylor), who helped form the trio with Don Williams in the early 1960s and has been a solo singer-songwriter and musician since it disbanded. As Taylor Pie – then fresh from her first year in college – recounts today, while Williams went on to become one of the most successful country music artists of the 20th century, she shied away from fame and fortune, instead choosing to “go where the folk wind blows” – embracing her own path, her own unique artistry, and her own individual identity in the process.

Sparky & Rhonda Rucker will engage i conversation during a Wisdom of the Elders session. (Photo: Pam Zappardino)

Musical activists Sparky and Rhonda Rucker, bluegrass legend Bill Clifton and women’s music pioneer Deidre McCalla will engage in conversation during a Wisdom of the Elders panel session moderated by Art Menius. Sparky and Rhonda Rucker have worked for decades at the intersection of southern roots music, social activism, history, and education. They have released 10 albums together since 1990. Drawing from blues, spiritual, and mountain music, their repertoire presents a broad view of southern music, and slave and civil rights movement songs. A 2008 inductee into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, Bill Clifton, now 91, brought bluegrass music to the UK and beyond after making some of the finest recordings in the genre during the 1950s and presenting the first bluegrass festival in 1961. His book, 150 Old-Time Folk and Gospel Songs, published in 1951, features a forward by Woody Guthrie. Deidre McCalla was a pioneer of women’s music and a rare Black face during the early years of that genre. Roulette Records, better known for pop-rock 45s, released her first album in 1973 while she was still a student at Vassar, although her career as a solo folk singer-songwriter really took off when ‘the dreadlocked troubadour” released several albums for Olivia Records beginning in 1985. The Ruckers and Clifton are also among the people and organizations to be recognized with SERFA Awards for having made extraordinary contributions to folk music and the folk community in the southeastern U.S.

Dozens of Artists to be Featured in Official and Guerilla Showcases

Images of 2022 SERFA Official Showcase Artists (Composite courtesy of SERFA)

Slated to present official showcases on Friday, May 13, are (in order of appearance) Abigail Dowd, Erin Peet Lukes, Rupert Wates, Pretty Little Goats, Lara Herscovitch, Halley Neal, Tim Easton, and The Appaluchians. Saturday’s official showcase lineup features Kate Klim, Sam Robbins, Marc Berger, Violet Bell, Matt Burke, Emerald Rae, Ruth Wyand, and 5j Barrow.

Following the official showcases (as well as on Thursday overnight), late-night guerilla showcases will take place in various rooms for several hours. AcousticMusicScene.com, which has had a presence at the SERFA Conference since 2011, will host late-night song swaps and a midnight hoot (featuring two-dozen artists/acts – each performing one song) on Thursday, May 12, overnight. The AcousticMusicScene.com Midnight Hoot is a pre-arranged, round-robin song swap, a three-plus-hour version of which has been a popular staple at Northeast Regional Folk Alliance (NERFA) conferences since 2007, will feature two-dozen artists/acts – each performing one song. The Midnight Hoot is intended to provide concert and festival presenters, folk DJs and others with an opportunity to get a small sampling of the music of a lot of artists in a short period of time on the conference’s opening night. It also enables artists to enjoy each other’s company and music before the conference really gets into full swing on Friday.

Here’s the AcousticMusicScene.com showcase schedule:

11 p.m. PuffBunny Records Songswarm: Taylor Pie, Nancy K. Dillon,Nicholas Edward Williams

11:30 p.m. Texas!: Andrew Delaney, Claudia Gibson, Scott Martin

12:00 a.m. AcousticMusicScene.com Midnight Hoot, Part 1:

(one song each, not necessarily in order of appearance)

Antonio Andrade, Ashley & Simpson, Meg Braun, Matt Burke, Cheryl

Cawood, Emerald Rae, Kala Farnham, Alice Hasen, Lara Herscovitch,

Lucy Isabel, Rob Lytle, Karyn Oliver

1:00 a.m. AcousticMusicScene.com Midnight Hoot, Part 2:

(one song each, not necessarily in order of appearance)

Amy & Mike Aiken, Crowes Pasture, Dan & Faith, Paul Helou,

Letters To Abigail, Crys Matthews, Brant Miller, Halley Neal, Sam

Robbins, Hank Stone, Annette Wasilik, Elly Wininger

Editor’s Note: In addition to hosting the AcousticMusicScene.com guerrilla showcase and moderating the Q & A session with Taylor Pie following the screening o the award-winning documentary Nobody Famous that features her, I will be assisting PuffBunny Records (Taylor Pie’s label, for which I handle public relations) with its Friday night guerrilla showcase and an exhibit hall table. I will also again be a mentor offering advice and counsel on various aspects of PR, social media and strategic communications. A board member of Folk Alliance International, I’m a past president of Northeast Regional Folk Alliance (NERFA) and continue to serve on its board of directors. I have been an active participant at SERFA conferences since 2011.

International Folk Music Awards Show Set for May 18

Michael Kornfeld — Sat, 09 Apr 2022 15:07:22 +0000

Folk Alliance International revealed the names of upcoming recipients of International Folk Music Awards and Best of 2021 nominees during an April 7 livestream. An awards show is slated for May 18, 2022 in Kansas City, Missouri on the opening night of FAI’s 34th annual conference. It will also be streamed online.

Flaco Jiménez, Nanci Griffith and Swallow Hill Music to be Recognized for Lifetime Achievement

The Elaine Weissman Lifetime Achievement Awards are presented annually to honor the cultural impact of legendary folk music figures: one Living, one Legacy, and one Business/Academic. This year’s honorees are Conjunto accordionist Flaco Jiménez; the late singer-songwriter and interpreter Nanci Griffith; and folk music organization Swallow Hill Music.

Flaco Jiménez

Jiménez, who hails from San Antonio, Texas, is known for playing Norteño, Tex Mex, and Tejano music. He has been a solo performer and session musician, as well as a member of the Texas Tornados and Los Super Seven. Over the course of a career that has spanned seven decades, Jimenez has received numerous awards and honors — including Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Grammys, Americana Music Awards, Tejano Music Awards, and Billboard Magazine Awards. He is featured in the film This Ain’t No Mouse Music, and Hohner has even released a Flaco Jiménez Signature series line of accordions. He has worked with Bob Dylan, Ry Cooder, The Rolling Stones, and recorded on the number one Billboard country chart-topping song “Streets of Bakersfield” by Dwight Yoakam and Buck Owens.

Griffith, whose music straddled the line between folk and country, a style that she affectionately called “folkabilly,” died on August 13, 2021 at age 68. She was best known for her colorful, narrative tales of small town life that she sang in her warm, crystalline pure voice with a Texas twang. Many of her songs were covered and recorded by other notable artists. An early Kerrville New Folk Winner and a 1995 inductee into the Austin Music Hall of Fame, Griffith was honored by the Americana Music Association with its Lifetime Americana Trailblazer Award in 2008 and received a BBC Radio 2 Folk Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010. She released her 18th and last studio album, Intersection, in 2012. Griffith’s1993 Elektra release Other Voices, Other Rooms – featuring interpretations of 17 songs by other songwriters who had inspired her – won the 1994 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album.

Here’s a link to listen to Griffith’s poignant recording of “Love at the Five and Dime.”

Swallow Hill Music is a Denver, Colorado-based nonprofit music organization that provides music education, outreach, programming, and concerts for more than 138,000 people annually. Focused on diverse music traditions on stage and in the classroom, Swallow Hill’s organizational values promote inclusiveness. Its school offers music education to all ages, while Swallow Hill also hosts open stages and jams that are open to members and non-members alike. Its community and school outreach programs (including assemblies, field trips and in-school and after-school enrichment activities) have reached thousands of students in the Denver metro area.

Jason Mraz, Planet Bluegrass and Mali Obomsawin to be Honored

Jason Mraz, the multi-platinum Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter known for his positivity and commitment to conservation, ending world hunger, human rights, and LGBTQIA+ issues, will receive The People’s Voice Award, which is presented to an individual who unabashedly embraces social and political commentary in his/her/their creative work and public careers. Mraz took part in a nonprofit rescue mission in Ghana to liberate children sold into slavery, performed in Myanmar to raise awareness about human trafficking, Participated in Farm Aid, visited Antartica to help raise awareness about the environment and climate change, and was present at Standing Rock. His own foundation supports multiple organizations addressing issues to which he is committed and, in 2020, Mraz donated all profits from his Look for the Good album to Black Lives Matter and other groups working toward equality and justice.

Colorado-based Planet Bluegrass will receive the Clearwater Award, which is presented to a festival that prioritizes environmental stewardship and demonstrates public leadership in sustainable event production. For more than 30 years, the organization that produces Telluride Bluegrass, RockyGrass , and Rocky MTN Folks Festival has embraced a “Leave No Trace” ethic and demonstrated environmental leadership by engaging in strategic community-level plans and programs to center the idea of stewardship. Planet Bluegrass is a certified public benefit corporation— a legal entity recognized formally as committed to business practices that are sustainable and beneficial to society and the environment. At each of its respective festivals, Planet Bluegrass incentivizes reuse over recycling. This includes a reusable plate program, annually monitoring and reporting on waste diversion of more than 60% (twice that of the U.S. national average), employing solar power to offset more than 10 tons of CO2 emissions annually, providing composting and compostable bottles, offering free filtered water on site, and donating leftover festival food to local community organizations.

Mali Obomsawin will receive the Rising Tide Award that was established in 2021 to celebrate a new generation (under 30) artist who inspires others by embodying the values and ideals of the folk community through their creative work, community role, and public voice. An award-winning Smithsonian Folkways Recordings artist from Odanak Wabanaki First Nation, Obamsawin is a member of the band Lula Wiles, as well as a journalist and the founder and executive director of the Bomazeen Land Trust.

FAI Members to Determine Album, Song and Artist of the Year Award Recipients From Among 15 Finalists

A listing of the finalists for the 2021 album, song, and artist of the year awards based on US, Canadian, and international industry year-end lists, as well as folk DJ airplay, follows. Winners are determined by the voting membership of FAI (with the ballot open until April 15).

Album of the Year

They’re Calling Me Home by Rhiannon Giddens with Francesco Turrisi
Wary + Strange by Amythyst Kiah
Un Canto por México, Vol. 2 by Natalia Lafourcade
Outside Child by Allison Russell
The Fray by John Smith

Song of the Year

“On Solid Ground” by Reggie Harris
“Painted Blue” by Sarah Jarosz
“We Believe You” by Diana Jones
“Call Me A Fool” by Valerie June
“Changemakers” by Crys Matthews

Artist of the Year

The Longest Johns
Kalani Pe’a
Allison Russell
Arooj Aftab
John Francis Flynn

Six Spirit of Folk Awards to be Presented

Spirit of Folk Awards honor and celebrate people and organizations actively involved in the promotion and preservation of folk music through their creative work, community building, and demonstrated leadership. The 2022 recipients will include Eugene Rodriguez (musician, educator, documentary producer, and founder of Los Cenzontles — both as a band and as a nonprofit music academy and community space for Latinx artists, youth, and families in the San Francisco Bay area); Lilli Lewis (composer, producer, performing artist, and vice president & head of A &R for Louisiana Red Hot Records); Gaelyn Lea (musician, disability rights activist, co-founder and vice president of RAMPD – Recording Artists and Music Professionals with Disabilities, 2016 NPR Tiny Desk Contest winner, and an in-demand speaker); Erin Benjamin (president & CEO of the Canadian Live Music Association, and formerly a singer-songwriter, label owner, and the first executive director of Folk Music Ontario); Amado Espinoza (Bolivian-American multi-instrumentalist, composer and instrument maker, and co-founder of Resonation Music and Arts — using educational programming to inspire curiosity and respect for world cultures through music, dance, and storytelling); and Shain Shapiro (Sound Diplomacy founder and CEO, whose work has influenced more than 75 cities and countries to invest in music and culture).

Folk Alliance International is a Kansas City, Missouri-based nonprofit organization that aims to serve, strengthen and engage the global folk music community through preservation, presentation and promotion. For more information on the organization, its annual conference, Artists in Residence program, online programming, and the International Folk Music Awards, visit folk.org. Click here to view a recording of the April 7 awards announcement.

FAI Folk Radio Charts – October 2021

Michael Kornfeld — Wed, 10 Nov 2021 14:11:07 +0000

The Village Out West: The Lost Tapes of Alan Oakes by various artists (Smithsonian Folkways) was the most-played album on folk radio during October 2021, while Jonathan Edwards’ “Right Where I am” was the top song and John McCutcheon was the month’s most-played artist (as he was in September). So say charts compiled by Folk Alliance International based on radio playlists submitted to FOLKDJ-L, an electronic discussion group for DJs and others interested in folk-based music on the radio.

The October 2021 Top Albums, Songs and Artists charts are based on 14,784 airplays reported on 502 playlists submitted by 121 different folk DJs. The number of reported spins is shown below in parentheses.

Folk Alliance International (folk.org) is a nonprofit organization that aims to serve, strengthen, and engage the global folk music community through preservation, presentation and promotion.

Top Albums of October 2021

1. The Village Out West: The Lost Tapes of Alan Oakes by Various Artists (134)
2. Been a Long Time by Si Kahn (121)
3. Bucket List by John McCutcheon (108)
4. Long Time Coming by Sierra Ferrell (87)
5. Be Here for a While by Shane Cook & the Woodchippers (85)
6. Right Where I Am by Jonathan Edwards (83)
7. I’ll Meet You Here by Dar Williams (81)
8. Rewrite the Ending by Ina May Wool (66)
9. Renewal by Billy Strings (62)
9. Beating the Odds by Eric Lambert (62)
11. A Beautiful Sound by Cosy Sheridan (55)
12. Renaissance by Valerie Smith (51)
13. After the Flood by Chris Lavancher (49)
13. We’ll Tell Stories by Mary Lou Fulton (49)
15. Us in the U.S. by Gordonville, U.S.A. (48)
16. Until Now by Carrie Newcomer (40)
16. Be a Better Me by George Ensle (40)
18. Downhill From Everywhere by Jackson Browne (39)
19. My Bluegrass Heart by Bela Fleck (38)
20. Vessel by The Accidentals (36)
20. Come Around by Rob Lutes (36)
22. Then and Now by Debi Smith (33)
22. The Road Ahead by Ray Lambiase (33)
24. Tricks of the Trade by Malcolm Holcombe (32)
25. Day by Day by Norman Blake (31)
25. A Better Day A-Coming by Robin and Linda Williams (31)
27. Broken Hearts and Dirty Windows: Songs of John Prine, Vol. 2 by
Various Artists (30)
27. Half a Hundred Years by Asleep at the Wheel (30)
27. The Canvas Before Us by Joy Zimmerman (30)
27. Sober Again by Jackson Grimm (30)
27. Uppity by Laura Love (30)
32. That Spell by Andrea Von Kampen (29)
33. The Blues Never End by Elly Wininger (28)
34. Song to a Refugee by Diana Jones (26)
34. Why Wait! by Kate Taylor (26)
36. Family Reunion by Della Mae (25)
36. Bright Side of a Rainy Day by Sloan Wainwright (25)
36. Depreciated by John R. Miller (25)
39. Last of the Better Days Ahead by Charlie Parr (24)
39. In These Silent Days by Brandi Carlile (24)
39. Everyone a Song, Vol. 2 by The Steel Wheels (24)
42. Watchhouse by Watchhouse (23)
42. Blues | Ballads | Cowboy Songs by Peter Keane (23)
42. A World Like This by George Mann (23)
42. Cabin Fever Dream by Sara Trunzo (23)
46. Red, White and American Blues (It Couldn’t Happen Here) by Nathan Bell (22)
46. Tempting Fate by Carolyn Wonderland (22)
46. Mean Old World by Gordie Tentrees (22)
46. Borrowed Time by Joe Troop (22)
46. Dreamers of Atlantis by Margaret McDuffie (22)
51. Down the Old Plank Road by The Chieftains (21)
51. The Tree of Forgiveness by John Prine (21)
53. Ramble in Music City: The Lost Concert by Emmylou Harris and the Nash Ramblers (20)
53. Chimney Swifts by Brad Kolodner (20)
53. Be Ready When I Call You by Guy Davis (20)
56. The State That We Are In by Rachel Garlin (19)
57. Small Town Dreamer by Daryl Mosley (18)
58. First Bird to Sing by Bruce T. Carroll (17)
58. He Walked On by Tim O’Brien (17)
58. Home in This World: Woody Guthrie’s Dust Bowl Ballads by Various
Artists (17)
58. An Honest Effort by Matt Patershuk (17)
58. The St. Buryan Sessions by Sarah McQuaid (17)
58. We Just Need Love by Efrat (17)
58. The Next Mountain by Rick Faris (17)
65. Wild Beat the Wings by John Flynn (16)
65. Changemakers by Crys Matthews (16)
65. Screaming Into the Void by Ellaharp (16)
65. Long Haul by John Wort Hannam (16)
69. Moxie and Mettle by Balsam Range (15)
69. Don’t You Marry No Railroad Man by J. P. Harris’ Dreadful Wind andRain (15)
69. On Solid Ground by Reggie Harris (15)

Top Songs OF October 2021

[Click on the link to listen to “Right Where I Am” by Jonathan Edwards: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUZKVVh8p5U]

Jonathan Edwards

1. “Right Where I Am” by Jonathan Edwards (38)
2. “The Great Divide” by Jud Caswell (23)
3. “Gulf Coast Highway” by Naomi Sommers and Joe Crookston (20)
3. “Across the Great Divide” by Lisa Bastoni (20)
5. “The Little Contortionist” by Shane Cook & the Woodchippers (17)
5. “Autumn” by Jack Hardy (17)
5. “Dancing With the Johnson Boys” by Si Kahn (17)
8. “The Sea” by Sierra Ferrell (15)
8. “Going Down to the Old Home Place” by Si Kahn (15)
8. “Love at the Five and Dime” by Lyn Koonce (15)
8. “Moonshiner” by John McCutcheon (15)
12. “Medicine Game” by John McCutcheon (14)
12. “Been a Long Time” by Si Kahn (14)
12. “Wildfire” by The Accidentals (14)
12. “Be a Better Me” by George Ensle (14)
12. “Jeremiah” by Sierra Ferrell (14)
12. “Beating the Odds” by Eric Lambert (14)
12. “I’m Still Standing” by Janis Ian (14)
12. “Going Through the Pictures” by Ina May Wool (14)
20. “Time, Be My Friend” by Dar Williams (13)
20. “Trade It All for Love” by Chris Lavancher (13)
20. “Us in the U.S.” by Gordonville, U.S.A. (13)
20. “It’s a Hard Life Wherever You Go” by Tom Prasada-Rao (13)
20. “50 Years” by Jonathan Edwards (13)
20. “Beaumont Rag” by Hank Bradley and Rick Shubb (13)

Top Artists of October 2021

John McCutcheon (Photo: Irene Young)

1. John McCutcheon (141)
2. Si Kahn (130)
3. The Chieftains (112)
4. Dar Williams (100)
5. John Prine (88)
6. Jonathan Edwards (87)
6. Sierra Ferrell (87)
8. Shane Cook & the Woodchippers (85)
9. Billy Strings (68)
10. Cosy Sheridan (66)
10. Ina May Wool (66)
12. Eric Lambert (63)
13. Jackson Browne (61)
14. Carrie Newcomer (55)
15. Valerie Smith (52)
16. Chris Lavancher (51)
16. The Accidentals (51)
18. Mary Lou Fulton (49)
19. Gordonville, U.S.A. (48)
20. Nanci Griffith (46)
21. Bela Fleck (44)
22. Bob Dylan (41)
22. Robin and Linda Williams (41)
24. Sloan Wainwright (40)
24. George Ensle (40)
26. Laura Love (38)
27. Tim O’Brien (37)
27. Norman Blake (37)
29. Asleep at the Wheel (36)
29. Rob Lutes (36)
29. Ray Lambiase (36)
32. Tim Grimm (35)
33. Joy Zimmerman (34)
33. Brandi Carlile (34)
35. Malcolm Holcombe (33)
35. Debi Smith (33)
37. Jackson Grimm (31)
38. Andrea Von Kampen (30)
39. Doc Watson (29)
40. Diana Jones (28)
40. Kate Taylor (28)
40. Elly Wininger (28)
40. Cheryl Wheeler (28)
40. Della Mae (28)

Grammy Awards Presented in American Roots Music Field

Michael Kornfeld — Mon, 27 Jan 2020 21:06:58 +0000

Young singer-songwriter Billie Eilish and tributes & shout-outs to basketball great Kobe Bryant, who died in a helicopter crash earlier that day, dominated the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards telecast on Sunday, January 26. However, a number of coveted Grammy Awards also were presented by The Recording Academy in the American Roots Music Field and others during a premiere ceremony at Los Angeles’ Staples Center that streamed live on Grammy.com hours prior to the televised awards show on CBS.

Sara Bareilles, a singer-songwriter and actress, won the Grammy Award for Best American Roots Performance for “Saint Honesty,” a song co-written with Lori McKenna, that appears on Amidst the Chaos, Bareilles’ sixth studio album. Bareilles may be best known for having starred in and written songs for the Broadway musical Waitress.

Also in the running for Best American Roots Performance was the female trio I’m With Her, who took home the award for Best American Roots Song. Comprised of Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan, and Sara Watkins — each of whom is a talented singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist in her own right — the harmonic trio was recognized for “Call My Name,” which they co-wrote.

To listen to “Call My Name,” click on the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRZWhfuI6dQ

Keb’ Mo’ — an American blues musician, singer-songwriter and previous Grammy Award winner – won the Grammy Award for Best Americana Album for Oklahoma.

Singer-Songwriter Patty Griffin, who was not in attendance, won the Grammy Award for Best Folk Album for her self-titled release. Griffin previously won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Gospel Album in 2011 for Downtown Church.

Michael Cleveland, a Southern Indiana fiddler, won Best Bluegrass Album of the Year for Tall Fiddler. His previous release, Fiddler’s Dream, was nominated in the same category in 2017. During the weekend, the Louisville (Kentucky) Federation of Musicians Cleveland also honored Cleveland as its 2020 Musician of the Year. The International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) has named him as its Fiddle Player of the Year 12 times, while Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper has been hailed as its Instrumental Group of the Year six times.

Here’s a link to a recording of Michael Cleveland performing “Tall Fiddler”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zcwx6AifG7Q

The Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues album went to Delbert McClinton & Self-Made Men for Tall, Dark & Handsome, while Gary Clark Jr.’s This Land was named Best Contemporary Blues Album.

Charleston, South Carolina-based quintet Ranky Tanky — known for its jazz-inspired arrangements of the traditional Gullah music originated by the descendants of enslaved Africans of the southeastern Sea Islands and South Carolina’s Lowcountry — was recognized for Best Regional roots Album for Good Time.

On Saturday afternoon, Jan. 25, the Blues Foundation, Folk Alliance International and International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) co-hosted a celebration of nominees in the American Roots Music Field that featured performances by a number of them.

Among the other Grammy Award winners that may be of particular interest to AcousticMusicScene.com readers:

– On the eve of the sixth anniversary of American folk music icon Pete Seeger’s death, Pete Seeger: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection (Jeff Place and Robert Santelli, compilation producers) was named Best Historical Album.

– The Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album went to Hadestown (Anais Mitchell & Todd Sickafoose, producers; Anais Mitchell, composer & lyricist). Hadestown also was the big winner during the recent Tony Awards.

– Angelique Kidjo, a New York-based Beninese singer-songwriter, won the Grammy Award for Best World Music Album for Celia.

Although nominated for four Grammy Awards — Best American Roots Performance and Best American Roots Song for “Faraway Look” and Best Americana Album for Walk Through Fire, as well as Best New Artist – Yola, a 35 year-old rootsy British singer-songwriter, was shut out.

Grammy Award Nominees Named in American Roots Music Field

Michael Kornfeld — Sat, 23 Nov 2019 22:13:10 +0000

Nominees in 84 categories have been named for the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards to be presented by The Recording Academy on Sunday, January 26,2020. Yola and I’m With Her lead the nominees for awards in the American Roots Music Field with three and two nominations, respectively. Those awards will likely be presented prior to the live broadcast airing on CBS television stations that evening from the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Yola, a 35 year-old rootsy British singer-songwriter who also was nominated for Best New Artist, received nods for Best American Roots Performance and Best American Roots Song for “Faraway Look” and Best Americana Album for Walk Through Fire. Her critically acclaimed debut solo album, released in February, was produced by Black Keys frontman Dan Auerbach (who is among the nominees for Producer of the Year). Yola showcased her talents at the Newport and Philadelphia Folk Festivals, SXSW, AmericanaFest, and Farm Aid, as well as such notable venues as the Hollywood Bowl during 2019.

Here are links to view the official video for “Yola’s “Faraway Look” and her performance of he song during the 2019 UK Americana Awards at which she was named UK Artist of the Year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWTwuQ3LeH4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0IZBHegbA4

I’m With Her is a female trio comprised of Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan, and Sara Watkins – each of whom is a talented singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist in her own right. The harmonic trio is nominated for both Best American Roots Performance and Best American Roots Song for ‘Call My Name,” which they co-wrote.

To listen to “Call My Name,” click on the following link:https://youtube.com/watch?v=gRZWhfuI6dQ“> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRZWhfuI6dQ

Here’s a list of the Grammy Award nominees in the American Roots Music Field:

Best American Roots Performance

Saint Honesty, Sara Bareilles
Father Mountain, Calexico and Iron & Wine
I’m On My Way, Rhiannon Giddens with Francesco Turrisi
Call My Name, I’m With Her
Faraway Look, Yola

Best American Roots Song

“Black Myself,” Amythyst Kiah, songwriter (Our Native Daughters)
“Call My Name,” Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan & Sara Watkins, songwriters (I’m With Her)
“Crossing to Jerusalem,” Rosanne Cash & John Leventhal, songwriters (Rosanne Cash)
“Faraway Look,” Dan Auerbach, Yola Carter & Pat McLaughlin, songwriters (Yola)
“I Don’t Wanna Ride the Rails No More,” Vince Gill, songwriter (Vince Gill)

Best Americana Album
.
Years to Burn, Calexico and Iron & Wine
Who Are You Now, Madison Cunningham
Oklahoma, Keb’ Mo’
Tales of America, J.S. Ondara
Walk Through Fire, Yola

Best Bluegrass Album
.
Tall Fiddler, Michael Cleveland
Live in Prague, Czech Republic, Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver
Toil, Tears & Trouble, The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys
Royal Traveller, Missy Raines
If You Can’t Stand The Heat, Frank Solivan & Dirty Kitchen

Best Traditional Blues Album

Kingfish, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram
Tall, Dark & Handsome, Delbert McClinton & Self-Made Men
Sitting On Top of the Blues, Bobby Rush
Baby, Please Come Home, Jimmie Vaughan
Spectacular Class, Jontavious Willis

Best Contemporary Blues Album

This Land, Gary Clark Jr.
Venom & Faith, Larkin Poe
Brighter Days, Robert Randolph & The Family Band
Somebody Save Me, Sugaray Rayford
Keep On, Southern Avenue

Best Folk Album

My Finest Work Yet, Andrew Bird
Rearrange My Heart, Che Apalache
Patty Griffin, Patty Griffin
Evening Machines, Gregory Alan Isakov
Front Porch, Joy Williams

Best Regional Roots Music Album

Kalawai’anui, Amy Hānaiali’i
When It’s Cold – Cree Round Dance Songs, Northern Cree
Good Time, Ranky Tanky
Recorded Live at the 2019 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, Rebirth Brass Band
Hawaiian Lullaby, (Various Artists)

Also of note: Pete Seeger: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection is among the nominees for both Best Album Notes and Best Historical Album (Jeff Place and Robert Santelli, compilation producers). Among the five nominees for Best Musical Theater Album is Hadestown (Anais Mitchell & odd Sickafoose, producers; Anais Mitchell, composer & lyricist), while David Crosby – Remember My Name is in the running for Best Music – Film.

Top Albums, Songs and Artists – April 2019 (FOLKDJ-L)

Michael Kornfeld — Thu, 09 May 2019 00:01:49 +0000

For a second consecutive month, Songs of Our Native Daughters (featuring modern roots artists Rhiannon Giddens, Leyla McCalla, Allison Russell and Amythyst Kiah) was the top album on folk radio during April 2019.”There’s a Bright Side Somewhere” by Molsky’s Mountain Drifters was the month’s most-played song, edging out Danny Schmidt’s “Just Wait Til They See You,” March’s #1 song. John McCutcheon was the most-played artist of the month, followed by Schmidt, Tim O’Brien, and Our Native Daughters. So say charts compiled by Folk Alliance International from radio playlists submitted to FOLKDJ-L, an electronic discussion group for DJs and others interested in folk-based music on the radio.

As Smithsonian Folkways Recordings states on its website, “Songs of Our Native Daughters shines new light on African-American women’s stories of struggle, resistance, and hope. Pulling from and inspired by 17th-, 18th-, and 19th-century sources, including slave narratives and early minstrelsy, kindred banjo players Rhiannon Giddens, Amythyst Kiah, Leyla McCalla, and Allison Russell reinterpret and create new works from old ones. With unflinching, razor-sharp honesty, they confront sanitized views about America’s history of slavery, racism, and misogyny from a powerful, black female perspective. These songs call on the persistent spirits of the daughters, mothers, and grandmothers who have fought for justice – in large, public ways – only now being recognized, and in countless domestic ways that will most likely never be acknowledged.”

Giddens, who co-produced the album with Dirk Powell, was formerly with Carolina Chocolate Drops – as was McCalla. Russell, a multi-instrumentalist, is also known as part of Birds of Chicago and Po’ Girl, while Kiah is an alt-country and blues singer-songwriter.

Molsky’s Mountain Drifters’ tagline is “tradition steeped in possibility, and that aptly describes the old-time and American roots music trio. The bad is fronted by Bruce Molsky, a Grammy-nominated multi-instrumentalist (fiddle, guitar and banjo) and a visiting scholar at Boston’s Berklee College of Music. It also features genre-bending guitarist Stash Wyslouch (of The Deadly Gentlemen) on guitar and vocals and master of the clawhammer banjo Allison de Groot (of The Goodbye Girls and Oh My Darling) – whose self-entitled album with Tatiana Hargreaves was the third most-played album on folk radio in April.

Molsky maintains that the trio is creating a new sound within the traditional music genre through its audacious approach. “I was looking for a new voice,” says Molsky, “a new avenue of expression using old time mountain music as the jumping-off point, but not being constrained by hard core traditionalism. Allison and Stash are showing me the way, just where the music is headed, in directions I never would have imagined when I started my own journey into the mountains a long time ago.” “There’s a Bright Side Somewhere” appears on Molsky’s Mountain Drifters’ new album, Closing the Gap.

John McCutcheon, April’s most-played artist on folk radio, is a much-revered folksinger-songwriter and a multi-instrumentalist. He was also the most-played artist and had both the top album (To Everyone in All the World: A Celebration of Pete Seeger) and the top song (“Sailing Down My Golden River”) on folk radio during February 2019. On his 40h album, he pays tribute to the music of his friend and mentor — the late folk icon Pete Seeger.

Of his friend, Seeger had said: “John McCutcheon is not only one of the best musicians in the USA, but also a great singer, songwriter, and song leader. And not just incidentally, he is committed to helping hard-working people everywhere to organize and push this world in a better direction.”

McCutcheon, a performing and recording artist since the mid-1970s, is a longtime labor and social activist. He is a founder and former president of Local 1000, the traveling acoustic musicians’ local of the American Federation of Musicians. He has keynoted conferences for several regional affiliates of Folk Alliance International. His previous release, Ghost Light, was the #2 album on folk radio in 2018 and also features three of last year’s 25 most-played songs (“This Road,” “She Just Dances,” and “The Machine”). McCutcheon’s classic “Christmas in the Trenches” tied for the most-played song on folk radio last December and has been among the most-played songs during the holiday season for years.

The April 2019 Top Albums, Songs and Artists charts are based on 14,198 airplays reported on 526 playlists submitted by 130 different DJs. The number of reported spins is shown below in parentheses. The charts are compiled by Folk Alliance International (www.folk.org), a nonprofit organization that aims to serve, strengthen, and engage the global folk music community through preservation, presentation and promotion.

The monthly top albums and songs charts are posted on AcousticMusicScene.com, with permission.

Top Albums of April 2019

1. Songs of Our Native Daughters by Our Native Daughters (87)
2. Standard Deviation by Danny Schmidt (77)
3. Allison De Groot and Tatiana Hargreaves by Allison De Groot and
Tatiana Hargreaves (72)
4. To Everyone in All the World by John McCutcheon (70)
5. Tim O’Brien Band by Tim O’Brien (68)
6. When You’re Ready by Molly Tuttle (67)
6. Patty Griffin by Patty Griffin (67)
8. Closing the Gap by Molsky’s Mountain Drifters (66)
9. The Great Irish Songbook by Dervish (64)
10. What Will We Do by Lula Wiles (57)
11. The Bull Moose Party by Jackson Grimm (56)
12. In Sevens by Kora Feder (51)
13. Once a Day by April Verch (50)
14. The Hard Way by Dale Ann Bradley (49)
15. It’s a Hard Life by Ruby Lovett (48)
15. Hummingbird by John Smith (48)
17. I Walked in Them Shoes by Adam Carroll (46)
17. The Butcher Shoppe EP by Della Mae (46)
19. What if This Is All There Is by Rj Cowdery (45)
20. Ten: The Errant Night by Runa (43)
21. The Point of Arrival by Carrie Newcomer (41)
22. Dirigo Attitude by Sara Trunzo (40)
22. Who I Am by Andrew Adkins (40)
24. Better by Now by Benjamin Dakota Rogers (39)
24. The Songs of Mother Jones in Heaven by Vivian Nesbitt and John Dillon
(39)
26. Heartache Town by Eric Lee (38)
26. Hide and Hair by Trials of Cato (38)
28. Monroe Bus by Andy Statman (35)
29. Facets of Folk by Mara Levine (34)
30. Rise Sun by Infamous Stringdusters (33)
30. Smoke and Ashes by Lonely Heartstring Band (33)
32. Driver by Michael Braunfeld (30)
32. Nola: Susan Werner Goes to New Orleans by Susan Werner (30)
34. Up Against the Sky by Dave Gunning (28)
34. Time and Truth by Joel Mabus (28)
34. October in the Railroad Earth by Tom Russell (28)
34. Cash Cabin Sessions, Vol. 3 by Todd Snider (28)
38. Guy by Steve Earle and the Dukes (27)
39. Valley of the Bones by Jane Kramer (26)
39. Master Key by Elizabeth Lockhart (26)
41. Pack Up the Moon by D.C. Bloom (24)
41. Avalanche by Imar (24)
41. Tides of a Teardrop by Mandolin Orange (24)
44. Unfortunate Point of View by Katherine Rondeau (23)
44. Black Horse Motel by CC Railroad (23)
44. Pseudomyopia by Rachael Sage (23)
47. Please Don’t Tell Me How to Dance by Cindy Ruenes (22)
47. Off to Here Land by Ashley and Simpson (22)
47. Roll On, Clouds by Frank Lee and Allie Burbrink (22)
50. Love and Revelation by Over the Rhine (20)
50. Sparks by Rachel Hair and Ron Jappy (20)
50. Worthy Cause by Chad Richard (20)
50. The Smithsonian Folkways Collection by Pete Seeger (20)
50. Common Chords by Robert Jones and Matt Watroba (20)
50. The Sky in Between by Ky Burt (20)
50. Baked Not Fried by Paul Chet and the Whiskey Chickens (20)
50. Tentation by Yves Lambert Trio (20)
58. The Best of Live by Livingston Taylor (19)
58. Pictures of Us by Braden Gates (19)
58. Caffeine and Nicotine by David Glaser (19)
58. A List of Names by Karyn Oliver (19)
62. The Long Road by Beth Wood (18)
62. Lucky Lucky by Safe as Houses (18)
62. Tex by Terry Klein (18)
62. The Question by Anna Tivel (18)
62. The Tree of Forgiveness by John Prine (18)
67. Steel Blossoms by Steel Blossoms (17)
67. What It Is by Hayes Carll (17)
67. Anyone Can See by Honey Dewdrops (17)
67. We Will Sing by Lizzy Plotkin (17)

Top Songs of April 2019

Molsky’s Mountain Drifters (Photo: Kate Orne)

1. “There’s a Bright Side Somewhere” by Molsky’s Mountain Drifters (22)
2. “Just Wait Til They See You” by Danny Schmidt (20)
3. “Food and Medicine” by Sara Trunzo (19)
4. “Middle America Blues” by Jackson Grimm (18)
5. “The High Road” by Molly Tuttle (17)
6. “I Knew I Could Fly” by Our Native Daughters (15)
6. “Where I Come From” by Patty Griffin (15)
8. “Music and Joy” by Our Native Daughters (14)
8. “Fragile Heart” by Andrew Adkins (14)
8. “Please Don’t Tell Me How to Dance” by Cindy Ruenes (14)
8. “River” by Patty Griffin (14)
8. “Sixteen Tons” by Della Mae (14)
8. “Take Me Home” by Sofia Talvik (14)
14. “You’re Not Alone” by Our Native Daughters (13)
14. “In the Bend of the Cumberland” by Sara Trunzo (13)
16. “Walked in Them Shoes” by Adam Carroll (12)
16. “The Galway Shawl” by Dervish (12)
16. “Hummingbird” by John Smith (12)
19. “Monroe Bus” by Andy Statman (11)
19. “Court and Spark” by Norah Jones (11)
19. “I Don’t Want to Get Married” by Allison De Groot and Tatiana
Hargreaves (11)
19. “Million Miles” by Molly Tuttle (11)
19. “Bourbon Hound” by Della Mae (11)
19. “Take the Journey” by Molly Tuttle (11)
25. “Well May the World Go” by John McCutcheon (10)
25. “Appalachia Calling” by Jackson Grimm (10)
25. “The Garden” by Eric Lee (10)
25. “Last Man Standing” by Danny Schmidt (10)
25. “Dance With Me” by Kora Feder (10)
25. “Meditation Song” by Kora Feder (10)
25. “Pastures of Plenty” by Tim O’Brien (10)
25. “Down by the Sally Gardens” by Dervish (10)
25. “Ripple” by Dale Ann Bradley (10)
25. “Who Wouldn’t Be Lonely” by Allison De Groot and Tatiana Hargreaves (10)

Top Artists of April 2019

John McCutcheon (Photo: Irene Young)

1. John McCutcheon (95)
2. Tim O’Brien (88)
2. Danny Schmidt (88)
4. Our Native Daughters (87)
5. Pete Seeger (84)
6. Allison De Groot and Tatiana Hargreaves (76)
7. Dervish (74)
8. Patty Griffin (71)
9. Molly Tuttle (69)
10. Molsky’s Mountain Drifters (67)
11. Lula Wiles (58)
12. Jackson Grimm (56)
13. April Verch (55)
14. John Smith (53)
14. Carrie Newcomer (53)
16. Dale Ann Bradley (52)
16. Kora Feder (52)
18. Tom Russell (51)
19. Runa (50)
20. Della Mae (49)
20. Ruby Lovett (49)
22. Adam Carroll (46)
23. Rj Cowdery (45)
23. Dave Gunning (45)
25. Sara Trunzo (40)
25. Trials of Cato (40)
25. John Prine (40)
25. Vivian Nesbitt and John Dillon (40)
25. Andrew Adkins (40)
25. Susan Werner (40)
31. Benjamin Dakota Rogers (39)
32. Eric Lee (38)
32. Infamous Stringdusters (38)
32. Mara Levine (38)
35. Bob Dylan (37)
36. Lonely Heartstring Band (35)
36. Andy Statman (35)
36. Cathy Barton and Dave Para (35)
39. Joel Mabus (34)
40. Eliza Gilkyson (33)
40. Todd Snider (33)

Folk and Roots Artists Showcase Their Talents During APAP Conference in New York City

Michael Kornfeld — Sun, 20 Jan 2019 16:34:30 +0000

Dozens of performers from the folk, roots and singer-songwriter communities in the U.S., Canada, and several other countries showcased their talents during the annual conference of the Association of Performing Arts Professionals (APAP) that took place January 4-8. The global multidisciplinary performing arts marketplace and conference drew several thousand arts professionals from throughout the U.S. and many other countries to New York City.

A number of booking agencies whose rosters include folk and roots artists were among the more than 300 exhibitors in the large EXPO Hall. The conference also featured networking opportunities galore, daily plenary sessions and keynote speakers, an awards ceremony, a town hall on the artist as activist, and a wide array of professional development workshops and forums.

The theme for 2019 was The Power of WE and highlighted the collective strength and the influence of the performing arts in the world. As Mario Garcia Durham, APAP’s president and CEO, noted in welcoming conference attendees: “At APAP, we celebrate both the impact of our work and the opportunity for each one of us to draw energy, ideas and inspiration from it. Our strength as an industry comes from the everyday efforts of individuals in this field, and our collective power – The Power of WE – that fuels us as performing arts professionals.”

Showcases of Note Took Place at the Host Hotel and at Venues Around New York City

More than 1,000 showcases (music, dance, theater, comedy, and more) took place both at the New York Hilton Midtown, the conference hotel, and at venues throughout Manhattan. A few also were set in other New York City boroughs.

Scotland’s Skerryvore (shown in concert on Long Island last summer) opened a pre-conference showcase party at City Winery (Photo: Michael Kornfeld)
Prior to the official start of the conference, music PR firm Rock Paper Scissors and GlobalFEST (which was concurrently taking place in NYC) joined forces to again co-produce a free, two-day Wavelengths: APAP World Music Pre-Conference, Jan. 3-4, that featured a number of panel discussions geared towards artists and presenters, with short performances and artist pitches also sprinkled in. A Thursday night pre-conference showcase party at City Winery featured performances by the brilliant Scottish folk-rock band Skerryvore, Canadian Celtic-rockers Enter The Haggis, and the harmonious American folk-rock trio The Sweet Remains.

January 4: As he has for the last two years, composer, banjoist and producer Jayme Stone curated an eclectic roots music showcase at the host hotel that extended from the late afternoon into the evening. Called the Secret Agents APAP Showcase, it featured a number of notable, primarily self-managed touring artists. As Stone told AcousticMusicScene.com last January, he sought “to create a space for independent roots/world music artists to have their music heard by performing arts center directors and festival programmers. My goal was to make the cost slightly more affordable for artists and to create an opportunity for underrepresented artists to have a seat at the table. Most of the artists at our showcase do not have agents, which is rare at this conference.”

Kicking off the musical festivities was Eleanor Dubinsky, a soulful NYC-based singer songwriter, and her ensemble. Although I’d seen and previously been impressed by Dubinsky’s singing and song stylings in solo and duo performances, having an ensemble backing her added a whole new dimension to her performance. Next up, Stone debuted his New Art-Pop Project. Among the artists joining him on that was Moira Smiley, herself a gifted songwriter and vocalist, who, accompanied by her group, VOCO, had her own short showcase immediately afterwards entitled The Voice is a Traveler.

Moira Smiley (with accordion) and VOCO showcase their talents (Photo: Michael Kornfeld)
Smiley, who has attended and showcased her talents at several APAP conferences over the years, told AcousticMusicScene.com: “Each of them [showcases] had different results. Some of them were very direct aid to the bookings for the following year, and some seemed more like spending money to hang out with friends in the city.” Wandering the conference’s exhibit hall one year helped her to gain a new band member, while another artist reached out to her after seeing her brightly-colored postcards, and they wound up doing a TEDx presentation together.

“2019 was my first time at Wavelengths, and that was a revelation to experience the small, fierce like-minded group of people interested in traditional arts,” she said, expressing appreciation to the pre-conference’s organizers for screening her promo video for her The Voice Is A Traveler show. In my view, it was the best of a number of short videos and video clips screened. As for the Secret Agents Showcase, Smiley said: “I love [them] for their absolute weirdness of variety. It reminds you how many worlds of entertainment here are – some intersecting not-one-bit with your own! Yet we’re all here making our dough with these sights and sounds.”

Also part of the Secret Agents Showcase were Taarka, a Colorado-based adventurous Americana trio whose sound is a blend of bluegrass, folk, gypsy jazz, and soul; American samba band Os Clavelitos; the energetic Northeastern Brazilian party music of accordionist Rob Curto’s Forro For All; and the joyous Brazilian bluegrass sounds of Matuto (fronted by Clay Ross), among others.

Terrance Simien at NYC’s Don’t Tell Mama nightclub (Photo: Michael Kornfeld)
After catching the first few acts in the Secret Agents Showcase, I headed to Don’t Tell Mama in the theater district for another wonderful roots music variety show curated and hosted by Ken Waldman, a fiddling poet who also performed. 10th annual “From Manhattan to Moose Pass” featured performances by three Grammy Award-winners: Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer and last-minute special guest Terrance Simien, a Louisiana-based Zydeco artist who was without his accordion and shared a lively call-and-response song.

The evening’s musical gumbo also included the jazzy Brazilian Americana sounds of Max Hatt & Edda Glass; Hen’s Teeth, a cross-continental duo with Janie Rothfield (Staunton, VA) and Nathan Bontrager (Cologne, Germany); DuoDuo Quartet comprised of percussive dancer Nic Gareiss with harpist Maeve Glichrist, plus cellist Natalie Haas (who frequently performs with Alasdair Fraser) with her husband-guitarist Yann Falquet (from the Quebecois folk group Genticorum) – all of whom have toured internationally for years; Jenna Moynihan & Mairi Chaimbeaul, a fiddle and harp duo; and Mark Kilianski & Nate Sabat featuring a guitarist and songwriter from the duo Hoot & Holler and the bassist and songwriter from Mile Twelve, a Boston-based bluegrass band. Each of the preceding artists (with the exception of Simien) also joined Waldman in kicking-off the evening’s musical festivities with renditions of “Cluck Old Hen.” A welcome and unexpected highlight of the evening was Waldman’s pairing of harpists Gilchrist and Chaimbeaul for a tune as a twin-harp interlude between sets.

Although some parts of the roots music variety show’s format have remained the same, “it’s always evolving, sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes a little more dramatically,” Waldman noted. “O stage, I’ll sometimes mention a quote I’ve learned as a writer: no surprise to writer, no surprise to reader, which means if a writer is surprised what he or she is writing, which happens, it’s almost guaranteed the reader will be surprised. I think that’s a good thing. It means extra energy. I try to bring that mindset to the show, and have actively encouraged collaborations, which brings an element of the unknown. If the musicians are not 100% sure what’s going to happen next, the audience won’t know either.”

The same lineup of artists who performed at Don’t Tell Mama also showcased their talents the previous night at Brooklyn’s Jalopy Theater. “One of the evolutions in the show was [that] we began booking Thursday night at the Jalopy Theater in Red Hook, which served not only as a public event (on Friday we only market to APAP attendees), but also as a run-through for Friday,” said Waldman.

A twin-harp interlude during Ken Waldman’s roots music variety show featured (l-r) Mairi Chaimbeaul and Maeve Gilchrist (Photo: Michael Kornfeld)
In planning this year’s edition of “From Manhattan to Moose Pass,” Waldman intentionally opted to place DuoDuo Quartet and Jena Moynihan & Mairi Chaimbeul next to each other in the program and “asked that Maeve and Mairi somehow do some twin harp.” He noted that “Maeve, in particular, wasn’t sure how the twin harps would go, and wasn’t sure that two sets in a row with harps was a good idea.” Acknowledging that Maeve is not only a noted musician, but has far more credits as a producer ad arranger than he does, Waldman noted her concern but asked that she give it a chance. “I reasoned that because she and Mairi were also long-time friends, it all had a pretty good chance of working.” He was right. Not only was the twin-harp interlude a musical highlight of the evening, it didn’t detract from the strong sets on either side of it.

While I was enjoying the music at Don’t Tell Mama, the Americana Music Association sponsored a showcase concert at Rockwood Music Hall on the Lower East Side featuring singer-songwriter Caitlin Canty with special guests Oshima Brothers, while Smithsonian Folkways recording artists Anna & Elizabeth (who have previously been part of Waldman’s roots music variety shows) shared their innovative, modern arrangements of old-time Appalachian music at Joe’s Pub; The Klezmatics played Irridium, a midtown jazz club; and the Seamus Egan Project (featuring one of the most influential artists in contemporary Irish music) showcased at the New York Hilton, as did Switchback, the Celtic and Americana duo of Brian Fitzgerald and Martin McCormick. A multimedia concert by Seamus Egan’s seminal band Solas was a highlight of a previous APAP Conference.

January 5: My Saturday afternoon is traditionally filled with Celtic showcases at the hotel, and it would have been this year had I not opted to remain on Long Island to emcee a concert that I’d helped to arrange. Among the artists who showcased their talents at the New York Hilton Midtown that day were ebullient New York-based jig-rockers The Prodigals and their alter egos Acoustic Micks; Cherish The Ladies, the all-female Irish band fronted by Joannie Madden; Philadelphia-based Celtic roots band RUNA; and the young Irish trad trio Socks in the Frying Pan (from County Clare), whom I saw the next day.

Also showcasing their talents at the hotel on Saturday afternoon were Banjo Nickaru & Western Scooches and Sam Reider & Human Hands. Natalia Zukerman performed excerpts from The Women Who Rode Away, a multimedia show melding her talents as a songwriter, painter and storyteller. William Florian, formerly of The New Christy Minstrels, presented a taste of Those Were The Days: The Spirit and the Songs of the 1960s.

Tamara Kater
In the evening, Strategic Touring and Mavens Music partnered to present a Roots & Americana Showcase that was hosted by Michael Park (The International Americana Music Show) at Hill Country Live in the Chelsea section of Manhattan. Had I not been on Long Island or at the Irridium to see gifted and musically versatile singer-songwriter Susan Werner, that’s where I’d have been to enjoy some fine live music and tasty Texas barbecue. Notable Canadian singer-songwriters Melanie Brulee, Erin Costello and Benjamin Dakota Rogers shared the bill with Canada’s Lonesome Ace Stringband and the bands Youth In A Roman Field and Upstate (a genre-bending young New Paltz, NY-based ensemble that also played Rockwood Music Hall earlier in the evening).

Tamara Kater of Toronto, Ontario- based Mavens Music Management reports that the showcase was well attended, with more than 100 people in the audience – about half of whom had APAP connections. “APAP is always rewarding, especially with the concurrent content of Wavelengths and GlobalFEST,” said Kater. “It’s inspiring and rewarding to meet such an array of presenters and artists all in one place, within a few days. Seeing the venues of New York and so many performances in such a compact amount of time is always a brilliant way to start off the new year.”

Also that evening, booking agency Madison House hosted a showcase at City Winery featuring Canadian singer-songwriter Rose Cousins, American singer-songwriter Willie Nile, and Madagascar-born singer-songwriter ad environmental activist Razia Said. Down at Rockwood Music Hall, The Blue Dahlia featuring Dahlia Dumont, a Brooklyn gal now living in Paris, who pens and sings songs in both English and French, appeared. Among the artists who showcased their talents at New York Hilton were Emmet Cahill (star of PBS’ Celtic Thunder) and the Jen Chapin Trio featuring the soulful urban folk singer-songwriter, her husband Stephan Crump on acoustic bass, and Jamie Fox on electric guitar.

January 6: Isle of Klezbos, a swinging all-female Klezmer sextet shared a bill and some members with the octet Metropolitan Klezmer (now celebrating its silver anniversary) as they performed some vintage instrumentals and Yiddish songs during Sunday brunch at City Winery. Although I enjoyed this last year, I skipped it this time. I also missed singer-songwriter Ellis Paul’s short early morning “Hero In You” showcase, during which he presented 15-minutes of excerpts from an award-winning educational program for children based on his CD and book of the same name that inspires youngsters to dream big.

I enjoyed several showcases that were part of Celebrate Our FOLK at Connolly’s Pub – Restaurant (Connolly’s Klub 45). The highlights were Kaia Kater and Kittel & Co.

Kaia Kater (Photo: Ratz Argulla)
A Montreal-born, Grenadian-Canadian, Kater grew up both there and in Ontario. The daughter of Tamara Kater (quoted above), she was introduced to folk music at a young age and also studied and soaked up Appalachian music in West Virginia. Kater is among the youngest and most gifted performers on the Canadian old-time and folk scene. An eclectic traditionalist, she plays the banjo, sings, writes songs, and has her own unique take on Appalachian and Canadian traditional music.

Fronted by Jeremy Kittel — a virtuosic violinist, fiddler and composer — Kittel & Co. is an acoustic trio/string band with folk and jazz sensibilities whose sound also has Celtic, bluegrass and classical influences. Its recent release, Whorls, debuted at #1 on the Billboard bluegrass chart, while Kittel’s piece “Chrysalis” is among the nominees for a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition.

Also on the bill were singer-songwriter Ashley Davis, Making Movies (a Kansas City, MO-based band whose music defies easy categorization and whose set I missed, although I’ve previously seen the band at a Folk Alliance International conference held in its hometown), and the previously mentioned Socks in the Frying Pan.

Later in the evening, Kater shared a bill at Rockwood Music Hall as part of Quicksilver Productions, Lost Buffalo Artists & Smithsonian Folkways Present: The Women of Folkways with label mates The Bright Siders (featuring singer-songwriter and percussive dancer Kristin Andreassen – formerly of Uncle Earl – and Brooklyn-based child psychiatrist Dr. Kari Groff who create music that helps children and families have meaningful conversations about emotions) and Lula Wiles (a Boston–based, harmonious trio made up of Isa Burke, Eleanor Buckland, and Mali Obamsawin, whose Smithsonian Folkways debut, What Will We Do, is released Jan. 25 and who I had the pleasure of introducing at a couple of festivals).

Among the artists showcasing their talents at the New York Hilton in the evening were The Everly Set: Sean Altman and Jack Skuller Celebrate The Everly Brothers and Sultans of String, award-winning genre-bending world music instrumentalists from Toronto. Vanaver Caravan, a troupe of dancers and musicians, presented nearly half an hour of excerpts from Turn Turn Turn Turn, a show featuring more than 20 of Pete Seeger’s most celebrated songs and timed to coincide with the centenary of the late folk icon’s birth. Li, who describes his music as urban folk, did not impress this writer, while a Folk Legends showcase featuring two former members of The Kingston Trio was cancelled due to illness.

Also during the conference, Sage Artists shared excerpts of Call Mr. Robeson: A Life, With Songs, while cast members from Lonesome Traveler: The Concert performed short musical excerpts from the show, along with narration that helps tell the story of American folk and folk-rock music from Woody Guthrie to Bob Dylan and beyond. Artists in various other musical genres also showcased their talents, while comedy, dance and theatrical showcases also were part of the mix.

Since there were no folk or roots music showcases of note on January 7, and the conference closed with a plenary session on the morning of January 8, I did not venture into NYC those days.

About the Association of Performing Arts Professionals (APAP)

Based in Washington, DC, APAP is a nonprofit national service, advocacy and membership organization dedicated to developing and supporting a robust performing arts presenting field and the professionals who work within it. The next APAP Conference is set for Jan. 10-14, 2020 in New York City. More information on the organization may be found on its website: www.apap365.org.