| The hottest four days in summer will be hotter’n ever this year. The Calgary Folk Music Festival’s 2003 lineup promises a strong mainstage bill – with acerbic ex-punk Elvis Costello as its opening-night lynchpin – as well as an expanded sidestage program that ought to offer surprising collaborations between artists of all stripes.
Costello’s appearance at the festival will mark the first time he has performed in Calgary since November 15, 1978, when he was fresh off recording the now-classic LP This Year’s Model.
While Costello is the clear "ringer" in this year’s lineup, there are a number of other superstars that will grace us with their presence at Prince’s Island Park. If he can stop proselytizing as a soldier of the cross for a few minutes, Ricky Skaggs will stun the converted and heathens alike with his fast-pickin’ mastery of the bluegrass idiom. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the dyed-in-the-wool Earth mamas (and papas) will be happy to know that acoustic riot-grrrl Ani Difranco is back at the festival after a long absence. Brilliant French-Canadian producer-cum-songwriter Daniel Lanois rounds out the esteemed list of headliners.
But the lineup also has depth, and the weekend’s most memorable performances may come from the likes of octogenarian Mississippi Delta bluesman T-Model Ford, Australian Aboriginal bushmen White Cockatoo, Toronto country stringband the Backstabbers, southwestern U.S. instrumentalists Friends of Dean Martinez, and Afro-Colombian diva Petrona Martinez (no relation).
"(Martinez is) 65 and she makes bricks for a living," says the festival’s associate producer Kerry Clarke. "She plays traditional Afro-Colombian music with a band of eight people – she starts out standing and dancing and then she sits in a rocking chair and sings from (there).... She’s just mesmerizing."
While it’s part of Clarke’s job to be enthusiastic about all the festival’s acts, she is particularly fond of artists that cross cultural boundaries and bring a world of experience to festival-goers who wouldn’t normally hear them in any other context. Another group she’s excited to bring to the city is Mexico’s Son de Madera, practitioners of the polyrhythmic son jarocho music native to the state of Veracruz.
"Because the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean were on either side, (Veracruz) was a trade route for years and years and it’s a very culturally mixed area," says Clarke. "Son jarocho combines Arabic, Mexican and African music."
Perhaps no less exotic to the ears of most southern Canadians, but from a lot closer to home, Inuit musicians will be featured in a special showcase at this year’s event as part of a collaboration between the festival and the Glenbow Museum. Inusivut: Our Way of Life brings together Nunavut fiddler Colin Adjun, traditional throat-singers Alacie and Lucy, the theatre and dance troupe Aqsarniit, as well as the Taima Project, a Montreal-based duo that aims to merge southern Canadian and Inuk cultures through music.
"I did research into Inuit artists and contacted people all over the place," says Clark. "We could have gone further and gotten a Wimme, or gone to the northern part of Europe, but we didn’t in this case – we stayed Canadian. It’s something that people don’t often get the chance to see…. It’s part of Canadian culture that few of us know all that much about."
Check out the complete lineup at www.calgaryfolkfest.com. |
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