| Are you ready for folk with bling? According to this year’s Calgary Folk Music Festival guide, that’s what you are going to get. There’s no need to panic, though – according to associate producer Kerry Clarke, the city’s second longest-running summer festival isn’t trading in acoustic guitars for gold chains and jewelled accessories.
"It’s a different way to make people think about folk, even though it might not actually be true," she says. Indeed the closest you are likely to get to MTV bling on Prince’s Island Park this summer is Somalia’s Dusty Foot Philosopher K’naan, hip hop collective Arrested Development and Halifax wordsmith Buck 65. Even so, this year, more than ever, sees a festival lineup that pushes the boundaries of "folk" music. Alongside the Latin sounds of Oscar Lopez, the bluegrass of Del McCoury and folk heavyweights Kate and Anna McGarrigle, audiences will be treated to pop-rock artists Sarah Harmer, Hawksley Workman and Danny Michel; the punk esthetic of The Weakerthans; the genre-jumping Bill Frisell; and the experimentation of Chicago post rockers, Tortoise.
While the many indie hipsters who have been waiting for more than a decade for Tortoise to make a trip to Calgary are thankful, their appearance at the festival does pose a question – is their drony, groove-based, jazz-influenced instrumental rock also folk?
"There is some leeway for the artistic director’s vision of what is good music," says Clark. "Sometimes we include artists even if their music is more on a jazz front or more electronica…. If you are sticking to a formula there are two strains of people – (some) are coming out of the singer-songwriter tradition and other people are coming out of other traditional musics (from) other countries. I think you can argue that The Weakerthans are singer-songwriters, but Tortoise are certainly outside that and Bill Frisell is, too, but when you get great players from different genres, it’s worth putting them in…. Tortoise are interested in different music and draw from different traditions, so in that sense we… are partially recognizing that and liking that."
While some of the performers on the roster for the festival might be shocking, others have a tried-and-true reputation. Perennial favourite Steve Earle returns to rock the stage and stir some shit, Winnipeg’s Christine Fellows is back with her keyboard and her latest album, and Brit Thea Gilmore gets a second chance to wow audiences with her acid-tongued storytelling.
On the world stage we’ll hear Scottish singer-songwriter Jackie Leven, groovy Nordic folk from Instinkt, Bollywood-traditional fusion from India’s Kawa Brass Band, Australian didgeridoo from Xavier Rudd, Colombia’s Lucia Pulido, and traditional Portuguese music from Dona Rosa. At the same time the festival highlights artists from our own backyard – busker extraordinaire Chad Van Gaalen, the Celtic lilt of Maria Dunn, the twang of The Swiftys and the stripped-down jug-band sounds of No Guff. With so much music being crammed into four days, choosing which artist to see becomes rather important. It’s not uncommon to see festival goers running from tent to tent scouting the musical underdogs of the festival.
"I think that Ex-Centric Sound System might be one of those bands," says Clark, "because they have some dub elements and people are going to be up dancing and it will probably make an impact on the mainstage. I think Justin Rutledge is one of those people that people are going to be talking about for a long time. I think in 10 years he is going to be a big star coming back to our festival, if he keeps up the songwriting."
The Calgary Folk Music Festival takes place at Prince’s Island Park from Thursday, July 20 to Sunday, July 23. For more details and ticket information visit wwwcalgaryfolkfest.com. |
Copyright ©2005 FFWD. All rights reserved.