folk-blog.com

I know I haven't blogged new adds in quite a while. I'm going out of town tomorrow, so it will probably be another few days before it happens.

I did want to post before I go about my weekend o'folk. Friday night I got to see Chris Stuart and Backcountry in Centerburg at a concert that was sadly very sparsely attended. The band was outstanding, and the concert had a very informal, family atmosphere. Apparently, Chris Stuart was in a band in California with Wayne Dickerson, who now teaches at Centerburg, and so it was almost like seeing a house concert in the school auditorium. The band was tight and played two sets of material that spanned their three albums, plus Mr. Dickerson got a chance to sit in with the band on a couple tunes. It was nice to meet Chris, and we had a few minutes after the show to chat about their recent gig on Woodsongs and the new solo album they are working on for the group's banjo player and occasional lead singer Janet Beasley.

On Saturday I went to the Central Ohio Folk Festival. I'd never been out to Battelle-Darby Creek Metropark, and it turned out to be a nice setting for the festival, and a beautiful sunny day. It seems that the COFF is mostly a picker and performer's festival, where many of the people go to hang out and jam and maybe catch a couple workshops. There was a spotlight concert tent, where there were performers all day, though the performances were generally pretty sparsely attended, which was a darn shame because I saw several really good performances:

• Dulcimer player Butch Ross, who did impressive interpretations of both "Eleanor Rigby" and "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" in a much too short 20 minute set.
• Columbus area band Halfway Home did a fun set mixing country and folk standards with a couple originals. This groups appears to be a side project for most of the players, who are in other local bands.
• Cincinnati area singer/songwriter Dave Hawkins did a nice set including mostly originals. I'd never heard of Dave Hawkins, but apparently one of his recent folk albums was nominated for several Grammy awards a few years ago, and it just shows another gap in my folk knowledge.
• A songwriting workshop featuring headliner Tom Rush, one of the guys from Mustard's Retreat, Dave Hawkins, Jake Armerding and local singer/songwriter Victoria Parks trading songs and sharing some insights into songwriting was great fun.

The evening concert was great fun. Headliner Tom Rush was outstanding - he had the audience howling with laughter all night, and displayed some impressive slide guitar picking skills as well. Jake Armerding provided support on the fiddle and Tom Rush allowed him to do a set of songs as well, which included my favorite of his, "Ithaca." The Sisters of the Strings, a local band opened with a set displaying a great amount of promise and skill for a group of teenagers. Ann and Phil Case did a set of old-timey standards on vintage instruments (the emcee clearly coveted Ann's vintage Martin guitar). Ann has a good voice and interprets the old-time songs well, and Phil provided some hit and miss vocal harmony and able accompaniment on mostly banjo, but also mandolin and guitar.