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Look out for the 2019 Brooklyn Folk Festival!

Folk Music

Look out for the 2019 Brooklyn Folk Festival!

February 20, 2019 by admin Leave a Comment

Look out for the 2019 Brooklyn Folk Festival!
www.BrooklynFolkFest.com for all the up to date info and tix!

Here’s what’s happening at the festival this year:

The 2019 Brooklyn Folk Festival schedule:

Friday April 5th

Main Stage

7:30pm Tenores de Aterúe– Sardinian vocal quartet
8:10pm Jake Xerxes Fussell– Folk & Blues from North Carolina
9:00pm La Cumbiamba NY – playing Gaitas y Tambores from Colombia
9:50pm Jontavious Willis – Blues from Georgia
10:40pm Feral Foster & Ali Dineen – Folk, Blues, Country and original songs

Parish Hall Stage

8:00pm Ukrainian Village Voices – Vocal and instrumental music from rural Ukraine
9:00pm Jackson & The Janks (Feat. Sam Doores of The Deslondes) – R&B from New Orleans
10:00pm The Big Dixie Swingers – Western Swing and Jazz from New Orleans!

Workshop Room

8:00pm Puppet Show! –  Those beautiful Boxcutter Collective babies are back! Last year their show predicted Amazon’s move to NYC, the opening of the rainforest to more devastation by capitalism and the rise of witchcraft across the country. What will they bring us this year? Stay tuned to find out.
9:30pm Vincent Cross presents: Ballads of James “The Rooster” Corcoran

Saturday April 6th

Afternoon Concerts

Main Stage

12:00pm Dan Zanes & Claudia Eliaza – Sing from “The House Party Songbook“: An All-Ages Performance Featuring Songs From Their Family Roots Music Treasury
12:50pm Brotherhood of the Jug Band Blues – Traditional and original jug band music
1:40pm Nate Polly – Country songs from E. Kentucky, presented by the Appalshop
2:30pm The Mammals – Folk and original songs
3:20pm Little Nora Brown – Banjo songs, ballads and tunes
4:10pm The Ozark Highballers – Oldtime string band from Arkansas!
5:00pm The Lovestruck Balladeers – Trad jazz, ragtime, and more!
5:50pm Amythyst Kiah – Folk, blues, and original songs

Parish Hall Stage

2:30pm Square Dance!! with John Harrod, featuring a flatfoot dance performance by the City Stompers!
4:00pm Mara Kaye – Early jazz and blues songs
5:00pm Barry Clyde – Folk and blues songs
5:50pm The Hayrollers – Bluegrass!

Workshop Room

12:00pm Revealing the Banjo’s Earliest History – Through historical images and accounts, banjo-maker Pete Ross and writer Kristina Gaddy explore the Origins of the banjo and it’s development from the 1600s through the early 1800s in the hands of enslaved African Americans. They reveal fascinating discoveries about the banjo’s role in cultural-spiritual practices like Vodou and the origins of the word “banjo.”

1:00pm “Playing (with) Trash” – Come spend an hour making your own musical instrument! We’ll use everyday found objects and simple tools. No experience necessary, great for kids and adults! –  with Zeke Leonard

2:30pm  Old Time Jam Session – Bring your fiddles, banjos, guitars, mandolins and harmonicas for a good old string band jam session! – Led by fiddler Stephanie Coleman

4pm  Workshop TBA

5pm Fiddle Workshop – Glimpses of the African-American Fiddle Tradition in Kentucky: This workshop will explore what is known about the African- American fiddle tradition in KY – with master Kentucky fiddler John Harrod, presented by the Appalshop

6pm  Film: Catfish Man of the Woods – Clarence “Catfish” Gray is a fifth-generation herb doctor living near Glenwood, West Virginia. In the film, Gray gives his healing techniques and his personal philosophy of life. “A beautiful film, keenly observant and irresistibly appealing. It is difficult to imagine an audience that would fail to respond.” –The Washington Post
Presented by the Appalshop.

7:00pm Film: American Epic – This new documentary features the untold story of how the ordinary people of America were given the opportunity to make records for the first time.  NYC Premiere!

Evening Concerts

Main Stage

7:00pm The Local Honeys – Stringband from E. Kentucky! Presented by the Appalshop
7:50pm Frank Fairfield & Meredith Axelrod – Folk, blues and popular songs from the 19th and early 20th century
8:40pm Jerron Paxton – Blues, Old Time and Ragtime Music
9:30pm Kashiah Hunter & Friends – Sacred Steel from Atlanta, GA!
10:20pm The Brain Cloud – featuring Tamar Korn and Dennis Lichtman – Western Swing
11:10pm The Big Dixie Swingers – Western Swing and Jazz from New Orleans!

Parish Hall Stage

8:00pm Frankie Sunswept and The Sunwrays – R&B, R&R and original songs
9:00pm Ska-lopy Brass – The Jalopy Theatre’s own ska band!
10:00pm The Four o’clock Flowers – R&B and Soul

Sunday April 7th

Afternoon Concerts

Main Stage

2:00pm Pete Seeger 100th Birthday Children’s Concert & Sing-a-long! with Emily Eagen and Chris Q. Murphy – Presented by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings
2:45pm Jim Kweskin – Jugband, Folk, Blues, and early Jazz
3:30pm John Harrod – Old time fiddling from Kentucky! Presented by the Appalshop
4:15pm The Down Hill Strugglers w/ John Cohen – Oldtime string band
5:00pm Baby Gramps – Folksongs?!
5:45pm Ian Felice (of the Felice Brothers) – Original and folk songs

Parish Hall Stage

2:45pm Flatfooting Dance workshop with Megan Downes of City Stompers
3:45pm Cooking workshop/demonstration – TBA
4:30pm Jalopy Chorus – World harmony song traditions, led by Eva Salina
5:15pm Jalopy Jr. Folk Stringband and Jr. Folk Intermediate Ensemble Performance

Workshop Room

2:00pm Vocal Harmony Workshop – Learn to sing together in harmony, with Don Friedman and Phyllis Elkind

3:15 pm Songs from the Freedom Highway: Protest Music, Past and Present – w/ Nick Panken (of Spirit Family Reunion) & Special Guests

4:30pm 60th Anniversary of Alan Lomax’s “Southern Journey” field work – A guided tour from Nathan Salsburg, curator of the Alan Lomax Archive

5:30pm Film: The Ballad of Shirley Collins – “Not just a delicious glimpse into the young Collins, but a glorious insight into the music, character and attitudes of rural America.”- Mojo
“Music Documentary Of The Year” – Louder Than War
This is the NYC Premiere!

7:00pm Film: Peace Stories (27 min) – Three men from the South who served in WWI, WWII and Vietnam respectively, recount their war experiences and discuss it’s affects on their opinions of war. This film puts the study of war into a human context as it illustrates the impact of war on the ordinary people who carry out the decisions of presidents and generals. Presented by the Appalshop.

8:00pm Lil’ Dogies – Harmony singing of old time & country music, all the way from Kentucky!

1:00PM SPECIAL EVENT: THE BANJO TOSS – Banjo Throwing Contest!

This event is held off-site.
Assemble at the Gowanus Dredgers Boathouse, 165 2nd St., right on the canal! Flapjacks social at noon! Banjo toss at 1pm!
More [details]
Carroll St. F/G train is just two blocks away!

Evening Concerts

Main Stage

7:10pm Bruce Molsky, Tony Trischka, and Michael Daves – Bluegrass & old time music!
8:00pm Anna rg (of Anna & Elizabeth) – Traditional and original songs
8:30pm Joan Shelley – Original songs from Louisville, KY
9:15pm Yacouba Sissoko – Kora (harp) music from Mali

Parish Hall Stage
7:00pm Jesse Lenat – Original songs
8:00pm Tin + Bone – Old time banjo and harmonica

Posted in: Other Tagged: Banjo, Brooklyn Folk Festival, fiddle, Folk Music, jalopy theatre, jug band

7th Annual Brooklyn Folk Festival: April 17th-19th, 2015!

February 3, 2015 by admin 2 Comments

Hey folks – The 7th Annual Brooklyn Folk Festival is on it’s way!  Get your tickets now!

 

April 17th-19th at our amazing new venue, St. Ann’s Church, centrally located in Brooklyn Heights!  Here’s a photo of the venue:

Complete 30 band lineup below! PLUS! Workshops, film screenings, and the BANJO TOSS competition!


CLICK HERE for tickets
, or visit www.BrooklynFolkFest.com

Brought to you by Down Home Radio Show and the Jalopy Theatre…

SCHEDULE

Friday April 17th:

8:00PM Jackson Lynch – Blues guitar, old time fiddle and banjo breakdowns, songs and ballads
8:45PM Horse Eyed Men – Original folk/country outer-space music
9:30PM Michael Hurley – Legendary folk musician, needs no introduction!
10:15PM Jerron “Blindboy” Paxton – Country blues, fiddle and banjo
11:00PM Terry Waldo’s Rum House Band – Legendary early Jazz and Ragtime pianist with his band
11:45PM Feral Foster and His Band – Excellent songwriting based solidly in Blues, Folk, Gospel and Balkan music

Saturday April 18th: Afternoon Concerts

Posted in: Other Tagged: Banjo, Blues, Brooklyn Folk Fetival, fiddle, Folk Music, jalopy theatre, new york, old time

The Brooklyn Folk Festival: April 18th-20th, 2014…

March 19, 2014 by admin Leave a Comment

The Brooklyn Folk Festival, a co-production of Down Home Radio and the Jalopy Theatre, is almost here!  It’s gonna be an incredible event! – with 30 bands, film screenings, workshops, jam sessions and contests!  Coming up April 18th – 20th, 2014 at the Bell House, a great venue here in Brooklyn.

The Brooklyn Folk Festival is now going into its 6th successful year.  This year’s festival will focus on Old Time String Band music from the United States and will feature a number of traditional groups and musicians coming to the city from various parts of the South, representing their local traditions, as well as a number of great groups from right here in New York.  We will also have Indonesian Gamelan gong music, Andean music from regions of the old Inca empire, Balkan music, jug bands, blues, jazz, songwriters and more… a huge wealth of talent!

The festival will feature Frank Fairfield and Jerron “Blindboy” Paxton, Dom Flemons and Hubby Jenkins of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, R. Crumb with the East River Stringband, as well as 25 other bands and performers.  The Brooklyn Folk Festival is modeled on the early days of the Newport and University of Chicago folk festivals and seeks to present an authentic folk festival experience, with a diversity of traditional music, as well as contemporary songwriters, plus workshops, jam sessions, film screenings and the famous Banjo Toss contest!  There will also be a very nice tribute to Pete Seeger with group singing and a family friendly square dance.

Its gonna be fun!  Get your tickets right away!.. visit the festival website at: www.BrooklynFolkFest.com for the compete schedule and ticket information.

– Eli

Posted in: Other Tagged: Banjo, Blues, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Folk Festival, fiddle, Folk Music, Jalopy, Jazz, old time music, theatre

Turn, Turn, Turn – Pete Seeger Is Gone

January 29, 2014 by admin 6 Comments

justpete

Today we honor Pete Seeger, the first and greatest of modern folk musicians. Pete did it all. What great talent and vision. We won’t see his like again.  Included here are a few film clips of him over the years that I think are really good.  Click Here to hear an interview I did with Pete in 2007 for Down Home Radio.

Pete Seeger invented being an urban folk singer in its modern incarnation.  All the strands that we see around us today he in a lot of ways did first, the traditional, the popular and progressive sounds, the political.  Pete was among the very first (maybe first?) people in the modern era from outside the tradition to learn thoroughly very traditional banjo playing and ballads from records, field recordings and firsthand sources in the South, and although initially an outsider ultimately give back to the tradition. He also played popular and classical music on the banjo and was very well versed in African-American music and 12-string guitar playing learned directly from Leadbelly among other sources.   He built on his experience of Woody Guthrie’s songs and style to make his own protest songs in an early modern singer-songwriter style which he invented and which also paved the way for later “Folk-Rock” stylings.  And as he broke through into the mass media with his band The Weavers and as a solo performer, Pete really invented the genre of “Folk Music” as a category within the field of Popular Music as a whole.  In fact, Pete’s father Charles Seeger, a founder of the field of Ethnomusicology, wrote on the subject, saying that in the modern era, folk and popular music would meld as isolated, local and traditional communities were brought under the influence of mass communication and rapid transit.

In the many pieces now being written in the press about Pete I often see it said that he “was a champion of justice, civil rights and the environment.”  That is very true, in addition to and in conjunction with music he was a committed and extraordinary social activist.  He was also a life long socialist, and someone who had a deep sense of compassion, fairness and respect for all people and communities.

His activities in the Civil Rights Movement, Peace Movement and Environmental Movement I have seen widely discussed.  But a major part of Pete Seeger’s legacy and the foundation of his identity as a musician and cultural worker, is his crucial involvement in and commitment to folk music.  Somehow this aspect of his life, which was of a piece with his other convictions, seems to be poorly understood in the mass media and is somehow always mentioned only in passing.  Pete Seeger CARED about folk music – music with a long history, made and perpetuated by regular rural people, played in a rough style and dealing with topics and gritty realities that pop music would never touch.

[“To Hear Your Banjo Play” – 1947 – narrated by Alan Lomax and featuring a young Pete Seeger and the only footage of Woody Guthrie in his prime.]

Pete Seeger personally did the fundamental work that popularized the repertoire and created the social context for folk music to persist in our modern mass culture society. For instance, in 1939 Pete operated the recording machine for Alan Lomax as he recorded the great banjo player Wade Ward, absolute bedrock recordings for anyone interested in playing real traditional old time banjo music.  But its much more than that…

First off, Pete Seeger invented the concept of “pop-folk,” with his band the Weavers, teaming up on their early records with producer Gordon Jenkins (who also worked with Frank Sinatra, etc… for Decca Records) to create a hybrid music of songs from the folk repertoire in a pop style that was usable by the mass culture industry of the time and became extremely popular. And secondly he pioneered the idea of mass group singing at concert events.  Pete literally sang together with millions of people over the course of his career.

Pete did the hard touring, taking him away from his wife Toshi and family, starting in the 1940’s and continuing for decades, that created from scratch the audience for Folk Music in modern post WWII America. Much of his work over the many years has been with children, at schools and summer camps, a field which few popular entertainers particularly in the early days, would touch.  These children grew up and became the folk music audience and folk musicians of the 1950’s, 60’s and on…

Urbanized or suburbanized people were and are used to experiencing music passively as commercial consumers of CDs, radio, etc.  Pete’s mass group singing at his concerts gave people who had lost a personal connection to making and experiencing music, a way to connect, feel good about their musical selves and be a part of a community.  He gave back to so many people, at least on a basic level, the chance to sing and make music together, a vital part of being human, even as “progress” has worked to alienate and isolate us.  Most were content to sing with Pete at the concerts but many many people also went home and picked up instruments and pursued making music themselves more proactively at different levels.


[Pete sings out against the Vietnam War on the Johnny Cash show with his song “Bring ‘Em Home.”]

What a talent.  That was what allowed him to breakthrough and operate in the visionary way that he did.  Pete Seeger had so much talent it was stunning.  He was completely unlike any other figure or “entertainer” in the field of American popular music.  He was and is the only person in the popular consciousness who cared about folk music, really knew what he was talking about in a very serious way and took that understanding to the stage in his performances.  He played at colleges, summer camps, big venues, benefit concerts, radio and television, everywhere.  Pete Seeger was also a founder of the Newport Folk Festival that presented so many great traditional artists and is also inextricably linked to the first and greatest independent record company devoted to American Folk Music, Moe Asch’s Folkways Records.  Without Pete, who knows if Folkways could have survived all these years?  He recorded dozens and dozens of albums for them, which remain among their biggest sellers, and have given them so much needed revenue over the years when most of their amazing recordings did not.

Pete was an intellectual and a theorist, as was his father, and was very widely read.  He also made films, field recordings and started the magazines People’s Songs and then its successor Sing Out! where he wrote columns, published songs and engaged in dialogue and journalism for years.  He produced and hosted the amazing television program “Rainbow Quest” and has also written several books, song books and banjo and guitar instructional manuals.

Pete Seeger is much more than a protest singer, although he was certainly that and in great form.  He was incredibly proactive and prolific.  When did he sleep?  In the few times that I got to meet and spend some time with him I found him totally unassuming, uninterested in stardom in anyway, without ego and yet extremely charming and compelling.  He was indeed very tall and slim, he had small eyes, a ready crooked smile, he drank buttermilk and even at an advanced age seemed youthful in a way.  You realized immediately upon talking with him that he was extremely smart, focused but also a serious dreamer, whose ideas many felt were impractical!  But a lot of them caught on in big ways… I think its possible to say that without Pete those of us working in the field of folk music today might not be here at all.  If folk music means something to you, then Pete Seeger lives on.

Here is a very good article that is worth reading from the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/29/arts/music/a-folk-revivalist-who-used-his-voice-to-bring-out-a-nations.html?_r=0

Here is a photo of Pete Seeger with Geoff and Lynette Wiley, owners of the Jalopy Theatre, New York’s best folk music venue, and myself at a Woody Guthrie tribute event at Brooklyn College in 2012.


Here is an excellent interview with Pete Seeger on the news program Democracy Now!

Here’s  a very nice piece about Pete Seeger written by Jeff Place, the archivist at Smithsonian Folkways Recordings: http://www.folkways.si.edu/PeteSeeger


Jon Pareles wrote two very nice pieces for the New York Times:
Using His Voice to Bring Out a Nation’s
Pete Seeger, Champion of Folk Music and Social Change, Dies at 94

And here is a good piece on the origins of the song, “We Shall Overcome,” which was another one of Pete Seeger’s great gifts to us all: https://portside.org/2014-01-29/we-shall-overcome-honoring-pete-seeger

Posted in: Other, Video Tagged: Folk Music, obituary, Pete Seeger

Notes On “Inside Llewyn Davis”

January 1, 2014 by admin 3 Comments

Notes On “Inside Llewyn Davis”
(If you have not seen the movie, be warned there are spoilers below)

The Coen Brothers’ new film,  “Inside Llewyn Davis” is set in the Greenwich Village folk music scene of 1961 and is very loosely based on or inspired by the autobiography of the great folk singer Dave van Ronk.  I’ve been following the film closely because my band the Down Hill Strugglers has a song on the soundtrack album.  I also produce the Brooklyn Folk Festival, Washington Square Park Folk Festival and work at the Jalopy Theatre, the current home for folk music in New York City, and have always had an interest in the history of folk music in this place.

Now that the film is out in theaters and getting lots of press, people associated with the world of folk music here in New York have become very interested and are scrutinizing it because it is the first film to represent us and a seminal time in our history on the big screen.  I was born in Greenwich Village in 1982, so I certainly was not there in 1961, but everyone who I know who was there has serious criticisms of the depiction of that time and place as represented in the movie, regardless of whether they like the story and the film itself.  I think these criticisms are best made in Terri Thal’s (Dave van Ronk’s first wife, also his manager) article that was recently published in the Village Voice (at: http://www.villagevoice.com/authors/terri-thal/).

However, there are a few things going on in “Inside Llewyn Davis” that I haven’t seen discussed or really made plain anywhere so far.  One important point is that in the film the Llewyn Davis character (actor Oscar Isaac) sings nearly all traditional songs (all but one, which was written to be very traditional-like) and that even more than his dour personality and ill-luck, seems to doom his career and chances of earning a living as a musician.  The songs he sings are arranged and performed in a 60’s folk-like style but his repertoire, which in the film he tries hard not to compromise, is a meaningful and traditionally based one.  Here is a quote from Anthony Lane’s review in the New Yorker magazine (at: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2013/12/09/131209crci
_cinema_lane
), which I think misses the point:

“And here’s the thing, the masterstroke of the movie: Llewyn is very good, but he’s not great. The Coens could have made a film about a genius, just waiting to be dug up like a diamond. Indeed, in the closing minutes we see and hear the young Dylan at the back of a room. But Llewyn is a semiprecious stone, and that is the half-tragedy of his life.”

The character Llewyn Davis is in fact “great” by the standards of the music in the film, but he’s not a genius or not worthy because he’s not churning out his own hits and chooses to sing great old rural songs.  Llewyn’s musical style is very similar to that of his friends Jim and Jean in the film who are making it commercially, as I say the only real difference is that he does not write any of his own songs and the ones he does sing are sad morbid old songs and ballads, as so many great traditionals are.  His character sings in a way that is rather ungussied up but with the earnest and angsty quality which came out of 60’s folk music style and continues on today.  In real life there was significant difference between Dave van Ronk’s music and the real Jim and Jean’s music, although they both represented a 60’s style.  Van Ronk’s style was very individual and gritty, inspired by his interest in early Jazz and blues music, where as Jim and Jean’s was more generic “Folk” music of the time, although well played.

At one (anti-)climactic point in the film, Llewyn Davis sings a beautiful old ballad called “The Death of Queen Jane” which must be meaningful for him at that time given the context of the plot.  Davis has just found out that he has a child he didn’t know about because an ex-girlfriend carried her pregnancy to term.  He sings the song, which is about the Queen of England who dies in child-birth, but brings her baby into the world alive, as an audition for the Albert “Bud” Grossman promoter character in order to try to get a good gig or management, but Grossman replies, “I don’t see much money here.”  Is the song too sad, disturbing or hard to follow?  Is it too unoriginal?  Probably all of those things!  Llewyn Davis did not write the song, it is hundreds of years old and comes from a different place, but it strikes me as the viewer that the song must be very meaningful to him at that time in the film.  We are left wishing Llewyn had sung something more up, less sad, maybe original so that he could have gotten the gig, but instead he sang something that was pretty out there and maybe truer to where he was at than some song he could have tried to write…

Llewyn Davis’ repertoire as taken partly from the repertoire of Dave van Ronk and presented in the movie is very interesting and with further examination into its sources shows in a nutshell many of the strands that came together to make the folk music world of that time and place.  Davis’ music is related to my own field of “Old Time” music not so much in terms of his style in the film, but definitely in terms of several of his songs; “Hang Me, Oh Hang Me” (also known as “Been All Around This World) is a great banjo song originally field recorded by folklorists who located traditional banjo players Rufus Crisp and Justis Begley in Kentucky, and also recorded in a popular version by Kentucky banjoist Grandpa Jones.  How did it get to the Village?  Which was Dave van Ronk’s source?  I don’t know.  Rufus Crisp, a possible source for “Hang Me, Oh Hang Me” was also one of our sources for the song “The Roving Gambler” which my band recorded for the film’s soundtrack album.  Crisp was one of the very first Southern traditional banjo players to inform the playing and repertoire of New York musicians through his Library of Congress field recordings and visits by Pete Seeger, Stu Jamieson and others.  “The Death of Queen Jane” is a medieval English ballad collected by venerated folklorist Francis James Child and published in his seminal books of balladry.  The film gives scant coverage to rural folk songs in a rural “old time” style, and no coverage to blues music that was being learned and played in the Village at that time.   Only the woman who plays autoharp and sings a Carter Family song badly gives any nod to the presence of old time music, which was being played by a number of people at the time, including the New Lost City Ramblers.

Posted in: Articles Tagged: coen brothers, dave van ronk, Folk Music, inside llewyn davis, oscar isaac, t bone burnett

Grow The Brooklyn Folk Festival

December 3, 2013 by admin Leave a Comment

To fans and supporters of the Brooklyn Folk Festival,

We hope that you enjoyed last year’s, 5th Annual Brooklyn Folk Festival. Many of you have been friends of the Festival from the beginning, and we truly appreciate your support. We hope you have enjoyed watching the festival grow from a small event, into a substantial yearly showcase, drawing bands from New York City and across the nation.

This year’s Brooklyn Folk Festival will be held at the Bell House, which was also our home for last year’s Festival. The 6th Annual Festival is scheduled for April 18th-20th, 2014 and will feature 30 bands over three days, playing American and world folk music, along with workshops, film screenings, jam sessions and the world-famous Banjo Toss Contest. Tickets will be available soon, stay tuned to www.jalopy.biz or www.brooklynfolkfest.com for more information.  We look forward to seeing you there.

Brooklyn Folk Festival 2010  Brooklyn Folk Festival 2011

The Festival has been and wishes to remain the nation’s largest folk festival set in an urban area; right here in the heart of New York City. The festival is curated by folklorist, musician and author Eli Smith in partnership with the Jalopy Theatre and exhibits the very best underground and nationally recognized talent in the field of Folk Music, including blues, bluegrass, old time, songwriters, jug bands, gospel music, klezmer, Mexican, Balkan, African and Indonesian folk music and more. In the 1960’s the greatest yearly gathering for folk music took place at the Newport Folk Festival on a farm in Rhode Island. Today we want to keep the yearly focus of the vibrant new folk music revival squarely here within the borders of Brooklyn. This will keep the festival accessible for New Yorkers and visitors from out of town, and help keep Brooklyn the heart of the contemporary revival of interest in folk music.

We are starting early in order to find a home for the 7th Annual Brooklyn Folk Festival, to be held in 2015. We will need your help to secure a larger location for the festival as it continues to grow in size and scope.  The festival has already been recognized by sold out crowds, the press, and folk music artists themselves as a “magical event” which stands out with clarity and vision against a backdrop of noise. In addition to finding a location, we wish to invite and confirm notable acts and artists to join the festival.
Brooklyn Folk Festival 2012
  Brooklyn Folk Festival 2012

For all of these reasons we are asking you to support the Brooklyn Folk Festival.
We are asking for your donation to help us plan and secure Brooklyn Folk Festival 2015! The Festival is a non-profit event, and your donation is tax deductible.

Donations can be made out to our fiscal agent, Fractured Atlas with our account # 11-3451703. Checks can be sent to 315 Columbia Street, Brooklyn NY 11231.

You can also follow the link at the bottom and make your secure tax deductible donation online.

As a thank you gift we are offering the following rewards:

Folk Hero – $1000: 3 three-day passes to the 2014 festival, 10 tickets to any shows at Jalopy Theatre and a complete line of Jalopy LPs and CDs.

Founders Circle – $500: 2 three-day passes, and four tickets to any show(s) at Jalopy Theatre

Benefactor – $250: 2 three-day passes to the 2014 Festival

Friend – $100: 1 three-day pass to the 2014 Festival

Supporter – $50: BFF t-shirt and BFF 2012 and 2013 Live Albums on CD

Yours,

Eli Smith, Lynette and Geoff Wiley and the Friends of the Brooklyn Folk Festival.s, I support The Brooklyn Folk Festi!

Make a secure online donation

Brooklyn Folk Festival 2012

Posted in: Other Tagged: Brooklyn Folk Festival, Folk Music, Jalopy, new york, support

Washington Square Park Folk Festival Sept 17th-18th

September 6, 2011 by admin 3 Comments


[Banner by C. Cassano]

Hello everybody, just letting you know about the upcoming Washington Square Park Folk Festival.  I got hired by the Parks Department to produce the first ever folk festival in Washington Square Park.  Gonna be fun!

The festival is FREE and open to the public!

Its gonna be an excellent two days of music, with 9 of my very favorite groups (including my own) gracing the stage and myself on hand to serve as your MC.  Hope to see you there!

Saturday Sept 17th:

2pm The Calamity Janes – old time string band
3pm Feral Foster – original songs and blues
4pm East River String Band – country blues & old time
5pm Whiskey Spitters – country blues & old time

Sunday Sept 18th

2pm Bob Malenky – country blues
2:45pm Brotherhood of the Jug Band Blues – jug band music
3:40 Frank Fairfield – Old Time songs and fiddle tunes
4:15pm The Dust Busters with John Cohen – old time string band
5:10pm Willy Gantrim & the Phantoms – original songs, country & blues
6pm Peter Stampfel and the Ether Frolic Mob – make a wish for a potato

Proudly sponsored by:

http://www.milliontreesnyc.org/images/misc/parks_logo.jpg

2011 also marks the 50th anniversary of the 1961 “Washington Square Folk Music Riot” when the City tried to revoke the permit for folk musicians to play and sing on Sundays in the park.  They needed to clear undesirable people out so that they could  satisfy local real estate interests and I heard possibly enact a crazy plan to extend 5th ave. through the park!  Luckily folkies resisted the attempt by the police to kick them out of their public space, resulting in the “riot,” and the planned extension of 5th ave never materialized. There’s been a film made about the “riot” and the film will be screened at the festival and is also posted below for convenient viewing…

Coverage of the so called riot has been offered by The Indypendent and NPR.

http://youtu.be/zHk_YkfOiiM

Posted in: Other Tagged: Banjo, fiddle, folk festival, Folk Music, old time, washington square park

The Carolina Chocolate Drops Live! at Jalopy

December 7, 2010 by admin 1 Comment


[photo by Ann Chen]

Back in September the acclaimed old-time band The Carolina Chocolate Drops made a surprise appearance at The Jalopy Theater in Redhook, Brooklyn.  Luckily I had heard earlier that day what was going on and brought my recorder with me that night when I made the familiar trek down to Jalopy’s hallowed hall!  They played a great set and I got a good recording right off the board.  Here it is!

The Chocolate Drops performed as part of the Roots n Ruckus show, the awesome – free – weekly folk music show that happens every Wednesday night at The Jalopy Theater.  Well worth checking out.  I’m there almost every week!

Be sure to check out Jalopy’s new blog: www.jalopybrooklyn.wordpress.com

The Carolina Chocolate Drops are students of the elder African American fiddler Joe Thompson- check out my visit with Joe back in June of this year in the archives of Down Home Radio.

And big congratulations to the Chocolate Drops on their Grammy nomination for their new album, Genuine Negro Jig.

Posted in: Live Recordings Tagged: Banjo, carolina chocolate drops, fiddle, Folk Music, Jalopy, old time, string band

The Brooklyn Folk Festival is Here!

May 19, 2010 by admin 3 Comments

Brooklyn Folk Festival Logo by you.

The Brooklyn Folk Festival has arrived again!
May 21-23rd, 2010 at the Jalopy Theater!

Down Home Radio is proud to announce the 2nd annual Brooklyn Folk Festival.  This festival will feature the best in old-time music, blues, pre-blues, jug band music, New Orleans jazz, folk style songwriting, Greek, African and Mexican folk music and dance with concerts, workshops, and a Sunday afternoon square dance.  Thirty-one musical acts over 3 days! Come down and check it out, its gonna be fun!

–See below for the complete schedule–

*This festival is brought to you by Down Home Radio, and will be MCed by Down Home Radio host Eli Smith.

Pricing:
$15
per day for the main stage evening concerts and workshops or $40 for all three evenings.
$5
per day for Saturday afternoon concerts and Sunday afternoon outdoor stage, square dance included!  What a deal!

Contact The Jalopy Theater to buy advance tickets.

The Jalopy Theater
315 Columbia Street
Brooklyn, NY 11231
(718) 395-3214

www.Jalopy.biz

Schedule:

Friday May 21st at Jalopy:
7:30pm – Hubby Jenkins – Blues and folk songs
8:15 – George Stavis – Original improvised banjo music
9pm- Salieu Suso – Gambian Kora player
9:30pm- Calamity Janes – Oldtime String band
10:15pm- The Dust Busters – Oldtime string band
11:15pm- Blind Boy Paxton – Blues guitar, stride piano, old time banjo
12am – Ernie Vega – Blues, folk and original songs

Saturday May 22nd at Jalopy:

Posted in: Other Tagged: Banjo, Blues, Brooklyn, fiddle, Folk Music, Jalopy, old time, rebetika, Son Jarocho, The Brooklyn Folk Festival

The Brooklyn Folk Festival: May 15th-17th

May 9, 2009 by Eli Smith Leave a Comment

Thanks to everybody who made the festival such a big success.  See ya next year!

(Look out for audio, pictures and video from the festival coming up real soon here on DHR)

Brooklyn Folk Festival Logo by you.

Friday, May 15th thru Sunday, May 17th at the Jalopy Theater.

Down Home Radio is proud to announce the 1st annual Brooklyn Folk Festival.  This festival will feature the best in old-time music, blues, pre-blues, jug band music, New Orleans jazz, folk style songwriting, African folk music and Mexican folk music and dance.  Come down and check it out, its gonna be fun!

*This festival is brought to you by Down Home Radio, and will be MCed by Down Home Radio host Eli Smith.

$10 Per Day or $25 for 3 days – Afternoon Workshop Included!

Posted in: Other Tagged: Blues, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Folk Festival, Folk Music, Jalopy, old time, Roots n Ruckus
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