Since moving to Illinois, I have only been to the festival infrequently. In 2019, we had a good group: my wife, my parents, a hammered-dulcimer-loving uncle, and some good friends. Last year and again this year, I flew out, and my father and I attended just the two of us.
The audience has changed a lot in the four decades that I have been going. The people who were in their 30s and bringing their kids when I was growing up are now in their 70s, and most of the kids don't seem to come anymore. (I did get to see one nice moment where someone was documenting two grandparents attending the festival with their teenage grandchild.) While the crowd is greyer these days, the soul of the festival remains very consistent: evening concerts on Friday and Saturday with no competing events (bringing everyone to Main Stage), and then 11 -- eleven! -- areas going during the day on Saturday and Sunday. Performers make a lot of appearances: if you like someone that you see on Friday evening, you can probably see them do a solo set on Saturday morning, teach a hands-on workshop on Saturday afternoon, and then get thrown into a group workshop on Sunday. I love the multiple opportunities to see artists and, in particular, the magical musical moments that happen when different groups who have been thrust onto the same workshop stage together get into each other's grooves.
This year's festival also benefitted from generally great weather: just a touch of rain on Friday, overcast on Saturday, and then sunny on Sunday. Although one of the nice things about Old Songs is that a lot of the event spaces are indoors -- providing somewhere to hear music when it's really raining -- it's still nice to not end up all soggy at any point.
I've done my best to distill a weekend of music into a top ten list. Without further ado:
(10) Bob Blue and Tom Smith's "Itsy Bitsy Spider" Retelling
On Saturday, I attended the "Sing Along with the Folk Song Society of Greater Boston," which -- as I expected it would be -- was a pleasant flashback to my Friday nights at the Black Diamond Folk Club in Birmingham, England, during my sabbatical there two years ago. (My experiences at the Black Diamong are something that I thought I would describe on this blog and yet never have gotten around to writing about.)
One of the first numbers was a song set to the tune of Stan Roger's "The Mary Ellen Carter" telling the story of the resilience and persistence of the Itsy Bitsy Spider. The singer attributed it to Bob Blue; the internet also gives credit to Tom Smith, so I've named him above.
(9) Vanaver Caravan
Bill and Lydia Vanaver founded the Vanaver Caravan in 1972, and the group has very regularly graced the Old Songs' stage with dance programs that typically center around Appalachian clogging but that also stretch out into other forms of American and world dance.
Bill Vanaver died just two weeks before the festival. To see the young dancers, the not-so-young musicians, and Lydia carrying on the tradition during the Saturday night concert was really moving.
May Bill's legacy carry on for many more years.
Magpie sang a song about the 1970 killings at Jackson State University that took place 10 days after the much more well known killings of anti-war protestors at Kent State.
Reggie Harris and Pat Wictor played Phil Ochs' "Another Age," bringing new life to a song that strikes me as having lyrics that are very much of its era.
And then Kim Harris joined Reggie and Pat on stage for the workshop closer -- "This Little Light of Mine."
(6) "We Learned This From"
On Sunday morning, we spent some time with Andy Cohen, Roy Book Binder, and Sally Rogers. (Sally's husband Howie Bursen, who was also supposed to be a part of the workshop, had come down with a cold.)
Roy Book Binder talked about traveling with and learning from the Rev. Gary Davis. He started off by saying how hard it was to get Rev. Davis to teach him "Delia" and then had to yell at his fingers for wanting to play the very similar "Cocaine Blues."Andy Cohen talked about making the decision to become a blues musician after hearing the Folkways LP of Studs Terkel interviewing Big Bill Broonzy.
And after a comment on how much she loves playing music for people, Sally regaled us with the story of the time that she and Howie were audited by the IRS. It turned out that the government owed them over $600. At the end of the audit, the accountant said, "I just have one question. Why do you guys do this? You don't make any money..." They have not been audited since.
(5) "Remembering John Roberts"
Another major loss in the Old Songs family was the passing, in early February, of John Roberts, who had been preceded in death three years earlier by his long-time singing partner Tony Barrand. Last summer, we were listening to John MC the Saturday evening concert; this year, we were remembering him.
Pokingbrook Morris opened the tribute with two dances. Old Songs Festival founder Andy Spence spoke about recording Roberts & Barrand for Andy's Front Hall Records. Fred Breunig and Andy Davis, who played with Roberts and Barrand in the seasonal group Nowell Sing We Clear told some stories about John's depth of knowledge of the music. Lisa Preston, John's life and musical partner, and Magpie participated, and Deb Cowan, another musical partner of John's MC'd the whole event.
(4) Sally Rogers MCing the Saturday Night Concert
With no John Roberts to MC the Saturday night concert, the task fell to Sally Rogers, who started off the evening by singing "John's Gone Away," a tribute to Roberts written by Howie Bursen.
For each of the nine acts on the evening's program, Sally had taken a song from their repertoire and written new lyrics with which to introduce the band. Some of the bands jumped in to play along on the songs; others had "a-ha!" moments as they realized what was happening. It was a solid bit.
She also led the crowd in the active "Tony Chestnut" where we all touched are toes, knees, chest, and noggin while singing "Tony Chestnut knows I love you," progressively eliminating the singing of body parts one by one until we were doing the routine almost in silence. And she got the crowd to sing -- as a four-part round -- new lyrics to "Row, Row Your Boat":
Old Songs is the best festival around
Singing and dancing and dancing and singing
And sometimes there's a clown
All of this made for a very memorable evening indeed!
(3) "Haggis and Pestograss"
The answer, in part, was American fiddle tunes: "Leather Britches" was one number that they did (although Alasdair made sure that we understood that it was a descendent of the Scottish reel "Lord MacDonald"). But they also collaborated on some of Beppe's original songs, traditional Scottish tunes, and even a little bit of Paganini!
The two had not played together before, but they are both such masterful musicians that they had no trouble finding common ground and making amazing music. Beppe also provided a very thorough description of how to make good pesto.
(2) Seán Dagher
A couple of times soon after we arrived at the festival, we had seen a tall guy with a great looking goatee and no hair on top of his head walking around. He was the second performer in the Friday evening concert, and his name was Seán Dagher.
Accompanying himself on the bouzouki, he sang songs of the sea, although often smoothing out the melody a bit to make the songs his own. During the Friday evening set, he did a lovely version of "The Campañero," which he learned from the singing of John Roberts. He kicked off the "Oh, Canada!" workshop on Sunday afternoon with "The Mary Ellen Carter." Later, he introduced a song by saying that it was "almost the unofficial national anthem of Canada." I thought that we were about to hear Tommy Makem's "Canada My Own Land," and instead Seán sang another favorite of mine: The Arrogant Worms' "I am Cow."
(1) Bon Déberras
There is almost always a group from Quebec at Old Songs, and I am almost always enthusiastically swept up in the foot tapping and fiddling and clogging ... and then I go for a full year without listening to any Québécois music. We'll see what happens, but Bon Déberras had me very fully in the swept up phase.
During the "Oh, Canada!" workshop on Sunday, fiddler Véronique Plasse was similarly moved to jump in on the vocals of a Felix Leclerc song being performed by Christine Tassan and les Imposteures, and the two groups teamed up for the closing tune of that workshop.
Their Saturday evening concert set was super-energetic, yielding one of the only standing ovations of the festival. Dominic Desrochers smoothly moving from dancing to playing guitar was a sight to see.
