Folk fest off to spine-tingling start

BIRDS HILL PARK — In an unprecedented programming move, the Winnipeg Folk Festival announced last night it will now run 365 nights a year, with mid-January performances taking place inside igloos and a special Halloween tribute to The Grateful Dead taking over Pope’s Hill.

OK, so that’s not exactly true. Not even remotely the case, in fact.

But the concept of a five-night Folk Fest — pioneered last year when Elvis Costello performed on opening night — makes this once-compact early-summer institution seem more like a marathon that requires audiences to pace their intake of music and the deep-fried delicacies known as whales’ tails and perhaps other less nutritious substances occasionally consumed by festival-goers.

The 2010 festival had no rock spectacle to mark its first evening, but the mainstage troika of hometown heroes The Wailin’ Jennys, roots goddess Emmylou Harris and reggae legend Jimmy Cliff ensured there was actually a sizable crowd in Birds Hill Park on Wednesday evening.

The weather generally co-operated and the friendly Folk Fest vibe was very much in evidence, although that’s relative easy to achieve at the point of the weekend when the Porta Potties are still benign to visit.

After a few opening words from Anishinabe spiritual leader Dave Courchene, who urged the crowd to hope for a better, less oil-polluted planet, the Jennys got the 37th Folk Fest officially started with 50 minutes of the remarkable harmonies that have endeared this trio to audiences ever since their first gig at the old Sled Dog Music in the heart of deepest Wolseley in 2002.

Soprano Ruth Moody and mezzo Nicky Mehta — both Winnipeggers — now meld their voices with Heather Masse, an American who had never visited Manitoba during the summer before this week.

The prairie sky welcomed the newest Jenny in typically mercurial Manitoban fashion by turning grey, flooding the festival audience with a brief but intense downpour and then turning sunny again in the midst of a set that ranged from the gospel of Glory Bound to the band’s very chill version of Summertime.

Next up was Texan singer-songwriter Sam Baker, a ’tweener act with one of the most remarkable stories of the festival. Back in the ’80s, he was taking a train across Peru when guerillas from the Shining Path — the nastiest terrorist group in South America — set off a bomb that mangled his hand and messed up his mind to the point where he had to learn how to teach his hands to play guitar again.

Baker’s short set paved the way for Harris, the ageless American singer-songwriter icon who best embodies everything that’s tasteful about the past few decades of country-folk.

The 63-year-old singer-songwriter, a silver-haired vision of serenity, coaxed the sun back from the clouds from the opening notes of Here I Am, from 2003’s Stumble Into Grace.

Backed by a rotating arrangement of drums, mandolin, accordion, guitar and keys, she dipped a pinky-toe into her bluegrass repertoire but mostly mined Americana from the past two decades.
Before settling into Hold On, from 2008’s All I Intended To Be, she acknowledged it was time to head back into the studio. But there really should be no rush when you have 21 albums under your belt. The most stunning moment of her set was Goin’ Back To Harlan, an awe-inspiring number from 1995’s Wrecking Ball, whose rising crescendo can send a chills down the spine of a corpse. Or at least should.

After Harris, American a cappella singer Pura Fé Crescioni performed a short set of impressive vocal acrobatics, loosely based on First Nations sounds.

By the time Cliff took the stage with a large electric band, the crowd was ready for something louder and more upbeat. They took to their feet for Cliff’s Sitting In Limbo, started moving them during a very electric version of Cat Stevens’ Wild World and remained in motion for the rest of the set.

No attendance was available, although the sold-out campground means there were no less than 6,000 paying fans.
And if you’re wondering how a city hall reporter got tapped to review an outdoor music festival, it’s really just a matter of symmetry: Winnipeg’s mayor, you might recall, used to be the concert promoter responsible for Sunfest.

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca