Get yer folk on

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/07/2005 (7644 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

IF current rules were in place 20 years ago, the Winnipeg Folk Festival’s new artistic boss would never have gotten into the event.

During the Folk Fest of ’85, Chris Frayer was a mischievous River Heights kid who lied to his parents about staying at a friend’s house for the weekend. His buddy pulled the same move, setting up a classic teenage ruse.

Free from parental supervision, the two 13-year-olds caught a ride to Birds Hill Park, where they slept under picnic tables, scrounged for food — and got hooked for life on the Winnipeg Folk Festival, enjoying both the music inside the gates and the hospitality of strangers in the campground.

“At a very young age, I fell in love with the spirit of this festival,” says Frayer, now 33 and in his first year of choosing the music for Manitoba’s most prestigious outdoor music festival.

The four-day event –which kicks off tonight with a Mainstage concert featuring India’s Kawa Brass Band, Winnipeg roots group Nathan, West African kora players Ba Cissoko, avant-jazz guitarist Bill Frisell and bluegrass icon Ricky Skaggs — is the first designed by a kid who grew up at the Winnipeg Folk Festival and long dreamed of being the person in charge.

A former punk-rock and alt-country musician who spent his early 20s following the Grateful Dead and Phish, Frayer is the first self-described freak to choose the music at the Folk Fest. But he’s certainly not the first colourful character to hold the job.

Founding director Mitch Podolak (1975-1986) was a flamboyant folkie and social activist. His protegé Rosalie Goldstein (1987-91) was equally outspoken.

Pierre Guerin (1992-2000) was a Celtic musician with a long mane of silver hair. And Rick Fenton (2001-04) made good on years of experience as a CBC Radio staffer by shooting straight whenever he opened his mouth.

Frayer is the first native-born Manitoban to hold the programmer’s job. More importantly, he’s the first campground rabble-rouser to get inside the Folk Fest and climb to the top.

The irony is, he’s done it at a time when the $2.5 million non-profit organization event is trying to chill out a little bit. This is the first year when unsupervised minors — the modern equivalents of 13-year-old Chris Frayer — will not be allowed to camp inside the famously frenetic Festival Campground.

To compensate, Frayer is making all his noise on the festival’s seven stages this year. He beefed up the world music contingent with the likes of Zimbabwe’s Oliver Mtukudzi and Colombia’s Lucia Pulido, booked influential roots-rock bands such as the reunited Camper Van Beethoven and Winnipeg’s own Weakerthans, and landed some big names in country-folk goddess Emmylou Harris and super-producer Daniel Lanois.

Add in the usual range of singer-songwriters, including up-and-coming Canadians Leslie Feist and Martha Wainwright, and the 2005 Winnipeg Folk Fest lineup stands up to its sometimes flashier counterparts in Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver.

“I think I’ve been exposed to more American music than some of the other producers,” says Frayer, whose previous programming gigs included stints at the West End Cultural Centre, Jazz Winnipeg and the ill-fated World Next Door Festival.

His travels to U.S. events, which included volunteer gigs at the New Orleans Jazz Festival and numerous spectator visits to Austin’s massive South by Southwest, have inspired him to book left-of-centre acts like the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players — a father, wife and daughter team who make up stories about people in pictures collected at garage sales — and the circus-like Silk Road Acrobats.

Meanwhile, his past as a campground partier inspired him to place programming in this year’s campground. The Trachtenburgs will perform at 1 a.m. Sunday morning in the campground west of Pope’s Hill, followed by the film Maestro Ayahuasquero, a South American travelogue set to live music.

And Frayer’s experience as a longtime Folk Fest fan has led him to put more of the big acts on smaller daytime stages. Already, some observers are grumbling about the lack of star power in the Mainstage programming, which was predecessor Rick Fenton’s forte.

“I want to put strong stuff on during the day, because the daytime stages are much more intimate. This is the way I want to see my favourite artists, and I hope the audience does, too,” Frayer says.

“Because we have seven stages going, if people aren’t interested in one show, there’s always six others. That’s why it’s easy to take advantage of this festival.”

It’s easy, but it isn’t simple. To help you navigate your way through the 32nd Winnipeg Folk Festival lineup, here are a few of the 80 acts that you should not miss:

BA CISSOKO

The sound: The 21-stringed kora, the idiosyncratic signature instrument of West Africa, is played both traditionally and amplified by this hypnotic, entrancing quartet from Guinea.

Must-see because: No Folk Fest is complete without a kick-ass African band, and Ba Cissoko fills the bill. The best kora players are said to be possessed by genies, just like the best bluesmen owe their talents to the devil.

On stage: Thursday on the evening Mainstage; Friday at Snowberry Field (11 a.m. and 1:45 p.m.).

THE BE GOOD TANYAS

The sound: Appalachian-inspired, Rocky Mountain-refined songs from three women who met in the interior of British Columbia.

Must-see because: Missing in action over the past two years, the Be Goods are back to spread their neo-hippie goodness throughout the festival.

On stage: Friday on the evening Mainstage; Saturday on the Green Ash Stage (1 p.m.).

CAMPER VAN BEETHOVEN

The sound: The original roots-punk band back in the ’80s, CVB made gypsy music, country, acoustic folk and hardcore make sense on the same album.

Must-see because: The band broke up in 1990 only months before it was supposed to play the Winnipeg Folk Festival. Chief songwriter David Lowery only reunited with his former bandmates in 2003.

On stage: Saturday at the Green Ash Stage (4:15 p.m.).

DR. JOHN

The sound: New Orleans-style blues pounded out by a pianist who’s been doing the boogie-woogie thing for nearly half a century.

Must-see because: Dr. John is the biggest blues act on a Folk Fest lineup that’s more about world music and cutting-edge contemporary folk than during previous years.

On stage: Friday on the evening Mainstage.

FEIST

The sound: Airy folk-pop by globetrotting Canadian Leslie Feist, a Nova Scotia-born, Regina-and-Calgary-raised Torontonian who has a crash pad in Berlin and records in Paris.

Must-see because: Feist proved her mettle on stage at April’s Juno Awards, when she overcame a nightmarish technical glitch — she was forced to stop and restart on national television — to gain thunderous applause.

“It was a lucky accident [that] I didn’t let it get to me. I looked down at the stage tech and asked if we cut to a commercial, and he looked up at me with his very calm eyes and said, ‘No, we’re live,'” says Feist, speaking over a cellphone last week from a car speeding from Montreal to Ottawa. “If he wasn’t so calm, I don’t think I could have pulled it together.”

After winning two awards at the Junos, Feist has been concentrating on the U.S., where her critically acclaimed Let It Die was released this spring. As in France and later Canada, the Parisian-tinged album is slowly but steadily finding an audience.

“Everyone has a romantic side. Even cranky Americans get all evocative when they think about the Eiffel Tower,” she jokes, referring to the sort of anti-French sentiment that created Freedom Fries. “I think I might capture people’s imagination. There’s something about the travelling troubadour thing, where everyone wants to do it.”

On stage: Sunday at Green Ash (12:45 p.m.), Bur Oak Stage (4:30 p.m.) and on the evening Mainstage as the final ‘tweener of the festival, between Daniel Lanois and Emmylou Harris.

BILL FRISELL QUARTET

The sound: Improvisational avant-jazz by one of the best guitarists in the business.

Must-see because: Rookie music programmer Chris Frayer commissioned Frisell to come up with a Folk Fest-appropriate set, so Winnipeggers will be the first to hear how he responded.

On stage: Thursday on the evening Mainstage; Friday at Shady Grove (2 p.m.).

JACKIE GREENE

The sound: Dylan-esque, semi-acoustic folk-rock by a young singer-songwriter from northern California.

Must-see because: He was a sleeper hit at the 2004 Folk Fest, generating a big buzz from a handful of daytime performances.

Though only 22, he’s been honing his live show for five years, starting out as an underage performer who jumped at every open-mic opportunity in the northwestern U.S.

“I grew up in Cameron Park, near the mountains east of Sacramento. It’s a ridiculously small town and there’s nothing to do, so half the kids are stoners and the other half find something else to do. I went into my parents’ basement and found my mom’s records,” says Greene, speaking over a cellphone from a vehicle somewhere in the state of Washington.

“The Dylan comparison is the easiest one to make, but it works for me. I love Dylan and he’s a huge influence, but there are a lot of other people who play guitar and harmonica.

“I don’t know if I really play folk music, per se. I think I play rock ‘n’ roll.”

On stage: Friday on the Big Bluestem Stage (4 p.m.) and the evening Mainstage; Saturday on the Bur Oak Stage (4:15 p.m.).

EMMYLOU HARRIS

The sound: Haunting, plaintive country-folk by the Alabama-born, Nashville-based Harris, a talent of the same calibre as Bob Dylan and Neil Young.

Must-see because: We’re talking about vocal genius here. While any singer can hit the notes, Emmylou Harris knows how to sing around them.

“There’s no point putting something on a song unless it’s going to add something,” says Harris, speaking over the phone from her home in Nashville. “A song is like a jewel. You have to find the best setting for it, so you’re like a jeweller, trying to find the best way showcase this precious gem.”

On stage: Sunday on the evening Mainstage, both as a guest vocalist during Daniel Lanois’ set and for a set of her own.

KAWA BRASS BAND

The sound: Horn players from Rajasthan, India, put a post-colonial take on instruments from the old British Empire.

Must-see because: Have you ever heard a brass band from India?

On stage: Thursday on the evening Mainstage; Friday at Big Bluestem Stage (2:15 p.m.).

DANIEL LANOIS

The sound: On his new album Belladonna, Canadian super-producer Lanois returns to the ambient music he helped Brian Eno refine in the early 1980s, using the haunting sound of pedal steel guitar as the main weapon in his sonic arsenal.

Must-see because: Lanois won’t just stick to ambient music; he’ll also revisit some of his early solo material and hook up with Emmylou Harris — for whom he produced the awe-inspiring Wrecking Ball in 1996 — for at least two or three numbers.

On stage: Sunday on the evening Mainstage.

OLIVER MTUKUDZI

The sound: The extremely subtle but powerful folk music of southern Africa by the most important recording artist in Zimbabwe, who began his career as the former Rhodesia struggled under white rule and now finds his homeland struggling again under the inept leadership of former hero Robert Mugabe.

Must-see because: The man known simply as “Tuku” is to Zimbabwe what Neil Young is to Canada or Bob Dylan is to the U.S. — the definitive protest singer, which is an interesting trick considering Mtukudzi prefers allegory instead of direct criticism in his lyrics.

“I don’t like political songs. I don’t wait for things to happen so I can write a song, because once the event is over, that song is dead,” says Tuku, speaking over the phone from North Carolina.

“I deal with personal issues — a song that will work yesterday, today and tomorrow. I don’t deal with what’s happening right now.”

At the head of an eight-piece band, Tuku is fond of melding South African choral traditions, Zimbabwean dance music and western pop influences into very upbeat, even gentle compositions. But make no mistake — each lyric is a message, despite his insistence otherwise.

“You could say Zimbabwean music sounds happy right now, because music is used to defuse tension. There’s a lot of singing, because we’re trying to ease up on the situation.”

On stage: Saturday at Snowberry Field (2:15 p.m.) and the evening Mainstage.

LUCIA PULIDO

The sound: Traditional music from Colombia, as interpreted by a woman with a passion for the arty sounds of modern jazz composition and chamber music.

Must-see because: Shakira is not a representative sample of the real sound of Colombia. Pulido gets into the Latin passion for storytelling with a vengeance.

On stage: Saturday at Snowberry Field (2:15 p.m.); Sunday at Snowberry Field (4:30).

KINNIE STARR

The sound: Bohemian dance-pop and folkish alternative rock by one of Canada’s most charismatic singer-songwriters.

Must-see because: The mere presence of Starr at an outdoor folk festival is intriguing.

On stage: Saturday at Little Stage on the Prairie (12:15 p.m.); Sunday at Green Ash (12:45 p.m.) and on the evening Mainstage as a ‘tweener.

TRACHTENBURG FAMILY SLIDESHOW PLAYERS

The sound: Who needs sound when you have a family act that uses slides salvaged from junk sales to invent stories about the people in the images?

Must-see because: This really must be seen to be believed, never mind understood.

On stage: Saturday at the Kids’ Area (4:40 p.m.), extremely early Sunday morning in the Festival Campground (1 a.m.) and Sunday night at the Firefly Palace (10:15 p.m.).

MARTHA WAINWRIGHT

The sound: Edgy singer-songwriter fare by a woman with an outstanding musical pedigree — Rufus Wainwright’s her bro, Loudon Wainwright III is her dad and Kate McGarrigle is her mom.

Must-see because: You can’t have a Folk Fest without some kind of Wainwright.

On stage: Friday at Shady Grove (12:45 p.m.) and Little Stage on the Prairie (3:45 p.m.); Saturday at the Bur Oak Stage (12:45 p.m.).

THE WEAKERTHANS

The sound: Rootsy, folkish indie-rock by the Winnipeg band that’s set the lyrical bar for local songwriters.

Must-see because: There’s no better place to see a band that wraps itself in Prairie imagery than in the middle of a leafy field.

On stage: Friday at Green Ash Stage (4:15 p.m.); Saturday at Big Bluestem (4 p.m.).

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca

WINNIPEG FOLK FESTIVAL

July 7-10, Birds Hill Provincial Park

STAGE TIMES

Festival gates are open 5 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. Thursday, 10 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Sunday. Birds Hill Park gates are closed 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.

Evening Mainstage concerts run Thursday to Sunday from 6 p.m. to roughly midnight. The smaller but more intimate daytime stages and the kids’ area are open 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Friday through Sunday. The evening alternative Firefly Palace is open 7-11 p.m., also Friday through Sunday.

TICKET INFO

Four-day folk festival passes are $150 for adults, $90 for students and seniors and $15 for kids aged five to 12. Single-day admission is $60, $45 and $6, respectively. Kids under five get in free.

Camping passes are $35 for anyone over the age of 12. This year, teens under the age of 18 must be accompanied by an adult if they wish to camp, with a maximum of four minors per adult. All passes are available at Ticketmaster, 780-3333 or www.ticketmaster.ca, or at the Folk Fest gate.

GETTING THERE BY CAR

The Winnipeg Folk Festival site is located at the east end of Birds Hill Park, about 20 minutes northeast of Winnipeg. Take Highway 59 northeast from the Perimeter until you reach the park entrance, then follow the signs to the festival site.

A longer but faster alternative is to exit Highway 59 at Provincial Road 212, also known as Garven Road. Drive east to PR 206 and then drive north to the park’s east gate. One Manitoba Provincial Park pass is required for every vehicle.

NEW RULES FOR OVERNIGHT

PARKING

To cut down on loogans sneaking into the Festival Campground this year, all vehicles left overnight in the main parking lot, the Hand-Made Village parking lot and at the entrance to Pope’s Hill will be towed, starting one hour after the final Mainstage performance concludes.

If you can’t drive home due to fatigue or intoxication, you may take a bus home and register your vehicle with festival volunteers at the security trailer in the main parking lot. If you don’t register, your vehicle will be towed.

GETTING THERE BY BUS

Throughout the weekend, Winnipeg Transit runs a Folk Festival Shuttle from downtown to Birds Hill Park. The hourly shuttles leave the corner of York Avenue and Memorial Boulevard and stop at all regular stops along Graham Avenue, Main Street, Chief Peguis Trail and Henderson Highway. Non-stop service runs from the Perimeter to Birds Hill Park. A one-way shuttle ride costs $3.70 for adults and $3.10 for seniors, students and kids. For the schedule, open a PDF file at www.winnipegtransit.com or call 986-5700.

WHAT ELSE DO I NEED TO KNOW?

For a list of camping dos and don’ts, see Cheryl Binning’s column in today’s Tab. For a full list of daytime performances with set times, download a free festival schedule from www.winnipegfolkfestival.com.

Also pick up the Free Press all weekend for Manitoba’s most comprehensive coverage of the 2005 Winnipeg Folk Festival, including Mainstage concert reviews, daytime coverage and previews of performances by Martha Wainwright, Camper Van Beethoven and Daniel Lanois.

Under the big top

Artists performing on the evening Mainstage at the 2005 Winnipeg Folk Festival

(with ‘tweener acts — that is, singer-songwriters playing between Mainstage equipment changeovers — in italics):

THURSDAY, JULY 7

Kawa Brass Band

Nathan

Valdy

Ba Cissoko

Jesse DeNatale

Bill Frisell Quartet

Alana Levandoski

Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder

FRIDAY JULY 8

Sue Foley

Nicolai Dunger

Jackie Greene

Tony McManus

The Be Good Tanyas

Kaki King

Bo Dollis & The Wild Magnolias

John Mooney

Dr. John & The Lower 911

SATURDAY, JULY 9

Madrigaïa

Connie Kaldor

The Campbell Brothers

Nathaniel Mayer

Lila Downs

Steve Forbert

Instinkt

Willy Porter

Oliver Mtukudzi & Black Spirits

SUNDAY, JULY 10

Odetta

Kinnie Starr

Xavier Rudd

Rae Spoon

Daniel Lanois

Feist

Emmylou Harris

Festival finale