I Just Read About That…

[CANCELLED: July 31-August 2, 2020] Newport Folk Festival

Last year we took the whole family to two days of the Newport Folk Festival.  It was a fun experience for the most part.  Both kids were exhausted and my son decided he’d rather stay in the hotel than go on the second day.  However, this year he said he;d like to go again, so since the 2020 Festival was cancelled, maybe next year all four of us will go again.

I was not surprised that the Festival was cancelled. But it was still a shock when it happened on April 29th.

Here’s the formal message

The lineup is never announced ahead of time, so you don’t know who you are going to see when you get tickets.  We decided that a Saturday & Sunday Festival was fine, rather than a 3 day event.

The lineup wasn’t even entirely finalized by the time it was cancelled, but here is who was scheduled to play.

FRIDAY, JULY 31

• Natalie Hemby [haven’t heard of her, wouldn’t have minded missing her]
  Hemby is a country folk singer and part of the Highwomen.
• Brittany Howard [I’d like to see her live]
  Howard is part of the Alabama Shakes.  Her new solo album is pretty fantatsic.
• Resistance Revival Chorus [this is probably really good]
  The Resistance Revival Chorus (RRC) is a collective of more than 60 womxn, and non-binary singers, who join together to breathe joy and song into the resistance, and to uplift and center womxn’s voices. Chorus members are touring musicians, film and television actors, Broadway performers, solo recording artists, gospel singers, political activists, educators, filmmakers, artists, and more, representing a multitude of identities, professions, creative backgrounds, and activist causes. We center womxn in music, and address how historically marginalized womxn have been in the music industry.
• The Ballroom Thieves [I haven’t heard of them, but I like what the blurb says]
  The Ballroom Thieves – Calin “Callie” Peters (vocals, cello), Martin Earley (guitar, vocals), and Devin Mauch (percussion, vocals) – mine immense melodies and hypnotic hooks from personal stories under the cover of vintage jazz-style.  The songs reflect feelings of rootlessness from four nomadic years, bouts of depression, and the ever-looming specter of political unrest hanging over the country.
• Watkins Family Hour [this would be fun to see]
  I love Sara Watkins and saw her with I’m With Her. The Watkins Family Hour is based around Sean and Sara Watkins with Sean primarily on guitar and Sara on fiddle, and with both of them sharing vocals.
• Barrie [this sounds pretty interesting]
  After moving to Brooklyn, Lindsay released Singles in Oct 2018, which featured “Canyons”, “Tal Uno”, and “Michigan”. In early 2019, Barrie announced the project’s debut album, Happy To Be Here.  The songs feature lush harmonies that drive home an infectious hook as well as pure vibe, meandering between bubbling synths and an RnB beats, other songs feature thoughtful layers of cello & trumpet.
• Delta Spirit [hadn’t heard of them, but I suspect they are too country for me]
  Pitching its style between indie rock and alt-country, Delta Spirit features bassist Jon Jameson, drummer Brandon Young, vocalist Matthew Vasquez, multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Kelly Winrich, and guitarist Will McLaren. The band began when Jameson and Young’s former band, the San Diego-based emo outfit Noise Ratchet, called it quits in 2004. Seeking a rootsy sound, the pair joined forces with Vasquez, Winrich, and founding guitarist Sean Walker.
• Puss N Boots [really enjoyed their stuff and would be happy to see them]
  Puss N Boots first formed in 2008 as a live band performing around Brooklyn. With a repertoire anchored in Americana, country, folk, pop and rock, the band became an outlet for Norah Jones, Sasha Dobson and Catherine Popper to switch instruments and allowed them to showcase a different side of themselves than on their various solo and side projects.
• Son Volt (plays Trace) [I have always preferred Wilco, but have grown to appreciate Sun Volt]
  Led by vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter Jay Farrar, Son Volt became one of the leading bands in the alternative country community, attracting critical praise and an audience that was loyal if not always large. Dominated by Farrar’s commanding and resonant vocals, his Neil Young-influenced lead guitar work, and a lyrical and melodic palette that took a rueful look at the changing American landscape, Son Volt made a striking debut with 1995’s Trace, whose patchwork of contemplative quiet numbers and anthemic rockers would set the template for the group’s best work.
• Sunny War [I liked her Tiny Desk, but don’t need to see her]
  Sunny War began learning guitar from her uncle at around the age of seven. It was the fingerpicking that was the attraction for Sunny War. She loved playing guitar that way as opposed to strumming.
• Joseph [I have seen them and they are great live]
  Joseph is a bewitching band of three sisters from the beautiful Pacific Northwest. Expect honest words and genetically perfected harmonies.
  
• Randy Newman [of course I know him, but I don;t need top see him]
  With songs that run the gamut from heartbreaking to satirical and a host of unforgettable film scores, Randy Newman has used his many talents to create musical masterpieces widely recognized by generations of audiences.
• EOB [I was supposed to see him, but show was postponed]
  Ed O’Brien never planned to make a solo record. As guitarist with Radiohead, he thought his artistic side had its outlet. Plus, he wondered, would it really be necessary? “Thom, Jonny and Phillip are making music,” he says, “and I’m like, ‘The last thing the world needs is a shit album by me.’” But suddenly a switch was flicked and the songs came pouring out of him. That creative surge resulted in an album of rediscovery and adventure by O’Brien under the moniker EOB that deftly veers from moments of delicate folk to euphoric house, its songs seamlessly pinned together by unswerving melodic hooks and candid lyricism.
• Rainbow Kitten Surprise [I would like to see them]
  With chilling harmonies, dynamic instrumentation, and introspective lyrics, their genre-defying sound takes influence from artists like Modest Mouse and Kings of Leon as much as Frank Ocean and Schoolboy Q.
• Big Thief [I loved their first album, and like their latest one, but sometimes they go in directions I’m not interested in, but I’ll bet they are great live]
  Big Thief released two albums last year.  The songs were recorded live with almost no overdubs. All but two songs feature entirely live vocal takes, leaving Adrianne’s voice suspended above the mix in dry air, raw and vulnerable as ever. Where U.F.O.F. layered mysterious sounds and effects for levitation, Two Hands grounds itself on dried-out, cracked desert dirt.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 1

• Deer Tick [I get them mixed up with Deerhoof and am not sure which one this is]
  Deer Tick: undercutting expectations since 2004.
  “I think a lot of my favorite artists have always done stuff like that,” Deer Tick front man John McCauley says from his home in Nashville, reflecting on his band’s love of unexpected mashups: tender lyrics layered over pissed off guitars; classical music flourishes delivered nearly naked and high.
• Sylvan Esso [I have wanted to see them–not sure if this would be the best venue]
  Sylvan Esso began as a chance meeting, followed by a couple of risky cross-country relocations that coalesced into ten songs. It became very clear early on that these songs were the product of sheer alchemy; Amelia’s effortlessly acrobatic melodic reflections complimented Nick’s dynamic compositions in ways that were as unlikely as they were undeniable. When it started it was whisper quiet, a slight frame, something almost domestic but gleaming with excitement. Then it made contact with the air.
• Daughter of Swords [I have seen her Tiny Desk, but she;s not quite my thing]
  In 2017, Alexandra Sauser-Monnig began recording a set of songs… about a breakup that had yet to happen. Her partnership had drifted into a comfortable state of indecision, stalling when it came time to make big life moves or chase new horizons. She had the sense that she needed to slip the relationship in order to pursue everything else life might have in store — more music, more adventures, a general sense of the unknown. Those feelings drifted steadily into a set of songs that lamented the inevitable loss but, more important, outlined the promise of the future.
• Muzz [I had not heard of them and assumed they sounded very different than they are described]
  Muzz is the new project of Paul Banks (singer of Interpol), Josh Kaufman (esteemed producer/multi-instrumentalist and one third of Bonny Light Horseman), and Matt Barrick (drummer of Jonathan Fire*Eater, The Walkmen, and Fleet Foxes’ touring band). Today, the trio release their first official single/video, the loungey and romantic “Broken Tambourine” via Matador. “Broken Tambourine” begins with sparse, floating piano by Kaufman, before surging with Banks’ rumbling vocals, Barrick’s low percussion, and a lilting clarinet, while an open door during recording brings in the surrounding nature sounds of the studio in Woodstock and augments the song’s spacious atmosphere.
• Sharon van Etten [I have seen live–she was great]
  With curling low vocals and brave intimacy, Remind Me Tomorrow is an ambitious album that provokes our most sensitive impulses: reckless affections, spirited nurturing, and tender courage.
  
• Lee Fields & The Expressions [I don’t know Fields, but I’ll bet a set of soul music would sound great in Newport]
  Soul music pours out of Lee Fields, as free and unstinting as God’s love. It has ever since the 1960s, when he was a teenager in North Carolina sweating it out on juke joint stages, crumpled dollars hailing at his feet. It continues now that the living legend is in his late sixties, ushering in the most successful and fruitful period of his career.
• Early James [I have heard some songs by him and did not like them]
  Singing For My Supper, the debut album from Early James, is full of those types of poignant, straight-from-real-life-to-the-page stories. Early James has lived a long life for a 26 year-old, a life he can’t help but end up turning into art. Songs keep spilling out of him: Songs about addiction, songs about familial reckoning, songs about mental health, songs about the ways adulthood can rob us of childhood wonder. For someone raised largely by the women in his family in Southeastern Alabama,
• Drive-By Truckers [A little too country for me, but great lyrics and some catchy songs]
  Drive-By Truckers is kicking off the new election year with The Unraveling, our first new album in 3 1/2 years (the longest space between new DBT albums ever). Those years were among the most tumultuous our country has ever seen and the duality between the generally positive state of affairs within our band while watching so many things we care about being decimated and destroyed all around us informed the writing of this album to the core.
• Waxahatchee [I have seen live twice and considered seeing again this year]
  Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield, a lyricist who has always let her listeners know exactly where she is at a given moment, spent much of 2018 reckoning with these questions and revisiting her roots to look for answers. The result is Saint Cloud, an intimate journey through the places she’s been, filled with the people she’s loved.  Written immediately in the period following her decision to get sober, the album is an unflinching self-examination. From a moment of reckoning in Barcelona to a tourist trap in Tennessee to a painful confrontation on Arkadelphia Road, from a nostalgic jaunt down 7th Street in New York City to the Mississippi Gulf, Crutchfield creates a sense of place for her soul-baring tales, a longtime staple of her storytelling.
• Ian Noe [I have not heard of him, he sounds like good folk music]
  Ian Noe draws on the day-to-day life of Eastern Kentucky on his debut album, Between the Country. Recorded in Nashville with unhurried production by Dave Cobb, these 10 original songs introduce a number of complicated characters, diverse in their own downfalls but bound together by Noe’s singular voice.
• Mandolin Orange [I love their name, but like their music a little less]
  Andrew Marlin and Emily Frantz made everything seem so easy, pulling a few acoustic instruments out of their car and, in no time, huddling around a single microphone behind the Tiny Desk. With that, Mandolin Orange was ready.   Emily bowed her fiddle while Andrew strummed a guitar and sang.
• Vagabon [I was supposed to see her but the show was postponed]
  That’s the recurring sentiment Lætitia Tamko carried with her through the writing and recording of her second album under the Vagabon moniker. Her first, 2017’s Infinite Worlds, was an indie breakthrough that put her on the map, prompting Tamko to tour around the world and quit her job in electrical/computer engineering to pursue a career in music full-time. Tamko’s self-titled Nonesuch Records debut finds her in a state of creative expansion, leaning fully into some of the experimental instincts she flirted with on the previous album. This time around, she’s throwing genre to the wind. Vagabon is a vibrant culmination of influences, emotional landscapes, and moods; a colorful and masterful statement by an artist and producer stepping into her own.
• Hawktail [I haven;t heard of them, but they sound interesting]
  Hawktail is the instrumental acoustic quartet of fiddler Brittany Haas, bassist Paul Kowert, guitarist Jordan Tice, and mandolinist Dominick Leslie. Though at first glance it looks like an acoustic superpicker side-project, their all-original music is cohesive and unique, distinguishing them as an ensemble with a sound built from the ground up. Flush with orchestral sweeps and sparse vigils, with strains of the American South and the North Atlantic, this cosmopolitan sound is not what you’d expect from a string band.
• Black Pumas [I love the record and would definitely want to see them]
  Black Pumas fuse cinematic neo-soul, light psychedelia, and a touch of urban grit. Rising from their studio origins to become a hard-hitting live act, the group released their debut album in 2019.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 2

• The National [I had tickets to see them Friday night in Bethlehem, too]
  Their sound has evolved. The debut was closer to alt-country, while parts of Sleep Well Beast wouldn’t be out of place on a Bjork or late Radiohead record. But some the band’s work ethic and earnestness have remained constant. Matt Berninger’s lyrics, which use free association and obscure imagery to speak to middle class anxieties: jobs, divorces, debt. His vocals, which can switch from a near-whispery baritone to anguished howl in a beat. The musicianship of the two sets of brothers who complete the line-up: the Devendorfs, Bryan and Scott, form the rhythm section, and twins Aaron and Bryce Dessner do guitars.
• Mandy Moore [I have grudgingly come to respect her, although i don’t know her new music]
  After successfully transitioning out of teen pop stardom into the more refined arena of tasteful adult pop, Mandy Moore’s music career was more or less shelved during the 2010s while her acting career took flight.  Her new album is an impeccably recorded volume of contemplative pop songs with an inviting West Coast feel that shines in a subtle sort of way.  It’s a lovely artifact from an artist who didn’t necessarily reinvent herself or try to keep that machine running past its expiration date, but rather seems to have settled more authentically into her true character.
• The Secret Sisters [Great harmonies but too country for me]
  All but two songs on The Secret Sisters’ first (self-titled) album were covers of traditionals or traditional country songs. On their second album, Put Your Needle Down, the Rogers sisters wrote more songs themselves and brought a tinge of darkness. They went from touring with Bob Dylan to losing their label, purging their team, filing bankruptcy and almost permanently trading harmonies for housecleaning. But there’s a mythical pull to music that kept sisters Laura and Lydia Rogers moving forward, and they came out with a biting and beautiful third LP, produced by Brandi Carlile, You Don’t Own Me Anymore. Their first as New West signees, it’s a document of hardship and redemption, of pushing forward when it would be so much easier to drown in grief. And it’s a story about how passion and pure artistry can be the strongest sort of salvation – how art is left, like perfect grains of sand, when everything else has washed away.
• Preservation Hall Jazz Band [Legendary, and worth seeing]
  Preservation Hall was founded in 1961 to promote traditional New Orleans jazz in all its authenticity. Legendary players like George Lewis, Sweet Emma Barrett and Kid Thomas Valentine, all rooted in the formative years jazz, were its original stars. That generation is long gone now, yet the hall is still in business and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band continues to tour the world.
• Phoebe Bridgers [I have seen her live–she was fantastic]
  A Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter with a dreamy and hook-filled indie pop heart, Phoebe Bridgers’ witty lyrical perspectives, sadly beautiful songs, and commanding melodies quickly jettisoned her to worldwide acclaim.  She has a punk heart beating under the gentle sad folks songs.
• Steve Gunn & William Tyler [I’m quite sure I know Gunn, but not Tyler]
  For over a decade, guitarist/vocalist Steve Gunn has been one the American music’s most pivotal figures – conjuring immersive and psychedelic sonic landscapes both live and on record, releasing revered solo albums ranking high on in-the-know end of year lists.
  William Tyler knows the South—as a crucible of American histories and cultures, an entity capable of expansive beauty and incomprehensible violence, often in the same beat—as his native place, the place that holds him and that he runs from. In the music of William Tyler, the South is not apart from America; the South is America condensed.
• Alexi Murdoch [He sounds a lot like Nick Drake, not a bad thing]
  Alexi Murdoch is a British born multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter. He currently moves between New York, Montreal, Reykjavik and a small house on the remote West coast of Scotland where he splits his time between writing and a ninety five year old wooden sailing boat.
• Sampa the Great [I have heard great things about her and would like to see her]
  Sampa The Great released her acclaimed “Birds and the BEE9” mixtape in 2017 – the release found inspiration in spiritually-minded gospel and chants to neo-soul and hip-hop, intertwined with Sampa’s clearly-defined, no-holds-barred political outlook.
• Andrew Bird [I have seen live and he is very impressive]
  Singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Andrew Bird relies on violins, guitars and whistling to craft a unique sound that’s difficult to describe. Bird even uses his words as instruments, creating lyrics from archaic and esoteric words that conform to the melodies in his head.
• Grace Potter [I know I know her, but I’m not sure what she sings.  I’m sure I’d enjoy hearing her set]
  Potter has risen in the rock world leading the Nocturnals, a super-solid band that’s proven versatile enough to integrate plenty of soul, but which always goes back to the basic rock riff. Within that group, Potter became known as a belter and a strutter, with a dynamic range that could get a little overwrought. On Midnight, she remains her aggressive, earthy self while getting playful in new ways. With its songs about sex and dancing, self-confidence and risk, Midnight is a mid-career turn for Potter that proves genuinely freeing.
• The Marcus King Band [I’ve heard of him and I’m sure I’ve heard him–I’d enjoy this more live than on record]
  A 23-year-old performer and innovative songwriter, Marcus King can simultaneously switch from swaggering rock to supersonic soul, having written songs and performing onstage for half his lifetime. All five members of the band—drummer Jack Ryan, bass player Stephen Campbell, trumpeter/trombonist Justin Johnson, sax player Dean Mitchell and the keyboard player —create a blistering, yet soulful unit that has honed their synergy through endless touring.
• Nathaniel Rateliff [I like him a lot when he’s not veering too much into country]
  What began as a solo album about the painful slow dance of the unraveling of a relationship turned into something altogether different when Richard Swift, Rateliff’s longtime friend and producer of the Night Sweats’ two albums, passed away in July 2018. This period jogged something out of his restless subconscious, helping him address some big life questions — the ones that have stumped philosophers, statesmen and profound thinkers since time began, exploring the unsteady terrain of love and death. But in the end, what he really was doing was creating an homage to his friend
• Erin Rae [pretty, gentle folk rock that would be nice to hear on a Sunday morning]
  Gifted with a unique ability to fuse musical genres and influences to craft songs that feel fresh and wholly her own, with her new album Putting On Airs (2018, Single Lock Records), Erin Rae has thrown down a direct challenge to the stereotype of what a Southern singer should be. Both lyrically and sonically, she strikes a fiercely independent chord, proudly releasing a deeply personal record that reflects her own upbringing in Tennessee, including the prejudices and injustices that she witnessed as a child that continue to impact her life to this day.
• CAAMP [I kept thinking I would want to see them live (they seemed hugely promoted), but I didn’t really like what I heard]
  Minimalist in design but heartfelt in delivery, Caamp are an acoustic guitar and banjo indie folk group from Columbus, Ohio.  Their latest record is heartfelt set of country-folk ballads and open-road singalongs caught between the wanderlust of youth and the cruel slap of adulthood.
• Tré Burt [I had not heard of him, but listening to this one song, I really like him]
  In 2018, the Sacramento-based folk singer-songwriter self-released his debut album, Caught It From the Rye. The album, which showcases Burt’s literary songwriting and lo-fi, rootsy aesthetic, landed him a handful tour dates and some positive press, but Burt had no idea just how far it would get him: to a spot on the roster at John Prine’s Oh Boy Records.
• Yola [I love the Yola album–she has an amazing voice, dynamic personality and great songs–I really want to see her live].
  Yola’s debut album Walk Through Fire, produced by Dan Auerbach, is a genre-bending release from one of the most powerful emerging British voices in music today.  Auerbach says “The moment I met Yola I was impressed. Her spirit fills the room, just like her voice…she has the ability to sing in a full roar or barely a whisper and that is a true gift. She made everyone in the studio an instant believer.”

Many of these artists have been invited back for next year, which means the lineup won;t be all that much of a surprise, but I think it would be fun to go with all four of us.