Welcome back
to some familiar Folk

By Nathan Lerner
For the Times

During most of the year, the Old Pool Farm, outside of Schwenksville in Upper Salford Township, Montgomery County, is a quiet agrarian entity. However, each summer, it is magically transformed into the site of the Philadelphia Folk Festival, an event of international renown. The site is scheduled to burst into music for the 46th edition of the event between this Friday through Sunday.
"This event is great for the whole family," said festival chairman David Baskin.
To buttress his claim, Baskin delineated a litany of family friendly elements.
"We’ve got all-day family activities ranging from hands-on crafts, interactive juggling, storytelling, concerts, kids’ dance and the Great Groove Band. This is an activity that you sign up for and rehearse through the weekend, culminating with a performance that opens the Sunday night concert on the Martin Main Stage," Baskin said. "The whole site is very safe and user-friendly for kids and their families. Many families camp for the weekend, adding to full festival experience."
The format of the festival represents an interesting balancing act between tradition and innovation. With regard to major changes to this year’s event, nothing is "dramatically new," Baskin said.
"As an acknowledgement that we must keep the music alive and that it’s available all year, we’ve instituted a Venues Tent, where nine or ten of the area venues will be present to preview their season and to inform our audience where they can hear the music year round," he said.
Addressing challenges to the festival, Baskin cited "competition, both for the general entertainment dollar and specifically for our audience. Venues that never booked during the summer are now doing so and those that do are now booking the same music we’re after.
"Most of them have a larger budget for performers than we can afford," Baskin said, "We’re going to try to address the issue by learning to work smarter and sharpen up what we present."
This year’s musical lineup includes more than 50 acts that will be performing an array of traditional folk, blues, old timey, bluegrass, world and roots music. Doc Watson, Mavis Staples and Jonathan Edwards will be among the scheduled headliners. Recently, the alternative country band, Son Volt, as well as John Gallagher Jr., from the Tony Award winning play Spring Awakening, were both added to the lineup.
Fred Kaiser serves as chairman of the programming and production committee. Since 1975, he has been involved in booking the acts for the festival.
"The music industry as a whole is in a state of flux," he said. "There’s lots of choices out there. Encouraging people to leave their computers, digital TVs, iPods and satellite programs has become more difficult."
He added: "The festival hopes to build on people’s need to get away from all the distractions and artificialness and experience live music and family enjoyment in a comfortable setting."
Kaiser echoed the notion of competition, "The amount of live music being presented in the Philadelphia area in the summer makes it very difficult to put together a special program."
To counter this, Kaiser has adopted an interesting booking strategy: "I look to bring together artists that can’t been seen elsewhere as well as blending various musical styles to present a musical mosaic." He added, "I’m always looking to present artists and combinations that will appeal to a wide audience. I also look at generating a new audience for this music and continue to offer new, young talented artists."
Kaiser described the festival as really a unique musical experience.
"We continue to feature traditional established artists and introduce exciting newcomers," he said. ••
For more information about or tickets to the Philadelphia Folk Festival, call 215-247-1300 or 800-556-FOLK. Or, visit the Web site at www.folkfest.org
Nathan Lerner serves as Central Control Liaison at the Philadelphia Folk Festival. He welcomes feedback at culturevulture1@aol.com