Pulled Into Orbit at the 63rd Philadelphia Folk Festival
I’ve always said the Philly Folk Fest is out of this world.
The Philadelphia Folksong Society took that notion literally for the 63rd annual presentation of music, crafts and community in Upper Salford Township, Pennsylvania.
The festival’s theme this year included an astronaut playing the banjo and its iconic smiley face logo as a planet. The festival, which is just a few years removed from its first pause in 60 years, pulled thousands into its orbit Aug. 14-16 at the Old Pool Farm.
In addition to Grammy Award-winning artists who headline the main stage like Terrance Simien, Leftover Salmon and Sam Bush, the folksong society makes plenty of space for its Musical Artists Cooperative.
The showcase Friday afternoon featured J.D. Webb and the Good God Damn, Avi Wisnia, Valentina Sounds, Edge Hill Rounders, Meghan Cary, Kicking Down Doors and Emily Drinker, who hosted the festival’s artist interview series last year. Despite the intense heat barreling down on the Lobby Stage tent, Drinker had the crowd dancing in front of the stage.
The grounds of the Old Pool Farm are home to serendipitous encounters. Directly after Drinker’s set, I shared a ride back to the parking lot with her brother Will.
Adam Ezra, who was closing the show Friday night, was hanging out at the hospitality tent when I ran into him. The hug felt like a full-circle moment from seeing him and meeting him two years ago and interviewing him on the Monday before the festival.
My old festival friend Paul Dixon was on the hill Friday night, and when I ran into him, he just happened to be speaking with Cheryl Prashker, the percussionist of the Celtic band RUNA, one of my favorite bands that I’ve seen at the Celtic Afternoon performances over the years.
Eddie 9V brought the blues to the hill, invoking the legend Buddy Guy, and felt comfortable onstage with a Coca-Cola and a fan blowing his hair behind him to keep him cool. With a stellar backing band, he blazed through his songs and also played “Louisiana Rain” by Anders Osborne, who performed at the festival with the North Mississippi Allstars in 2015.
Damn Tall Buildings returned to the festival for the first time since 2016, and the Brooklyn acoustic trio delivered an electric set, so much so that guitarist Max Capistran broke two strings.
His wit was also unbreakable as he quipped, “Every song is a sing-along if you sing along.”
Capistran leaned into the folk tradition of storytelling, about how they once toured in a BMW and dubbed it the “Bluegrass Magic Wagon.” He told the crowd his first concert was Buddy Guy.
“Eddie 9V also broke a string,” he said as he was winding a fresh thread onto his acoustic. “I’ll break another one for ya. I’ve been trying to play like Eddie all night. I’m not sure if you can tell.”
He did indeed break another string but got back to the microphone in time to step into a solo.
One of the best moments of the festival was when they taught the crowd the lyrics to “The Universe Is Hungry” and had everyone singing along by the end.
The serendipitous moments continued as I walked from The Tisburys, who had just performed their song “Elephant Hotel” about Lucy the Elephant in Margate, New Jersey, when I saw my old camping buddy Bert Eisenstat.
Terrance Simien and the Zydeco Experience were legendary as always. I saw him at my very first festival in 2008, then again in 2011 and at the Somers Point Beach Concert. One of my favorite gags was when he pulled out a Grammy Award from a bag onstage and, with it, a bunch of Mardi Gras-style beads that he tossed into the crowd from the edge of the stage.
His reach with the plastic projectiles was almost as impressive as his accordion and washboard and his a cappella tribute to Sam Cooke. For those who were further back, he brought his band into the crowd for “When the Saints Go Marching In.”
Marking his 20th appearance at the Philadelphia Folk Festival since the fourth annual festival in 1965, Tom Rush kind of snuck onstage.
Under the auspices of a soundcheck, he just started playing songs in the dark with keyboardist Matt Nakoa. He didn’t even give John Flynn a chance to introduce him. “I want to do this for Gene Shay,” Rush said. “I miss you, Gene.”
Rush delighted the crowd with stories about Joni Mitchell and playing a club called The Chess Mate in Detroit. He said she played four songs that blew his socks off.
“I asked if she had any more new songs because I was overdue for delivering an album to Elektra. Two years overdue. And this is back when two years seemed like a long time,” Rush said. “A few weeks later she sent me a tape with six brilliant songs. Just before the last song she apologized for the opening tune. ‘I just finished writing this. It’s not much good. I’m so embarrassed. But here it is.’ I named the album after it. This is ‘The Circle Game.'”
“When she sent me that tape I had to call her up and ask her, ‘How do you make that chord?’ She said, ‘You put your hand over the top of the neck.’ ‘Is that legal?'”
As his set went on, he continued to seemingly accidentally uncover gems.
“I just figured out recently this is my 68th annual farewell tour,” he said. “I start the clock when I first got paid to make music. That would be street singing in Paris, summer of ’59.”
If the banter wasn’t enough comedy, he broke out into “It Takes a Whole Lotta Liquor to Like Her.”
He told the story of a neighbor who says things he just has to write down: “Give me two eggs, side by each and a pair of toast.” “Propped the son-of-a-gun up with a four-by-twice, huh.” “I went for my snowshoes in the barn, and there they were on the wall, gone.”
He said his favorite was when he saw this neighbor nursing a hangover, looking better in the afternoon than he did in the morning. He said to Tom, “I feel a lot more like I do now than a while ago.” Tom told the crowd, “The scary part is I understood him perfectly.”
In my last serendipitous event, I saw a woman who I photographed in 2018 in the beer tent, in the beer tent. I recognized her instantly, as I have famously claimed to have the memory of a stoned elephant. I found the photo, walked over to her and asked, “Is this you?” She looked at me, pulled the glasses off her head, looked at my phone and said, “It is, but who am I with?”
Just as any festival goer can tell you, the festival weather usually comes with two settings: hot and rainy. In my opinion, after 18 Philly Folk Festivals, the best are when it rains lightly Thursday night, leaving the hill cool and dry. This year, the heat was on Friday and Saturday, and rain appeared Sunday.
That didn’t stop Simien from teaching kids about his parish and the meaning of the New Orleans flag, turning Sunday morning into a civics lesson.
In terms of Philly Folk Fest, I’m still a child. I’ve met people who claim to have been conceived and born in the festival campgrounds, which are twice as large as the day-tripping public ever sees.
My weather predictions are rarely right, and my gardening isn’t much better. But it seems as if that rain on Sunday will help the festival seeds, first planted at the Old Pool Farm in 1971, grow into a bountiful harvest of festivals for years to come.
