It’s Folk Festival Time/Part 1

10 p.m. to Midnight Host: Steve Winters

The coffeehouses and touring houses are ending their seasons and fans of folk and acoustic music shift their interest to the outdoor folk festivals.

Folk music festivals have been with us in America since the 1920s (not to mention their antecedents of fiddle festivals that extend far before that). But it wasn’t until the advent of the Newport Folk Festival and the Philadelphia Folk Festival during the folk music revival of the late 1950s and 1960s that festivals became a segment of the American musical mainstream. Now summer music festivals are literally to be found on every street corner.

This show examines the old Newport and Philadelphia festivals and the integral role they played in bringing to the mainstream bluegrass and blues performers, many of them discovered during what U. Utah Phillips called the “great folk scare,” and in simply promoting the concept of festivals, or as music historian Robert Cantwell termed them, these “massive counter cultural pow-wows.”

  • Artist, "Title", Album, Label

  • Bill Keith & Jim Rooney, “Devil’s Dream”, Prestige/Folklore Years--Vol. 4, Prestige/Folklore

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  • Bill Monroe & The Bluegrass Boys, “Blue Moon Of Kentucky”, Folk Music At Newport/Part 1, Vanguard

  • Bill Monroe with Tex Logan & Peter Rowan, “Shady Grove”, Folk Music At Newport/Part 1, Vanguard

  • Eck Robertson with New Lost City Ramblers, “Forked Deer/Eighth Of January”, Folk Music At Newport/Part 1, Vanguard

  • Sam & Kirk McGee, “Milk ‘Em In The Evening Blues”, Folk Music At Newport/Part 1, Vanguard

  • Cousin Emmy with New Lost City Ramblers, “Free Little Bird”, Folk Music At Newport/Part 1, Vanguard

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  • Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs, “Salty Dog Blues”, “Cabin On The Hill”, “Jimmy Brown The Newsboy”, Bluegrass At Newport, Vanguard

  • Jim & Jesse & The Virginia Boys, “Border Ride”, “Dill Pickle Rag”, “She Left Me Standing On The Mountain”, Bluegrass At Newport, Vanguard

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  • Dick Waterman, “Introduction Of Son House”, Blues With A Feeling, Vanguard

  • Son House, “Preaching Blues”, Blues With A Feeling, Vanguard

  • Skip James, “Devil Got My Woman”, Blues With A Feeling, Vanguard

  • Mississippi John Hurt, “Candyman”, Blues With A Feeling, Vanguard

  • Paul Butterfield Blues Band, “Blues With A Feeling”, “Look Over Yonder’s Wall”, Blues With A Feeling, Vanguard

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  • Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, “Muleskinner Blues”, “Night Herding Song”, Prestige/Folklore Years--Vol. 4, Prestige/Folklore

  • Bonnie Dobson, “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”, Prestige/Folklore Years--Vol. 4, Prestige/Folklore

  • Pete Seeger, “Here’s To Cheshire Here’s To Cheese”, Prestige/Folklore Years--Vol. 4, Prestige/Folklore

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  • Bruce Martin, “Scots Piping”, Philadelphia Folk Festival, Flying Fish

  • Tom Paxton, “Did You hear John Hurt?”, Philadelphia Folk Festival, Flying Fish

  • Norman Blake, “Jerusalem Ridge”, Philadelphia Folk Festival, Flying Fish

  • Michael Cooney, “Lady Isabel And The Elf Knight”, Philadelphia Folk Festival, Flying Fish

  • Tom Rush, “Driving Wheel”, Celebration!, Sliced Bread