Continuing with the 37-year
history of my involvement with folk festivals in San Diego, there are so many
reasons why the the 16th annual Folk Festival was the last one held at SDSU (at
least for a few years).
First,
our original grant from the National Endowment for the Arts had come to an end
and the new NEA guidelines only provided funding for local traditional artists,
except their idea of traditional excluded people like Johnny Walker, Sam
Hinton, Curt Bouterse, and almost any revivalist or country artists who played.
Local blues, gospel, and Mexican music was it. They ignored my premise that
maybe California was more than a lot of other states - a mixture of people from
everywhere who brought their music with them and possibly deserved to be exposed
to music from their own origins or roots. (I had already begun to use the term
"roots" but it wasn't going anywhere in 1982.)
Second,
we had competition for festival sponsorship from the SDSU Center for World
Music, which was part of the SDSU Music Department. Their program was sort of
forced on us, although the SDSU Music Department had completely ignored us for
the first 15 years and refused to let us use their facilities for festival
programs.
Third,
the Old Time Cafe opened that year, giving San Diego residents year-round folk
music. The establishment owners suggested that I be replaced as folk festival
organizer, but I guess I still had enough pull for their request to be turned
down. At any rate, those folks went out of their way not to publicize us and to
make sure that major acts were booked on our festival weekend. Our attendance
numbers were down whether the Old Time Cafe was to blame or not. It's too bad.
We should have worked together.
Fourth,
it was the year Young Americans for Right Wing Activities decided that we were
part of the local communist conspiracy and flooded the SDSU Cultural Arts Board
with reactionary diatribes about all those left-wing folksingers we had brought
to SDSU.
Fifth,
there was the matter of Jimmy Murphy who was sent a $500 advance to drive out
to the Folk Festival from Arkansas but never showed, making Russ Wright, the
Cultural Arts Board advisor do several slow burns and recommend that we be cut
off because " no one wanted to listen to folk music anymore anyway."
Finally,
my gray hair and obvious distance from student days at SDSU made it harder each
year to sell the idea of a festival to the 20-year-olds on the Board. They had
a new outside facility they were starting to book rock bands in to and they
didn't like folk and old timey music much anyway.
Still,
the festival had some bright spots musically. Folk veterans Hally Wood and John
A. Lomax Jr. made a rare festival appearance. Ireland's Joe and Antoinette
McKenna participated in their first festival in the U.S. Sammy Vomacka, a
12-string guitarist from Czechoslovakia (then behind the Iron Curtain) was with
us as was Minnesota's Scott Alerik. Locally we discovered and presented the
great gospel voices of Sister Helen Sanders, her son Melvin, and her musical
family. Cathie Whitesides and Barbara Magone played some wonderful Cape Breton
fiddle and piano duets. Veteran 12-string guitar bluesman Fred Gerlach made a
rare appearance, and Ray and Ina Patterson, who had brightened so many
festivals with their close harmony singing and mandolin and guitar duets, made
their final appearance. Other players included Jim Ringer, Mary McCaslin, Sam
Hinton, Stu Jamieson, the Big Jewish Band, Richard Banke (aka Skid Roper), Los
Alacranes, the Siamsa Gael Ceili Band, and many more. The festival started at
SDSU and ran a final day on the Old Globe Theater's outside stage in Balboa
Park. There was a lot of great music, but attendance was down, and several of
the local folkies, thinking to defend me, landed on SDSU's Russ Wright, which
only made things worse. The result was no SDSU money for a 17th San Diego Folk
Festival.
We
called a meeting at local fiddler Ed Cormier's house, and my wife Virginia and
I, along with John and Mimi Wright, Sandy Dutky, Mark Wilson, and a few others,
decided the festival should continue. We sought and secured Mandeville Center
on the campus of SDSU's crosstown rival UCSD as a site and obtained non-profit
status for our sponsors, San Diego Friends of Old Time Music.
The
17th festival was a good little festival. With only about $1,000 to spend, we
got Wade and Julia Mainer to return; we booked the San Francisco Celtic band
the Isle of Skye, and autoharpist Bonnie Phipps showed up unannounced. Kenny
Hall was back with his then new Long Haul Band and Patsy Montana brought along
her old partner from Louisiana Hayride, Texas Lil and her daughter Judy Rose.
Also down from San Francisco were Redmond O'Connell and Art Peterson, who
brought her bluegrass family, and Ken Graydon and Phee Sherline and the New
Deal String Band made first appearances. Returning were Johnny Walker, Sam
Hinton, Curt Bouterse, and Stu Jamieson. It was a good festival musically (of
course I think all of them are) but UCSD was hard to find for our out-of-town
audience who were used to SDSU and we only broke even.
I
guess you can figure that every one who tried to help was pretty depressed.
Most of the meetings we had had up to that point suggested we'd had a good run
and should hang it up. The key to putting on a quality festival is money, whch
was something we didn't have. I must admit that as much as I loved the
festival, I was disappointed about the lack of support.
Enter
David Baumgarten, who, just back in town from a tour selling ice boxes to
Eskimos, convinced me that the festival had a future. He suggested that it be
moved to the fall and held at the Old Globe Theater. Well, by that time most of
my committee had disbanded because they didn't see eye to eye with Dave. A new
bunch of people drifted in and Dave hauled me to a meeting with the Old Globe
Theater people, who had a weekend available in October and really wanted to
fill it. You remember that weekend in October. It was the weekend the San Diego
Padres played in the World Series - not exactly the best weekend to do a folk
festival. But when I signed on the dotted line back in May of 1984, no one
thought the Padres would be in the World Series! In fact none of us realized it
would be World Series weekend, except perhaps the man at the Old Globe. Little
did we know.
The
18th was a musically rich festival. We brought Stan Hugill over from Wales, one
of the last shantymen who had
traveled on tall ships around the horn and author of Folksongs of the Seven
Seas (the Bible of sea songs and lore), and Lou Killen came down from Whidby
Island in Puget Sound. Glenn Ohrlin brought his cowboy songs out from his ranch
in Arkansas. U.Utah Phillips, Jim Ringer, Mary McCaslin, and Kenny Hall all
came down. Peter Feldman brought his unique old time music and Mike McClellan
brought his traditional Hawaiian music. Also with us was Jody Guthrie (son of
Woody, brother of Arlo, and a fine songwriter). Lone Star came down from the
Bay Area with their western music ? la the Sons of the Pioneers. Dave Evans
brought his blues out from Memphis, Stones Throw played their old time swing,
and Andy Gallaher did some fine blues and original stuff. Mojo Nixon and Skid
Roper made their first folk festival appearance as did local rockers the Beat
Farmers. Rose Maddox was ill but sent her brother Fred who was a real treat.
Maybe the biggest surprise of all were two bluegrassers from England, the
Thrift Brothers, who never stopped playing the whole weekend. Cape Breton
fiddler Sandy McIntyre came down from Canada and did a set with Barbara Magone,
and a just-formed group called Marley's Ghost whose members included Jon and
Erika Wilcox, Danny Wheatman, and Jerry Fletcher played too.
The
music was terrific and the ambience something special, but we lost nearly
$12,000 dollars, which was mostly owed to Fran Fitting, a great lady who saw
that all the musicians were paid and the festival's integrity remained intact.
It wasn't anybody's fault, I guess, or maybe we were all to blame. I'd say it
was the fault of those who'd given up a festival for a ball game.
Festival
number 19, which was held at San Diego High School, still managed to draw some
out of towners. Veteran bluegrass
fiddler Ray Parks appeared as did the Iron Mountain String Band. Songwriter Bob
Franke, England's Thrift Brothers, and lots of local regulars, including Sam
Hinton, Joe Swaltney, Gala Parish, Andy Gallaher, Miguel Lopez, and Mojo Nixon
and Skid Roper. Attendance was up, so we made a little money and started paying
some our debts from the disaster the year before.
Festival
20 saw us back at SDSU but it
wasn't the same. New people
were in charge and the freedom we once had with campus facilities was gone. The
music, as always, was good. Hank Bradley and Franny Leopold came down from
Seattle. I finally talked old friends Wayne Brandon and Clarke Powell into
doing their Roy Acuff stuff. Del and Karl Rey were back. Jon Adams came down
from Oregon. Ramblin' Jack Elliott made his first festival appearance. The Red
Clay Ramblers came out for a rare west coast appearance. Alisdair Fraser played
Scottish fiddle music. Fro Brigham and his Preservation Band played. Blues lady
Bonnie Jefferson made her last festival appearance and folk songster Bob LeBeau
played.
Again,
crowds were down and although we made a little money, I think everyone knew it
was going to be the last one for awhile. SDSU told us they didn't want us back,
so that was that.
The
San Diego Friends of Old Time Music continued to meet, do an occasional
concert, and hosted several meetings of various San Diego folkies to see what
was what. Mostly those meetings convinced me that what constituted folk music
to a lot of them didn't constitute folk music to me.
My
feeling was always that there was music worth hearing that could never draw a
crowd on its own - people like the Como Mississippi Fife and Drum Band, the
Golden Eagles (New Orleans Indians), Rose Holcomb, Leonard Emmanuel (the
national hollering champion), and so many others. None of these people would
draw an audience by themselves but in a festival setting with locals and
well-known personalities to draw a crowd, they'd be heard, appreciated, and
remembered. When the festival got down to just presenting the locals and the
well-knowns, it was no longer worth doing, for me at least, so I hung it up for
awhile.
It
was five years to be exact. I continued to do my radio show, started a series
of LP and CD reissues of vintage country music, and had a lot of "remember
when" conversations. I think it was Tracy Schwarz at a Folk Heritage concert
who reminded me that those San Diego Folk Festivals had been "something
special" and that he'd been at "few others that were as good." In the next year
or so I heard similar comments from Mike Seeger, Big Jim Griffith, and Alice
Gerrard. I started thinking about getting back into it, but what I really
wanted to do was to make it free. Also, by that time the term
"folk music" had too much baggage associated with it. The San Diego
Union-Tribune's Don Freeman was tied into this left-wing protest thing. Country
music people didn't think it was their kind of music. Blues and jazz people
were even more adamant that it wasn't their music. It was running through my
mind that if I ever did a festival again I'd call it a Roots Festival. Just
about this time - December 1993 - I talked to Scott Kessler from the Adams
Avenue Business Association about doing some work on the Adams Avenue Street
Fair. He suggested we get a folk festival together for the street. I said, "How
about a Roots Festival?" He said, "You're on." And so, the Adams Avenue Roots
Festival was born, but more about that in the next episode of this column.