Music Festival Notes: Ollabelle was easily the best thing at Saltwater Festival, although seeing Rory Block, Chris Smither, and Mindy Smith live was good. Folk music, you'll recall, is like birding. You have to check performers off on your life list.
Newport Folk Festival for the first time. We stayed with our friends Peggy and Mike Szeliga in North Kingstown who showed us the route over the beautiful bridges to Newport and gave us a roll of tokens. Friday night we saw Nancy Griffith and Arlo Guthrie. She sang Gulf Coast Highway and From a Distance and charmed us. He did the 40th anniversary version of Alice's Restaurant. High points on Saturday were Bela Fleck in his acoustic trio and Richard Thompson solo. I had never seen Richard Thompson live. He makes everyone else seem like children pretending to be folk singers. His guitar is like an orchestra in a box. He looks to be about 7 feet tall.
Friday night's performance was in a huge outdoor tennis venue downtown; on Saturday and Sunday we took water taxis from downtown to Fort Adams, a point surrounded by water on 3 sides. The water taxis had to make their way through a very busy harbor filled with huge yachts and sailboats. An odd collection of water craft gathered around the festival site to listen for free.
Sunday we heard Gillian Welsh and David Rawlings. They stood in for Emmylou Harris who had to cancel and they jammed earlier with Old Crow Medicine Show. Got to hear Kaki King whose guitar playing is way too abstract for me. There was small tent just for string bands, and Hot Buttered Rum was the best thing there doing their California bluegrass. Old School Freight Train came on after them, five guys with the same configuration, but there was no life to them. HBR with had penny whistles and a flute in addition to the usual fiddles, banjos, bass and mandolin, and great harmonies, arrangements and joy. They had glue and charm. 
Jane Siberry was amazing. I've never seen anything like it. You either didn't get it and left the tent after two songs, or like me, you would have followed her anywhere. She was singing Love is Everything when I noticed a couple a few rows up, a man and a woman; she with her hair growing back after chemo. Many of us were wiping tears away the rest of the set, as she did River of Life and ended up with Calling All Angels. She is exhiliratingly funny, mythopoetic, and just lays life and death out there for you in the music.
The Kennedys from Folktown on satellite radio which we listen to a lot by way of our Dish TV were everywhere, and it was cool to meet Meg Griffin, one of our favorite DJs. Now we're looking to book a few performers that we saw there.
I wish I could take a water taxi to work tomorrow morning.
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